BethanyCombing the Oldies: Part 2 Soylent Green (LINK)
June 9th 2008 04:27
Soylent Green was a movie I'd heard about all over the place but haven't seen yet. There's a reference to it in Futurama, and you can't be on the internet without stumbling across the punchline- er- final twist in the movie. My boyfriend who's never seen the movie started yelling it when I mentioned the movie.
In case you don't know, Soylent Green is a movie set in the dystopian future of 2022 (and considering that this movie was released in 1973, that was the distant future indeed) where overcrowding and the earth heating up has created a food crisis. For the privileged few there's hot and cold running water, air conditioning, real fruit and vegetables, brandy. For everyone else you find the nearest clear spot to eat, and you have your choices between Soylent Yellow, Soylent Red, and Soylent Green (when the last is available). Soylent Green is plankton gathered from the ocean, and is by far the most popular of the three. When they run out, riots tend to occur. The late, great Charlton Heston played Detective Robert Thorn and investigates a murder that occurs to one of the rich and powerful.
That's where our movie really begins. And I have to say, it was an interesting suspense movie. It really held up well- everybody who's not rich and powerful is obviously filthy. Water is a precious resource too, you see, and those who don't have are forced to ration their water supplies. In fact, every resource is restricted for those who don't have. When Thorn investigates the murder of a rich man by the name of Simonson (played very briefly by Joseph Cotten) he goes around the apartment grabbing everything he can get his hands on.
And there's no disguising it, he blatantly kleptos whatever he can get his hands on, including the bar of soap in the bathroom (only he calls it a cake of soap, which made me giggle a little- inadvertently dating the movie). He stuffs everything he finds into a pillow case. He makes a reference to 'furniture' which I didn't get for a moment.
There's a girl, and apparently she comes with the apartment. She's the furniture. The little feminist who sits on my shoulder started jumping up and down with rage, and I had to put her in a cage for the rest of the movie.
He takes his stolen goods, including the brandy and the soap and some books I didn't see him nick, as well as the paper the statement from Simonson's guard was written on, home to his friend and 'book' Sol. I don't think that Thorn can actually read, but Sol is also a wealth of information aside from just interpreting the books for Thorn. Sol lived in the world before it changed (moved on, as the Gunslinger might say) and remembers it very fondly. It's obvious that this new, hot place seems alien to him. There's a deep friendship between Sol and Thorn, it's definitely a major component of the movie.
The tension builds as Thorn investigates the murder of Simonson, which appeared to be a burglary gone wrong to the untrained eye. Of course, it was actually an assassination, which Thorn cottons on to very quickly. It turns out Simonson was a big-wig for the Soylent corporation, and everything is highly fishy to Thorn.
There is a point made appallingly clear about death and murder at one point in the movie. In the course of investigating the murder of the very wealthy Simonson he comes across a corpse. You see Thorn stop, grab the arm of the dead woman. He seems to feel for a corpse, and then feels the rope tied around her wrist. He follows it to another small arm, and pulls the rope off the wrist of the child. He picks it up and carries the screaming child into the church. He doesn't call anybody, doesn't ask any questions, he just plucks up a child and hands it to one of the nuns when he gets inside. It seems to be the best he can do.
I also wondered why they didn't give the police a few luxuries- to keep them complacent. It's easier that way. And then I realized that he and Sol had their own place- when it shows him clambering over people (and doing his gallant best not to sleep on any of the sleeping and unwashed poor on the steps) on his way out you realize what a luxury that really is.
Thorn's superior tries to call him off, and although he already suspects it's big, and that confirms it for him. He doesn't find out just how big until the end, when his 'Book' Sol decides that it's too big, and he has to 'go home'. Going home is a euphemism used for euthanasia. The burden that he bore after he found out the secret combined with the burden that Sol bore as an old man in a world he didn't recognize, and he decided it was time to go.
This was a very emotional scene, Thorn caught up as Sol's death was in-progress. There was two-way glass, and a very emotional conversation. I've read that the actor who played Sol, Edward G. Robinson, died just days after production ended on the movie, and that Heston was the only one on set that knew Robinson had cancer. That scene touched me very much.
The movie really picks up momentum at the end, when Thorn follows the bodies out to a plant, where they're processed.
After a lot of fighting, Thorn makes it back to town, where he gasps out his gruesome discovery to a crowd of on-lookers and police, yelling it as he's carried away on a stretcher.
The movie, made over thirty years ago, really stands up. There's definitely some feminism issues that makes me twitch (the 'furniture' falls in love with Thorn) but they aren't the focus of the movie. The real focus is this dystopian world in which the worst seems to be happening, and I found myself drawn into it. I think that if you're a fan of Dystopian Science Fiction (though I hesitate to categorize it so) you could do worse than to see this film, regardless of how you feel about the late Heston's gun enthusiasm. There is no reliance on special effects (a few establishing shots are mattes, but that's expected) the movie derives all of it's strength from acting. It's well-done and believable, and it sucked me in. If you haven't seen it, I recommend you catch this particular oldie, it is one that isn't over-rated.
