Movies I Want Everyone to See: Soylent Green

In the world of Science Fiction, most readers of novels, viewers of television and movies will always remember a strong ending to a story. The "Twilight Zone" was famous for the twist sucker punch finale of most of the episodes. In the popular culture, when an image or a quote becomes a meme understood by all, it is clear that the work has tapped into something important to the times, politics or people. Charlton Heston is the star of many a movie meme. Moses standing at the Red Sea parting the waves, Ben Hur, either chained to the oars of the Roman Battle cruiser or with rein in hand on a Chariot. His most famous image however is as a dismayed misanthrope pounding sand on a beach in front of the ruins of one of the most recognizable symbols in the world at the end of "Planet of the Apes".  Heston has at least one other great moment of Science Fiction history in his vita, the denouncement at the end of the movie "Soylent Green". It is another moment parodied and understood by masses of people, most of whom have never seen the movie. I don't want his refrain to be the only thing people know about the film so this week "Soylent Green" is the movie I want everyone to see.

"Soylent Green" is one of those great 1970s Science Fiction movies that is more about ideas than about special effects. Before the juggernaut that is "Star Wars" came along, most Science Fiction lived in the imagination more than the vision of a story. There were occasional exceptions like "Forbidden Planet" and "2001", but for each of those visually rich movies, there were a dozen other films that made do with small budgets, limited effects and big ideas. Films like "Seconds", "A Boy and His Dog", "Damnation Alley" or "The Omega Man" drew in audience mostly with interesting concepts. Sometimes like with "Planet of the Apes" there was spectacular art direction and set design, but even in that film the visual factor relies on our willingness to accept the story in order to then accept the vision. Most of these films are cautionary tales that try to speak to the worries of the times in which they were made, and "Soylent Green" was one of the finest examples of playing on those contemporary fears.
Stanford Biologist Paul Ehrlich published a book called "The Population Bomb" that predicted a coming world of Malthusian Nightmares. It spawned a whole industry of doomsayers and environmental prophets who suggested that the Earth was over populated and over polluted. The theme of "Soylent Green" is derived from this stream of fearful environmentalism of the early 1970s. This dystopian world is not threatened by nuclear annihilation but starvation and overcrowding. Of course there has also been a substantial amount of global warming to screw up the planet's food supplies as well. Most of this is brilliantly summarized by the title sequence which uses a combination of photos, pacing and music to show us what has happened and is coming.



It was simple and to the point. It was also forty years ago, so perhaps it is a little premature to send us all to a living hell but once the premise is set up the story follows it quite well. William Simonson, a director of the Soylent Corporation is murdered and although there are hundreds of murders a day in the overcrowded world, one detective is unwilling to accept that it is a random burglary.  Simonson lives in a luxurious apartment that comes equipped with special security, a bodyguard and living furniture that he can enjoy to his hearts content. It just seems too convenient that  the bodyguard was out shopping for groceries with the furniture at the moment this important man was killed in his building. A building where the security system is on the fritz when the apartment is broken into.
Heston plays the determined cop who engages in the kind of casual corruption that seems to be as prevalent in the future as it was in the 1970s with Al Pacino's "Serpico". Detective Thorn is not a bad guy, but he appears to be a vulture at the scene of the crime, scooping up whatever luxury item is likely to go unmissed. Everybody gets a little taste, from his boss to the grunts that remove the body. Thorn takes some vegetables and meat which are incredibly rare commodities in the future. Most people have to survive on manufactured nutrition wafers of different composition, including the recently introduced "Soylent Green". He also acquires a couple of rare technical books that he will not be able to make sense out of but which ought to please his partner Sol Roth, an elderly man who serves as the equivalent of Wikipedia for the future police force.

Most of you know an old timer or two who provides a link to the past. They share stories of the good old days and relate how the world was a better place in their youth (much like your current narrator). For the most part we can dismiss those stories as the nostalgia of an older generation (you know, they walked five miles up hill to school in the snow and then five miles uphill home at the end of the day). This movie posits that the memories of the older generation are not rambling condemnations of change but accurate histories of things that have in fact been lost. The collective of older "books" is known as the Exchange and Sol takes the information from the two Oceanographic Reports that Thorn brought him to the Exchange for evaluation.

