Rollerball

I think that the fight between good & evil is the basic idea of ALL action movies. Just one man/woman or a bunch (the good ones) facing the big evil power. Then ¿who can symbolize that power?. The Corporations. From 1984 (and olders) to Public Enemy (i.e.) going thru thousands of movies, Corporations means the enemy to defeat. Check it out: Banks, Chemical, Oil and Weapon industries, Genetic labs. Even Vatican and some bizarre brotherhoods ("We'll rule the world" style). A real zoo of vicious and twisted organizations that, every time, will try to manipulate, implicate or kill our heroes.

But, what am I trying to say?. Rollerball, folks, is one of the most perfect examples of the good/evil infinite fight. One man alone, discovering the truth behind is comfortable life, losing is goods and privileges, gets himself in a life-or-dead final battle against the real enemy: the Corporation (¿who else?). The image of James Caan skating alone into the game arena with the crowd claiming his name louder and louder is simply unforgettable. GREAT movie.

And remember: Take care, there are many powerful Corporations around you.

This movie uses the characters of those involved in the game to question the wisdom of a supposedly perfect society where corporations rule. The corporations use the game as an opiate for the masses and to show the futility of individual effort, but the force of will of the main character shows how wrong that is. The effects and the game were remarkably well done for the time, and the characterizations are very good. Highly recommended.

This movie presents a dark, disturbing look at a possible future. The movie portrays a cold, sterile society where humanity is generally absent. Corporations run the world and the global pasttime is a violent sport reminisent of the Roman Coliseum. The rollerball scenes, which get more and more violent as the film progresses, are disturbing enough. Equally disturbing is a scene where a group of drunk partygoers blow up trees with some sort of gun. The citizens of this future society are really lacking feeling and humanity. Despite the film's dated look, it's still a future that seems quite possible.

"Rollerball" is one of those classics of sci-fi that I somehow managed to miss for all of my 30 years. Whilst browsing the local store, I found the DVD for ten dollars and figured I had nothing to lose -- to rent it, if I could even find it on DVD, wouldn't cost THAT much less.

I had some vague notion of the storyline, but I tried not to read the case or liner notes and take in the movie on a first impression. Released in the summer of 1975, there are definite and readily apparent influences of earlier films, not the least of which being Stanley Kubrick's "A Clockwork Orange." The colors, the film stock, the editing style are all reminiscent of that earlier, similarly-themed master work, yet I don't believe it detracted from this film at all.

Supposedly set in the year 2018 (though this is never established in the movie, that I could tell), corporations have replaced governments and managed to eliminate war, poverty, disease and bad hair days. People don't have too much of a say in what goes on around them, but they're all very physically comfortable. Of course, the violent nature of the human beast must be satisfied, and it is -- in the gladitorial ring of the world's most popular sport, Rollerball. The game consists of two teams (from cities all over the world) skating and motorbiking around a 1/8-mile track, trying to get a steel ball into a goal. As the course of the season progresses, more and more limitations as to what constitutes fair play are removed, and by the final, the melee is total.

James Caan plays the Michael Jordan, Wayne Gretzky and Joe Montana of Rollerball, Jonathan E.. He's the biggest star in the world, but he's also a thinking man, and when the corporation which owns his team wants him to retire, he refuses, wanting to know first why they'd want him to retire when he's playing at his best.

The rest I leave to the viewer to find out. I can only say it is a very well-crafted script with plenty to say about violence, the spirit of the individual man, and the bloodlusts that a happy and idle populace can muster. Very well-filmed with touches of brilliance in editing and framing.

A detraction which really couldn't be helped involves the portrayal of the future. Director Norman Jewison couldn't know what the world of forty years in his future would be like, so he took the wise route of not making it all that different from 1975, but with subtle changes (such as the interesting but impractical "multivision" concept in which all TV sets have a large screen and three smaller screens above it, each showing different but related pictures). The result, though infinitely preferable to lots of neon and superfluous antennae, is that the place looks like 1975 with slightly cooler gadgets. I can't tell you what 2018 will look like, but it won't look like that.

Interestingly, the "corporate inevitability" concept of the future, which I believe Jewison meant earnestly, plays out much more as a satire of the opposite, a communist world. Much of what the coroprate culture says, as personified by John Houseman's Mr. Bartholomew, sounds much like the rhetoric of communism -- people are fed and comfortable and happy, but the individual is beholden to the group at all costs. Indeed, some of the words of description of the culture seem lifted straight from Marx and Engels.

The DVD leaves something to be desired, though. The picture is a lot dirtier than I'd like, especially in still-shot scenes. The color is muted, though this may be part style, and some shots seem positively muddy.

The remastered 5.1 soundtrack is a disappointment. The rear speakers get very little play. One particular effect of note, I must concede, is one moment when you can hear the ball roll all the way around the arena, and it's as though you're standing in the center.

In all, it's an excellent movie, which I can't recommend enough, but if the disc had been any pricier than it was, I would have felt as though I was somewhat taken.

Perhaps after the release of the upcoming remake, there will be a better special edition.

This is a film that demands repeat viewing. When I was a kid, my brothers and I used to just fast-forward all the slow, `talkie' scenes to get to the action. We couldn't understand why the whole film wasn't just composed of game sequences (a criticism also leveled by at least one reviewer on this site).

Now, having just watched the movie twice in a night, the second time with the director's commentary, I have finally got to grips with the scenes between the action, and discovered that I like it more than ever. The view of the future is not highly original; tipping its hat to the stratified societies foreseen by Orwell and Huxley, amongst others; but nevertheless the portrayal is engaging. Jewison astutely realised that only by filling in the image of the future society, the characters, and the political background against which the tournament unfolds, would the game be seen as truly REAL for the characters. In the meanwhile, he also has the chance to build suspense, upping the stakes for both the heroic gladiator/combateur Jonathon, and his would-be puppet master Bartholemew. In this way, when we come to watch the actual contests, our enthusiasm is whetted, and by making the rules progressively more dangerous with each passing game, the stakes grow ever higher.

The central themes of the movie are (i) loss-of-soul/nihilism/sensual-vs-spiritual-happiness, and (ii) individuality vs state control. Perhaps the best scenes elucidating these themes are the famous `tree killing' scene, and the conversation between Jonathon and Ella in the forest. The use of imagery and metaphor is widespread; I will mention only the terrific concept of the roulette wheel as game arena, with the players INSIDE, instead of outside; and the Circus Maximus parallel. You may draw many interesting conclusions from this about the director's and writer's intent.

My final word is: watch it once, soak up the action, and be bored by the rest. Then view it again, feel yourself in Jonathon's dilemma, experience his wrenching disappointment with the people in his life who betray him, and try to tear yourself away if you can as he is pushed inexorably to his fate in the arena of ROLLERBALL.