Pink Floyd: The Wall

What can you possibly say except that this movie is amazing?

"The Wall" is one of the few movies out there that has a powerful effect on the people are receptive to its message. Told with practically no dialogue, the only guide to the bizarre, frightening, and strange images is the incredible music by Pink Floyd, from their equally good double album. A considerable number of the songs were re-recorded for this movie, and one song (the heart-wrenching "When the Tigers Broke Free") was added. The new versions of the songs are sometimes worse than the album (Waiting for the Worms), and sometimes better (Mother, In the Flesh).

"The Wall" isn't a pleasant movie, nor is it a simplistic or banal movie. It is brutal, cynical, and disturbing, but it has moments of flesh-tingling beauty and an uplifting message in the end, if you persevere. I recommend both it and the album to anyone who enjoys a powerful movie. In my opinion, "The Wall," along with a few other albums, represents the pinnacle of rock music.

I recently rented and re-watched Pink Floyd The Wall for the 200th time, and I had forgotten, over the years, why this is my favorite movie. Surprisingly, the reason it is so good has little to do with a rock star having a mental breakdown. Pink being a rock star is almost incidental to the real message of the film. It seems as if director Parker took the initial idea of Pink Floyd's album and ran away with it. The film serves less as a study of one celebrity individual, instead serving as a cinematic indictment of all of our worst aspects as human beings: cruelty, brutality, insanity, herd mentality, fascism--all the most negative traits of twentieth century man are splashed upon the movie screen, as if the Director was asking the audience "Why?" This is a film in rebellion against the status quo. Funny then, that it should be driven by the music of a major rock and roll band. But, all in all, that is besides the point. The film of the Wall begins and ends with scenes of oppression by authoritarian figures (police men, skinheads, teachers, etc.)It is almost as if the entire sub textual content of the film is drawing a parallel between the internal alienation of a single individual and the social and global alienation that fostered the cruelties of World War 2, the holocaust, ad infinitum. Pinks degeneration is the degeneration of Everyman, confronted by a world that is (still) spinning increasingly out of control, away from the light, further behind the wall of its own nihilistic will toward self-obliteration. The violence of the imagery, the final "Trial", and the psychic attack of the final montage of disturbing images (masked children put into a meat grinder, cartoon teachers becoming hammers, neo-Nazis on a rampage) as the scene fades into a blank grey wall, are grand, satirical, operatic "Theater of Cruelty" in a cinematic framework. But it is the final lyric (sung by a repulsive, animated "Judge") that puts the entire scope of this picture into focus: "I sentence you to be EXPOSED before your peers..." The Judge , of course, is not merely talking to the fictional "Pink", but to the viewers of the film, and well, the entire world, for all that, and again, the Director has, seemingly, high jacked the "rock opera" format, and used it as a vehicle to ask that ultimate question: why is mankind so mutually interested in its own self-destruction? Why do nations and civilized cultures slide easily into fascistic thinking? How many war orphans are we still, to this day, creating?

I am not, now, a fan of Pink Floyd's music, although all of the music in this film is beyond excellent. Oddly enough, I am the farthest thing from the dope-smoking "hippy" that is supposed to be a Pink Floyd fan. I am an Industrial musician and a writer. My favorite music, at this point, is anything by NON, Throbbing Gristle, etc. This film has, over the years though, shaped my own artistic outlook in ways I am probably not even aware of. One does not need to smoke dope, or even be a Pink Floyd fan, to be affected quite deeply by this film. Roger Ebert once said that Star Wars was, to him at least "a perfect film". Well, Pink Floyd The Wall, to myself, is a perfect film, whether you are a pothead or no. I have given this film ten stars, but it is a little beyond that. If it was simply a rock movie, it could be rated in a conventional manner. But Allan Parker has done something here that is beyond even the concept of the bestselling album that this movie is based upon. He has crafted a surreal essay on the madness and self-destruction that lurks within the human spirit. And he has created one of the most sobering, angry, and dizzying satirical pieces ever committed to celluloid. In short, this film is a work of sheer, jaundiced brilliance.