The film is a police procedural about a conspiratorial secret which the powers that be are determined to keep a secret. Most of this was pretty standard stuff, but several aspects of the setting make the story so much more compelling. The way in which the citizens have to live, on rationed water, limited food supplies, sleeping on staircases shows how the environment has decayed. The world of the dead man stands in stark contrast to the rest of the population. A rich man with a sex partner who comes with the apartment and access to items that are incredibly out of reach to the rest of the population may seem an unsympathetic victim. We have seen however that there was a sense of guilt in his death, we are aware that there is a conspiracy and we watch Thorn as he picks at each link and follows his instincts to arrive at the truth. In the process the future world is revealed to us bit by bit.
The term "bromance" has cropped up in the last few years to describe stories that are about the friendship between two men. Buddy pictures have been around since the days of silent film, and up through the point this was released so was Edward G. Robinson. The partnership between Sol and Thorn is the real relationship in the movie. Heston's character does get involved with the "furniture" of the dead man, but all of the really emotional moments of the film involve him and the old man. From some of the earliest of sound films, Robinson played gangsters, doctors and bureaucrats. He was the definitive gangster for the first decade of sound movies as "Little Cesar". "Soylent Green" gave him the opportunity to go out on a high note. This was his last film and he played it for all that was on the page. The scene where Sol prepares the purloined food for a meal for Heston is a good example. Sol, enjoys it with relish and equally enjoys watching Thorn, who has never had anything like this enjoy as well. Robinson waves his plastic utensils as if they were a baton and he was conducting an orchestra. The crescendo of the piece is the belch Heston gives at the end of the most satisfying meal of his life. Apparently this scene was not in the script and was improvised by the two actors with the prompting of the director. It was a special touch to show their relationship and the world of the time.  At one point Heston's boss suggests he might need a new "book" but the detective demurs and continues to have faith in his room mate/partner/father figure.

The other great sequence featuring Robinson, and one that is sadly ironic, is Sol's decision to end his own story. When advocates of euthanasia speak of giving patients back their dignity and providing comfort at the end, they must surely envision a scene like the one that takes place at the end of the second act. Older people desiring to die, troop into a modernistic building, fill out a form and then have some final comforts attended to. Robinson was dying of cancer when the movie was made and he was almost completely deaf. We would all hope that his passing would be as beautiful as was depicted here in the processing center referred to as "home" by those seeking an end to their time on Earth. Thorn gets the final proof for the motive of the executive's murder by following his friend through his passage home. As you watch what is really a simple sequence of wonderful pastoral scenes and listen to the comforting and thrilling classical score, you realize how devastating the loss of the world as it was would be to those able to remember it.

The themes and characters have been shared with you a bit, now let's talk about the production. In today's world, this would be a movie crammed with futuristic CGI vistas and sets that were created in a computer. The costumes and equipment would be imagined in fantastic ways to make us feel as if we were in the future. The science fiction films of the seventies were often done on modest budgets and almost always had to make due with creative use of location and existing props. A luxury apartment of the future comes equipped with the latest video game (here it is an early version of Pong). Food riots need to be staged on a New York City back lot, but to make it more futuristic, garbage trucks are modified to remove people rather than trash. The euthanasia center is the googie architectural structure of the L.A. Sports arena and it's futuristic clean style lobby. The focus stays on the ideas rather than the "wow" factor of the look. Even the two books that Thorn confiscates, they are not digital readouts on an i-pad style device, they are simply over-sized volumes given slick covers to convey an advanced type of publishing, nothing fancy but slightly noticeable.

The horrible secret of "Soylent Green" has probably been used as a punchline by thousands of people who never even saw the movie. The fact that the last line has reached into and grabbed the public consciousness is evidence of the effectiveness of the idea behind the film. We are on an environmental brink that may change the relationship of human beings to one another in catastrophic ways. The immorality of a choice might be mitigated by the exigencies of the moment. The movie is an action based detective conspiracy story, but the thought it contains is provocative and the story highlights that issue rather than pushing it aside for action. Just five years after he stands in for the sucker punched audience in front of the Statue of Liberty, Heston finishes another iconic Science fiction thought with his dire warning and outstretched hand. Another entertaining science fiction movie is capped off with a thought that is frightening and thought provoking.

Special Note:
This is the first of my series on Fogs Movie Reviews [Now, Movies I Want Everyone to See] to cover a film I wrote about on my original Movie A Day Project from 2010. If you are interested in a comparison of the posts click here, I did not refer to this earlier post when writing this so you will see some differences in voice and view but probably not too many in attitude or style. Enjoy.

Richard Kirkham is a lifelong movie enthusiast from Southern California. While embracing all genres of film making, he is especially moved to write about and share his memories of movies from his formative years, the glorious 1970s. His personal blog, featuring current film reviews as well as his Summers of the 1970s movie project, can be found at Kirkham A Movie A Day.

Trumbo

Well here is a movie that I don't have to worry about spoilers for at all. "Trumbo" is a biopic that follows a well known chronology concerning events that occurred about sixty years ago. Film fans will be familiar with the lead character, they know the end of the story and the villains for the most part are identified early on. Hedda Hopper would be the main figure of evil in this piece but there is plenty of vitriol to be spread around, and most of Hollywood gets some on them. The script plays it as if Trumbo were a saint with magical powers and a short sighted ego that crushes his family as much as the events that take place do. As with all stories, the history is more convoluted than the film is and we will not in that direction here. Instead we will focus on the film and it's many fine qualities and few weaknesses.

The greatest asset the film has is it's star, Bryan Cranston. In the last few years he has moved from being the excellent but often overlooked comic performer in "Malcolm in the Middle" to a celebrated TV performer, who impressed for multiple seasons of "Breaking Bad" and enjoyed the endorsement of many in the industry for his fine work there. He has worked effectively in an ensemble including the award winning "Argo", but he has not yet shined as a movie star, that is no longer the truth, he fills the screen with talent in this movie. His line delivery is distinctive and works well with many of the grandiose passages of dialogue that have been written for him. Even when he is in simple conversation he sounds as if it could be a speech he is delivering to an audience. That fits the character quite well. His sly smile, furrowed brow and mannerisms with a cigarette holder all feel genuine for the outlandish egocentric that Dalton apparently was.