In case you don't know, Soylent Green is a movie set in the dystopian future of 2022 (and considering that this movie was released in 1973, that was the distant future indeed) where overcrowding and the earth heating up has created a food crisis. For the privileged few there's hot and cold running water, air conditioning, real fruit and vegetables, brandy. For everyone else you find the nearest clear spot to eat, and you have your choices between Soylent Yellow, Soylent Red, and Soylent Green (when the last is available). Soylent Green is plankton gathered from the ocean, and is by far the most popular of the three. When they run out, riots tend to occur. The late, great Charlton Heston played Detective Robert Thorn and investigates a murder that occurs to one of the rich and powerful.
That's where our movie really begins. And I have to say, it was an interesting suspense movie. It really held up well- everybody who's not rich and powerful is obviously filthy. Water is a precious resource too, you see, and those who don't have are forced to ration their water supplies. In fact, every resource is restricted for those who don't have. When Thorn investigates the murder of a rich man by the name of Simonson (played very briefly by Joseph Cotten) he goes around the apartment grabbing everything he can get his hands on.
And there's no disguising it, he blatantly kleptos whatever he can get his hands on, including the bar of soap in the bathroom (only he calls it a cake of soap, which made me giggle a little- inadvertently dating the movie). He stuffs everything he finds into a pillow case. He makes a reference to 'furniture' which I didn't get for a moment.
There's a girl, and apparently she comes with the apartment. She's the furniture. The little feminist who sits on my shoulder started jumping up and down with rage, and I had to put her in a cage for the rest of the movie.
He takes his stolen goods, including the brandy and the soap and some books I didn't see him nick, as well as the paper the statement from Simonson's guard was written on, home to his friend and 'book' Sol. I don't think that Thorn can actually read, but Sol is also a wealth of information aside from just interpreting the books for Thorn. Sol lived in the world before it changed (moved on, as the Gunslinger might say) and remembers it very fondly. It's obvious that this new, hot place seems alien to him. There's a deep friendship between Sol and Thorn, it's definitely a major component of the movie.
The tension builds as Thorn investigates the murder of Simonson, which appeared to be a burglary gone wrong to the untrained eye. Of course, it was actually an assassination, which Thorn cottons on to very quickly. It turns out Simonson was a big-wig for the Soylent corporation, and everything is highly fishy to Thorn.
There is a point made appallingly clear about death and murder at one point in the movie. In the course of investigating the murder of the very wealthy Simonson he comes across a corpse. You see Thorn stop, grab the arm of the dead woman. He seems to feel for a corpse, and then feels the rope tied around her wrist. He follows it to another small arm, and pulls the rope off the wrist of the child. He picks it up and carries the screaming child into the church. He doesn't call anybody, doesn't ask any questions, he just plucks up a child and hands it to one of the nuns when he gets inside. It seems to be the best he can do.
I also wondered why they didn't give the police a few luxuries- to keep them complacent. It's easier that way. And then I realized that he and Sol had their own place- when it shows him clambering over people (and doing his gallant best not to sleep on any of the sleeping and unwashed poor on the steps) on his way out you realize what a luxury that really is.
Thorn's superior tries to call him off, and although he already suspects it's big, and that confirms it for him. He doesn't find out just how big until the end, when his 'Book' Sol decides that it's too big, and he has to 'go home'. Going home is a euphemism used for euthanasia. The burden that he bore after he found out the secret combined with the burden that Sol bore as an old man in a world he didn't recognize, and he decided it was time to go.
This was a very emotional scene, Thorn caught up as Sol's death was in-progress. There was two-way glass, and a very emotional conversation. I've read that the actor who played Sol, Edward G. Robinson, died just days after production ended on the movie, and that Heston was the only one on set that knew Robinson had cancer. That scene touched me very much.
The movie really picks up momentum at the end, when Thorn follows the bodies out to a plant, where they're processed.
After a lot of fighting, Thorn makes it back to town, where he gasps out his gruesome discovery to a crowd of on-lookers and police, yelling it as he's carried away on a stretcher.
The movie, made over thirty years ago, really stands up. There's definitely some feminism issues that makes me twitch (the 'furniture' falls in love with Thorn) but they aren't the focus of the movie. The real focus is this dystopian world in which the worst seems to be happening, and I found myself drawn into it. I think that if you're a fan of Dystopian Science Fiction (though I hesitate to categorize it so) you could do worse than to see this film, regardless of how you feel about the late Heston's gun enthusiasm. There is no reliance on special effects (a few establishing shots are mattes, but that's expected) the movie derives all of it's strength from acting. It's well-done and believable, and it sucked me in. If you haven't seen it, I recommend you catch this particular oldie, it is one that isn't over-rated.
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