Soylent Green is a 1973 American science fiction film depicting a dystopian future in which overpopulation leads to depleted resources, which in turn leads to widespread unemployment and poverty. Real fruit, vegetables and meat are rare, expensive commodities, and much of the population survives on processed food rations, including "soylent green" wafers.
The film overlays the science fiction and police procedural genres as it depicts the efforts of New York City police detective Robert Thorn (Charlton Heston) and elderly police researcher Sol Roth (Edward G. Robinson) to investigate the brutal murder of a wealthy businessman named William R. Simonson (Joseph Cotten). Thorn and Roth uncover clues which suggest that it is more than simply a bungled burglary.
The film, which is loosely based upon the 1966 science fiction novel Make Room! Make Room!, by Harry Harrison, won the Nebula Award for Best Dramatic Presentation and the Saturn Award for Best Science Fiction Film in 1973.
Plot
In the year 2022, the population has grown to forty million people in New York City alone. Most housing is dilapidated and overcrowded, and the homeless fill the streets and line the fire escapes and stairways of buildings. Food as we know it today is a rare and expensive commodity. Most of the world's population survives on processed rations produced by the massive Soylent Corporation, including Soylent Red and Soylent Yellow, which are advertised as "high-energy vegetable concentrates". The newest product is Soylent Green — a small green wafer which is advertised as being produced from "high-energy plankton". It is much more nutritious and palatable than the red and yellow varieties, but it is — like most other food — in short supply, which often leads to food riots.
Robert Thorn (Charlton Heston) is a New York City police detective who lives in a dilapidated, cramped one-room apartment with his aged partner Sol Roth (Edward G. Robinson). Roth is a former professor who searches through the now-disordered remnants of written records and books to help Thorn's investigations. Roth and his like are known as "books". He tells Thorn about the time before the ecological disaster and population crisis, when real food was plentiful, although Thorn is generally not interested in the stories, finding most of them too hard to believe.
Thorn is assigned to investigate the murder of William R. Simonson (Joseph Cotten). At the crime scene, he finds Simonson lying in a pool of blood due to being struck multiple times in the back of the head. Instead of looking for clues, the poorly-paid detective helps himself to the wealthy man's food, liquor, shower with real hot water and soap, and books. He questions Shirl (Leigh Taylor-Young), an attractive 24-year old prostitute (euphemistically known as "furniture") who comes with the apartment, and Simonson's bodyguard, Tab Fielding (Chuck Connors), who claims that he was told to escort Shirl on a shopping trip when the attack took place.
Returning to his apartment, Thorn gives Roth the Soylent Oceanographic Survey Report, 2015 to 2019, which he took from Simonson's apartment. Thorn returns to work and talks to the Chief of Detectives, telling him that he suspects it may have been an assassination, since nothing was stolen from the apartment and the murder seemed professional. He finds it odd that the luxury apartment's sophisticated alarm and monitoring electronics happened to be inoperative on the night of the murder, and his bodyguard just happened to be out of the apartment at the time.
After questioning Fielding's live-in "furniture", Thorn realizes she was eating some "$150 a jar" strawberry jam, which is an out-of-place luxury for the prostitute of a bodyguard. He returns to his own apartment to eat a meal of the purloined food, where Roth tells him that Simonson was a member of the board of directors of the Soylent Corporation. Thorn returns to question Shirl, who tells him that Simonson became deeply troubled in the days before his death, even taking her to church. Thorn later attempts to question the priest about Simonson's confession, but the priest is almost catatonic with exhaustion and has a hard time remembering Simonson, even though Simonson, as a rich man, would have stood out among the impoverished people who are normally frequent in the church. When the priest remembers Simonson, he tells Thorn the memory of what Simonson told him was haunting him, and is unable to describe what Simonson said to him. Fielding later murders the priest to ensure he never talks. After Thorn begins uncovering evidence as to why Simonson was murdered, New York Governor Santini (Whit Bissell) instructs Thorn's superior officer, Lieutenant Hatcher (Brock Peters), to close the investigation. However, Thorn continues his investigation into the murder. When Thorn is on riot duty during the distribution of rations, Simonson's murderer fires several shots at Thorn, but Thorn is able to push his attacker under a riot control vehicle.
Roth examines Soylent's oceanographic reports at the "Supreme Exchange", a library and gathering place for fellow "books". The "books" and Roth finally realize that the reports indicate a "horrible" truth which, despite reading it for themselves, they find nearly impossible to believe. Unable to live with what he has uncovered, Roth opts for assisted suicide at a government clinic referred to as "home". As Roth is dying, Thorn forces the staff to allow him to see and talk to Roth. During Roth's final moments, he begs Thorn to divulge the horrible truth about the Soylent corporation.