The supporting cast is also excellent, ranging from Elle Fanning as the apple that does not fall far from the tree to John Goodman as the crass studio head that exploits the blacklisted writers but also respects their work. The film is a who's who of Hollywood talent. Diane Lane is effective as Trumbo's wife Cleo and she gets a juicy scene with Cranston when they fight over his behavior. Helen Mirren is Great Britain's answer to Meryl Streep, always cast well and always excellent in her scenes. With the exception of Dean O' Gorman as Kirk Douglas, most of the actors portraying famous performers from the period have little resemblance to their real life counterparts. Some nice digital work inserts O'Gorman's face into a scene from "Spartacus" and that did enhance the believably of that sequence. While John Wayne would probably be considered on the wrong side of the issue, the screenplay makes him a fairly sympathetic adversary, at least one who has a true sense of morality concern the human beings involved. Trumbo is shown to have flaws (although they are largely skimmed over) when he uses Wayne's military status during the war as an attack point and then self righteously suggests that he be allowed to remove his glasses before being punched by a man whom he has just invited to do so. It was one of a few ugly moments that Trumbo as a character is allowed to have.

Not faring quite as well is Edward G. Robinson, a supporter of the Hollywood Ten until his career is mangled by the blacklist.  Another opportunity to show Trumbo's vindictive side occurs when he confronts Robinson, who ultimately testified as a friendly witness, and Trumbo dismisses Robinson's justification for his actions, despite the fact that he gave many of the same justifications earlier to fellow refusenik Arlin Hird ( a very solid Louie C.K.), an apparently fictional character that espouses some of the true philosophies of the Communist Party of the United States. Whether the confrontation took place or not, it must surely have been endemic of Hollywood at the time since there were so many people effected in some way by the blacklist.

I am usually suspicious of a movie that works in a speech to an audience as a story telling device, it seems a lazy way to sneak in narrative with an emotional content, but the speech given at the end to the Writer's Guild appears to have been genuine and it is suggested that it went a long way to healing the wounds of the blacklist. That makes it all the more odd that after finishing with an effective dramatic moment, the film turns polemic with a series of screen scrolls that start the argument all over again. The sour tone is probably designed to make the political message more important, but it feels like the screenwriter simply felt like the drama had failed to do so and therefore a post script was required. I thought it undercut what was to that point a human drama that showed the turmoil of the times and the confusion of the figures involved. That's too bad because for the most part, what came before really was compelling.

The Ten Commandments

Nothing celebrates Easter and Passover like "The Ten Commandments". Getting a chance to see it on the big screen is also a treat. I may have done this with my kids back in the late eighties or early nineties but I can't quite remember. I do know that if I did, it was not in the pristine digital form that the movie was delivered to us today in. Although it was a theatrical release for one day, I am pretty sure this was the home Blu-ray version, complete with Entrance and Exit Music, and an intermission. The problem was that they really did not take a break at the intermission, the music played briefly and then the entr'acte for the second half started. After the whole experience was over, as I was waiting for my family to exit the ladies room, I heard a young woman speaking to her father about how long the movie was that they had just seen. It sounded like they saw "Heaven is for Real". The dad was explaining why he thought it was just long enough and she said it could have been longer. Her phrase was something like "I've seen a movie that was two hours thirteen minutes, so this could have bee longer and it would not be a problem". Having just come out of a movie that runs three hours and forty minutes, I chuckled to myself and thought about how lucky I am that I can be enraptured for that long without starting to feel ADD.

A Screen Shot from the entry way to show that I really was in the theater watching this.

The spectacle of "The Ten Commandments" starts with a stirring speech by director Cecil B. DeMille. It extols the virtues of the story as the beginning of real freedom and he makes a very pointed comparison to some of the political issues of 1956. It turns out that he sees it as a very anti-communist film because it concerns totalitarianism by one man over the rule of law that governs all men. It was an apt message then and it is equally important today. Although the photographic effects are not as impressive as they once were because of the more sophisticated tools now available, they still pack a wallop and if you are caught up in the story, the imperfections hardly matter.  The characters are quite different but you can see the seeds of Ben Hur in Charlton Heston's Moses. It was an impressive performance in the first half, but once the make-up and hair took over in the second half, he was more a cardboard hero than he had been before.

I saw that my blogging friend Eric, learned all of his Jewish traditions from this film. I guess I'd have to say that this was pretty close to my education on the matter as well. DeMille assures us at the beginning that although there is a large period of time in which we do not know the history of Moses, that his film is based on historical works by ancient scholars and theologians. I'll take him, at his word, it seems unlikely that he committed any heresy that would get him in the same hot water with religious groups as Darren Aronofsky got into with the recent "Noah". The film has stood the test of time, so there is not a lot to add. If you don't care for biblical epics, this will be a burden to you, but if you are inspired by the events of the old or new testament, than this should be a treat that you can savor for a long time (3:40 to be exact).