film and architecture section: soylent green by Richard Fleischer, architectura and film appreciation

category: Architecture and Film (The waterloo University syllabus) (click HERE for syllabus)

film index: 53

relationship with architecture: futuristic space conception, critic of space in near future

film: soylent green

director: Richard Fleischer

writers: Harry Harrison (novel), Stanley R. Greenberg (screenplay)

production: US MGM

release: April 19, 1973

playtime: 97 mins

visual: colour

Language: English

Subtitles:

Genre: Sci fi

Cast: Charlton Heston, Leigh Taylor-Young, Edward G. Robinson

size: 730 mb

reference: avaxhome.ws, rapid.org, www.taringa.net, warezws.com, Foriegnmoviesddl.com

Description and download:

The is the year 2022. Overcrowding pollution and resource depletion have reduced society's leaders to finding food for the teeming masses. The answer is Soylent Green - an artificial nourishment whose actual ingredients are not known by the public. Thorn is the tough homicide detective who stumbles onto the secret so terrifying no one would dare believe him.

In the film, police detective Thorn learns of horrifying results of the overpopulation of human beings and agricultural disaster. Thorn is the tragic hero of the film willing to speak up and resist homogenizing forces as an individual. In the film's depiction of corporate corruption and police complicity in the cover-up, Thorn's morality transcends all those around him as he becomes the sole voice of reason, yet he stands alone. After Thorn learns of the use of human bodies to make food, his main concern is with the future implications: that the Soylent food company will eventually "raise humans like cattle." After Thorn is shot by Soylent Corporation gunmen, he appears to be mortally wounded, and so his warnings about the horrors he witnessed in the Soylent plant seem to be all for nothing, making him a classic 'tragic hero.'[2]

In the film, Thorn's assistant Roth "serves as the reminder of better times." The aged researcher, a former professor, tells Thorn about the past, when "'real' food was plentiful and the natural environment thrived." Real food is a symbol of the past; as a result, when Thorn investigates the murder of Simonson, a Soylent board of directors member, Thorn takes "lettuce, tomatoes, apples, celery, onions, and even beef" from the wealthy man's luxury apartment. These rare and expensive luxuries were out of reach for all but the most powerful members of the society. When Thorn shows Roth the red filet of beef, Roth weeps at his realization of how much society has lost due to pollution and overpopulation. Now that most humans subsist on processed ration wafers, when Roth sees the "real" food, he asks “How did we come to this?”

After Roth discovers that Soylent wafers are made from human flesh, and decides to end the horror by signing up for government-assisted suicide, he is shown a montage of beautiful natural images in the death chamber: flowers, deer, mountains, and rivers. When Thorn rushes to the active, voluntary euthanasia clinic to try to stop Roth, he is too late to save his friend, but he is able to share Roth's final moments. In Roth's last minutes alive Thorn shares Roth’s nostalgic moment as Roth asks “Can you see it?” and “Isn’t it beautiful?” which helps Thorn to realize what he and the rest of the world has lost.

imdb links: http://www.imdb.c0m/title/tt0070723/
wikipedia links: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soylent_green

screencaps: