Masterpiece Cinema - Pink Floyd The Wall

‘Pink Floyd The Wall’

Starring Bob Geldof.

Written by Roger Waters.

Directed by Alan Parker.

Genre: Drama / Music / Once again, another head trip of a movie.

Released: 1982

Running time: 95 mins.

Rated:

IMDb link: http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0084503/

I find it hard to believe that it’s taken me over forty instalments of ‘Masterpiece Cinema’ to finally get around to covering ‘Pink Floyd The Wall’. When I first saw it a number of years ago, it unfolded before me like a revelation. I found the layers of meaning and interpretation in it fascinating, and its visual style to be original and striking. Making a surrealist film that’s also enjoyable to watch is an extraordinarily difficult thing; they often turn out like those dreams you have that are so vivid and disconcerting that all you want to do is wake up. And sure, ‘Pink Floyd The Wall’ has an element of that to it. You’re more than just a little glad when it ends…but the trip you’ve had getting to that point has been a remarkable one.

It’s actually kind of dorky to admit to being a Pink Floyd fan these days. I’m not entirely sure why that is, though I have a couple of theories. One is that modern rock snobs don’t care for the band’s artistic posturing, nor the success that it found despite said posturing. In simpler terms, rock critics think Floyd is a bunch of wankers…and they have a point. The other theory I have is simply that today’s generation is railing against one of the bands that their parents’ generation found so incredibly enthralling, which is fair enough. One of the integral elements of rock has always been its rejection of what your parents find decent and acceptable.

Of course, with that rejection comes a certain amount of ‘throwing the baby out with the bathwater’. I’ve been a fan of Pink Floyd since listening to their stuff in high school, as stereotypical as it may be. Specifically, I find ‘The Wall’ to be one of the greater artistic achievements in recent decades. Though it tells a simple story of a rock star’s mental breakdown and elevating isolation, it does it with intelligence, insight and creativity. The filmic adaptation, released in 1982 and starring Bob Geldof, is no exception. In fact, it even adds dimensions to the story, making it not so much a recreation of the experience of the album, but an almost complete reinvention of it.





Writer Roger Waters and director Alan Parker apparently came to major blows over the course of the production, with Parker dismissing the movie as “the most expensive student film ever made”. Parker’s comment, meant to be a derisive one, was actually a fairly accurate assessment of the work. It’s so unlike anything Hollywood tends to produce; so unstable, so unsafe. But what Parker failed to see was that that’s exactly where the movie’s strength lies.

It is, in a way, a great deal like ‘Alice in Wonderland’; it’s a strange, dark trip into a nightmare realm, a place where reality is splintered and reflected back at you in a distorted, but still potent, way. It’s a film that finds its greatest strength in how absurd it is, and it’s definitely one that deserves your attention.

Next week: Some action.

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