SOYLENT GREEN

US, 1973,100 minutes, Colour.
Charlton Heston, Leigh Taylor -Young, Edward G. Robinson, Chuck Connors, Brock Peters, Paula Kelly, Joseph Cotten.
Directed by Richard Fleischer.

Soylent Green is nourishing food for the over-populated world of 2022. It is also a mysterious food, as the film proceeds to show. The film is a mixture or crime thriller (more the field of the director, Richard Fleischer - e.g. Compulsion; Crack in the Mirror; Boston Strangler) and apocalyptic science-fiction (not unfamiliar for Charlton Heston, e.g. Planet of the Apes; Beneath the Planet of the Apes; The Omega Man;). The science-fiction emphases eventually dominate to make this quite a satisfying - and frightening - example of the genre.

The world of 2022 is a green-hazed, overcrowded city where the fresh air and vegetation of our day are not only absent but forgotten. The rich have comforts and luxury; the numerous poor do not. These poor become disposable when riot trucks turn up and scoop away living human garbage. One of the features of the film is the appearance of Edward G. Robinson. The sequence of his death in a Euthanasium is moving in itself, but more so because he died some weeks after completion of the film at the age of 80 years.

1. Was this effective science-fiction? Why? A good crime thriller?

2. What was the effect and atmosphere of the prologue of stills showing the progress (regress?) from 1900 to 2022? Was this a good start for the film?

3. The world of 2022 - over-population of New York, disparity between rich and poor, the green pollution, lack of vegetation, disposable people, forgetting what a previous more beautiful (certainly less ugly) world was like? Would you say that this was a warning?

4. The police - their job? why was Thorn dedicated to his job - necessity or sense of duty? What kind of man was he? A product of his 2022 environment?

5. What kind of man was Sol - what motivated him? His sorrow in his survival? Why did he love Thorn and what did he want to teach him about the past? The two generations as a constant contrast in the film?

6. What impact did the sequence have where they eat meat, savour it, and Sol talks about the past (our modern world'.)? Comment on the shabby room, etc.

7. The world of crime of 2022 and today's world are they much the same? Why? The bodyguard, girlfriend, strawberries, etc?

8. Thorn and authority - the Governor, his boss, political pressure and corruption; assassination attempts. Church life, the priest, nun, and murder?

9. The sequence of the riot and the people scooped into garbage trucks. Comment on the standards of 2022.

10. The impact of Sol's death - the idea of a Euthanasium, overtones of "The Loved One"; impact of the cyclorama and beauty of flowers and sky by this stage of the film?

11. The intrigues of the Soylent company?

12. Thorn following Sol's body? Comment on the mounting impact of the detailed filming of this episode, the suspense leading to the realisation of what Soylent Green was. How repulsive was the discovery of the truth? Why?

13. The film ended with Thorn's apocalyptic warnings. Did they have any impact on his world?

14. Was this film pessimistic? Why? What are its key messages as science-fiction for our time?