Prompted by Roth, Thorn sneaks into the basement of the assisted suicide facility, where he sees corpses being loaded onto waste disposal trucks. He secretly hitches a ride on one of the trucks, which is driven to a heavily guarded waste disposal plant. Once inside the plant, Thorn sees how the corpses are processed into Soylent Green wafers. Thorn escapes and heads for the "Supreme Exchange", but is ambushed by Fielding and several other gunmen. He retreats into a cathedral filled with homeless people. After a desperate fight through throngs of sleeping homeless, Thorn kills Fielding.
When police backup arrives, the seriously wounded and nearly hysterical Thorn confides to Hatcher the horrible secret behind Soylent Green, finally urging him to spread the word: "Soylent Green is people! We've got to stop them somehow!"
Cast
Production
The screenplay was based on the 1966 Harrison novel Make Room! Make Room!, which is set in the year 1999 with the theme of overpopulation and overuse of resources leading to increasing poverty, food shortages, and social disorder as the next millennium approaches. While the book refers to "soylent steaks", it makes no reference to "Soylent Green", the processed food rations depicted in the film. The book's title was not used for the movie since it might have confused audiences into thinking it was a big-screen version of Make Room for Daddy.[1]
The director Richard Fleischer, who began by shooting film noir thrillers after World War II, learned to do special effects in the 1950s and 1960s when he did a number of Science Fiction films such as 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea and Fantastic Voyage (1966). In the years before and after Soylent Green, Fleischer did films centering on famous serial killers and capital punishment (1968's The Boston Strangler and 1971's 10 Rillington Place) and the controversial and provocative Che Guevara biopic Che! (1969).
This was the 101st and last movie in which Edward G. Robinson appeared. He died from cancer twelve days after the shooting was done, on January 26, 1973. Heston was the only member of the crew that Robinson told (just before filming the scene of Robinson's character's death). Robinson had previously worked with Heston in The Ten Commandments (1956).
The female lead character, Shirl (Leigh Taylor-Young), is briefly seen playing a Computer Space arcade game, with a futuristic appearance.
Music
In the film, after the aged Roth learns the truth about Soylent Green, he decides he "has lived too long", and states that he is "going home". By this, he means that he is going to sign up for government-assisted suicide. When Roth arrives at the clinic, he is asked to select a lighting scheme and a type of music for the death chamber. Roth selects orange-hued lights and "light Classical" music. When he goes to the death chamber, a selection of Classical music (Beethoven - 6th Symphony - Pastoral) plays through speakers and films are projected on large screens.
The "going home" score in this part of the film was conducted by Gerald Fried and consists of the main themes from Symphony No. 6 ("Pathétique") by Tchaikovsky; Symphony No. 6 ("Pastoral") by Beethoven; "Morning Mood" and "Åse's Death" from the Peer Gynt Suite by Edvard Grieg. As the music plays, scenes of majestic natural beauty are projected on film screens: "deer in woods, trees and leaves, sunsets beside the sea, birds flying overhead, rolling streams, mountains, fish and coral, sheep and horses, and lots and lots of flowers — from daffodils to dogwoods". Amidst the music and the scenes of nature, Roth remembers the world as it once was. Yet, he cannot peacefully take his last breath as he is pained by the beauty lost and cannot stand the awfulness of the real world. Roth struggles to tell Thorn about the secret of "Soylent Green", urging him to "prove it" before taking his dying breath.
Analysis and impact
Thematic analysis
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?"[2].
After Roth discovers that Soylent wafers are made from human flesh and meat, 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, deers, 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.[2]
Critical response
SciFi.com film reviewer Tamara Hladik calls the film a “basic, cautionary tale of what could become of humanity physically and spiritually [if humans do not take care of the planet.]". She points out that "there is little in this film that has not been seen in other films", such as the film's depiction of "faceless, oppressive crowds; sheep mentality; the corrosion of the soul, of imagination, [and] of collective memory". While she notes that the director has a "tendency... to overuse Charlton Heston" in scenes depicting this beleaguered, futuristic dystopia, she admits that the film "often succeeds despite [the missteps of] its director".
Hladik argues that the "most powerful moments do not belong to Heston['s]" police detective character Thorn, whom she calls a "dubious, ambiguous hero". Instead, she calls Robinson’s characterization of the aged police researcher Sol Roth the "most moving passages" which give the film "conscience and soul". She acknowledges that the film has "imagery [that] is powerful and haunting", such as the scenes in which riot control vehicles scoop up protesters with metal shovels, as if they were garbage. Her overall impression is that "the profundity of humanity's transformation [in the film] is dealt with in less than a masterful manner".[3]
Soylent Green has a 71% rating on Rotten Tomatoes as of February, 2010.[4]
Remake
A remake of the classic is set to be released in 2012 and is in development.[5]
See also
Notes
External links