If for whatever reason you should find yourself in the company of aliens from the planet Nietsche , a planet whose inhabitants have gone beyond what can be described as human nature so much so that they have no knowledge of what being human is , then show them this film that explains everything

The story starts with the Anzio landings that sees the death of Pink's father . As Plato said " Only the dead have seen the end of war " and that is bitterly true , man will always be man and man will always kill man until the end of time

Pink goes to school and education is a double edged sword . It has the potential to educate young humans but as often happens these young humans find themselves being used as victims of whatever mood the teacher is in . Someone must pay for authorities inaquequacies

Pink leaves school and falls in love , but love is the sharpest and most double edged sword in all of creation . It inspires but it also destroys us . Despite hundreds of millions of human beings being killed in wars , genocide and purges there is nothing so personally painful or as cruel as the betrayal by a lover . The darkest pits of Hell can not be as hellish or as sadistic as infidelity

As Pink descends further into his personal madness we see him take his revenge . Humans are sexual beings and perhaps this is what makes us both demons and avenging angels . Irony is to the fore as he stops becoming a victim and turns into unfeeling fascist dictator . Someone must pay for all the wrongs Pink has endured and it's the innocent that must suffer

You could go to the planet Nietsche with all the written works of every human philosopher who ever lived and that still wouldn't be enough to explain what it's like to be human . As it stands Alan Parker and Roger Waters have made a cogent film explaining why humans are the way they are and how they react to the surrounding universe . It's a film whose soundtrack is every bit as powerful as the human condition

The opening tracking shot of a hotel hallway that resembles a prison should clue you in as to what awaits. There are so many things to like and be fascinated by in this movie. And for all of its avant-garde leanings, this is actually a very classically designed story. An iconoclastic music star, Pink Floyd, tries/tries not to think about his past and how he got to where he is, which is borderline psychotic. And because he's so disturbed, he can't even think in a linear way, so the journey we take into his mind is necessarily whacked-out.

We also get to see how fascism is born from misdirected hate and idolatry. As a rock star, Floyd has seen the adulation of his audiences, so he's familiar with the phenomenon. But at the same time, he detests them for buying into his act. It's like the old Groucho Marx joke about refusing membership to any group who would let you in. He knows he's a fake (his teachers and people like his wife have told him so), so everyone else who thinks he's real must be fakes also. It's a big cyclic game. So he can't let any of them in, behind his wall, because they are, by definition, phony.

It's interesting, also, to think about how he has turned full circle into fascism. It's just part of his dream and how he deals with his anger, but it's also an interesting reaction to the absent father. Had there been no homosexuals or Jews etc., there would have been no need for a Hitler, and therefore there would have been no need for his father to die. But instead of hating Nazis, he hates the people that "provoked" the Nazis. (I could go on for days with stuff like this, but I'll stop here.)

Just watch the movie and be impressed with the way it works on so many levels.

Wow. this is truly a work of art. No, that isn't doing this movie justice. This is a masterpiece. No other rock opera, or most movies in general, can top the insanity that is this movie. This movie peers into the mind of an over protected, reclusive, and sometimes violent rock star, who has taken enough of life and the people in it.

This is the story of Pink, poor old Pink, who's father left him one morning in black 44', and who's mother was so protective she smothered him with her love and all of her fears; who's wife tried so hard to open his heart, but found that nobody was home; and who eventually built a wall so high that he could not break free, and eventually his seclusion from the outside world brought out a side of Pink that he, nor the rest of the world, would wish to ever see. Soon his sadistic, Hitler-esc side takes control of the world, with help from his zombie like fans who follow any command that is thrown at them.

But by the time the dictator is mentally faded away by Pink, and he is able to see that shielding himself from the world with his now endless wall is only driving him crazier, it could be too late. So goes the quote above, taken from "The Trial", which is the end of the Wall, and Pink's last chance for freedom from his Wall.

This is just an outstanding movie. Everything works in this movie, the twisted live action, the animation that probably is what being insane is like, and, most of all, the music that is, in my opinion, the greatest album ever created (to Hell with Dark Side of the Moon, it was good, but it doesn't even compare to "The Wall"). Pink Floyd is my favorite band (along with The Who and The Rolling Stones, an odd combination, I know), and when their best album was made into a movie, I knew that Hollywood had at least a little common sense, even though Hollywood shunned it, and most of the reviews I've read here are negative, but I don't care, I'm watching it and enjoying for me, and no other opinion matters.

My favorite songs off of this movie/album are "Mother", "One of My Turns", "There's Nobody Home", "Comfortably Numb" (probably my favorite song, actually), and, of course, "The Trial". One last thing, if you are ever in a position where you have to choose between this and "Tommy", pick this, because "Tommy" wasn't very good. In-fact, if it didn't have the great music of The Who in it, I would say it blew. Just a quick reminder. 10/10