My Wall Review

something i wrote fer sociology class- hischool..
the assignment was a 'sociological' review of the film..
substandard bullcrap..but here goes..

Pink Floyd: The Wall

“Tell me is something eluding you, sunshine? Is this not what you expected to see?”
Pink Floyd, The Wall (PFTW) is by no means an ordinary, crowd-appealing, mainstream commercial film venture. It is a milestone in cult film and rock music history and is truly one-of-a-kind. PFTW is an explorative, questioning journey of the individual self and its conflicts with modern society; an intense, rich and yet bizarre, thought provoking, meaningfully purposed experience.
The film evaluates the rights and wrongs, truths and falsities, should-dos, must-dos and how-dare-you-dos in society in the most hard-hitting, in-your-face and, thus, effective fashion, using a stream of dialogue-less scenes and surreal animations backed by the phenomenal music of ‘The Wall’ album. It deals with the process of growing alienation of the protagonist Pink Floyd from society and his emotions of heightened angst, frustration and incomprehensibility concerning it.

“All in all it was all just bricks in the wall”
Just another brick in the wall is precisely what the film believes society forcibly moulds us all to become, as, over time, social systems and setups assume a ‘higher existence’ of their own, and their requirements and expectations become so exceedingly dominating and over-powering that individuality, creativeness and originality are lost. Everyone, thus, is compelled to become simply a minute fraction of a greater whole, a nameless, faceless component of the larger machine, a mere building block for the great wall, a subordinate to the mighty forces of society. Pink, however, is one of the few who refuse to be simply ‘everyone’ and feel both isolated from and entrapped within these systems. (The ‘wall’, thus, shields them from society while forcing them to live within it). Pink, here, illustrates Marx’s theory of alienation leading to eventual conflict leading to a change for the betterment. His purpose is to break free from these confines and forming a cross as he lies in his apartment pool, he propagates a religion of his own, speaking for all those who like him have a “strong urge to fly” but “nowhere to fly to”.
Tracing the three Another Brick In The Wall songs helps to observe the development of Pink’s character and his increasing estrangement towards society. Another Brick In The Wall 1 marks the break-up of Pink’s nuclear family with the death of his father in the war. The role of the father in the family is essential to the young child’s development especially to that of a boy’s who is expected to look up to him and follow his example. Pink’s realization of his loss is expressed in his grabbing hold of a random father in the playground and dressing up in his father’s uniform, fiddling with his gun. The mother too, goes against her image of a comforting, caring figure and is portrayed throughout as a threatening creature who puts “all her fears into you”. Pink gradually experiences the loss of innocence and comes face-to-face with the sour realities of the real world; he finds himself “skating on the thin ice of modern life” and growing increasingly isolated from it.
Another Brick In The Wall 2 is the ultimate PF anthem and highlights the crux of the film. The hordes of schoolchildren wearing the same deformed masks, marching and chanting in unison towards a grinding machine which reduces them to nothing but minced-meat, elucidates the idea of social systems inducing a bounding uniformity and consequently diminishing the role of the individual. Pink’s poetry, his sole method of self-expression, is ridiculed, the teachers thrash the students as a matter of everyday routine activity- the result is an out-and-out rebellion by the students. We are not shown the consequences of this revolt but simply made to believe that it was an inevitable event and surely the only way out.
Another Brick In The Wall 3 marks the completion of Pink’s alienation. Enveloped in dull numbness, unable to comprehend the chaos surrounding him, he is now simply “waiting for the worms”.

“The sea may look warm to you, babe, and the sky may look blue”
Pink feels deceived by his own society as the more he scratches upon the surface the more everything seems unsatisfactory and the more he is disappointed. He feels he has been treated unjustly with his father’s death in the war, the evils of the school system, his failed marriage and, on a larger scale, with the “empty spaces” in the world being filled with merely thoughts of material gain, of lust, of war and bloodshed. A criticism of the film could be that it is simply a narcissistic illustration of Roger Waters’ personal life and experiences as a rock star or those of Barrett and the band, but one must view the piece of art on a broader level and derive its striking relevance to the issues of modern society. Waters, being the Socialist, however, provides the film with a strong anti-material slant and it proves to be a critique of the evils of the industrial society. The marching hammers are clearly symbolic of the Russian hammer and sickle flag after the Revolution, signifying conflict and a revolution aimed at freedom (this is ironic as the hammer is essentially a tool made for construction but is being used for destruction). The ‘wall’ is also an obvious reference to the Berlin Wall and so whereas purposeful revolution is encouraged, war is condemned throughout the film. It as an activity similar to the school systems in its consequences, and through repeated images of bloody soldiers and battlefields and songs of “Bring the Boys Home” and Pink’s insecurities surrounding the nuclear bomb, the audience is compelled to agree. The animated images of rising buildings, cars and planes, doves dissolving into metallic eagles emphasize the materialistic nature of today’s industrial world and the UK flag and Christian cross both disintegrating into glitzy, flashy nothings, illustrates how modern society has brought down ideas like national pride and religion to a purely material level.

“The show must go on…”
Shakespeare observation of all the world being a stage and all men and women merely players is also played upon as Pink, the musician, is merely one of the many performers on the global stage. Each must play a part and PF, although obviously unwilling to do so, has no alternate choice. He is refueled with “just a little pinprick” when he refuses to respond before the concert and he’s on the move again. Making music too, has become a material activity; rock stars being more concerned with the “sex and drugs” rather than the “rock-and-roll”. Drinking, drugs and women are all portrayed as ways of escapism in the society (the alcohol, the groupies and the policemen before the concert, the images of copulating flowers) but all eventually contribute to the worsening of circumstances and none of these help Pink at the stage he has now reached.
He thus resorts to the television for war movies and begins self-mutilation. Slowly but steadily he is metamorphosed into the leader of a neo-nazi community (a possible reference to Kafka’s “Metamorphosis” which tells of the metamorphosis of the alienated Gregor to a monster-like creature). Fascist theories of extreme social discrimination are brought into play here as people in ‘hate’ t-shirts line the queers and the Jews against the wall.

“Have I been guilty all this time?”
PF now summons himself to a trial and is sentenced “to be exposed before his peers” by tearing down the wall he has built for all these years. The film ends as children are shown collecting the bricks to build the wall once more as the vicious cycle that society governs begins once more and Pink’s efforts go down the drain like the soldiers’ blood in the battlefield.


~all feedback welcome..

no feedback...

They teach sociology in your school. Wow, that must mean California schools suck.

It seems like an oxymoron to say that the album was, "not appealing to mainstream" when it is one of the bestselling albums of all time...

the FILM wasn't exactly the mainstream crowd attracting kind..
no agruments abt the album..

Perhaps not all California schools, just yours.

Not being from Cali. I can't comment but I do know that sociology or psychology (pick one of the two) was required here.

They certainly do not teach any of those subjects in any of the high schools in my area.

They teach it here in the Boonies, I'm taking it right now.

As for the movie being mainstream... I would think a movie made for such a mainstream album would be at least a little mainstream itself. Just my opinion.

EDIT: By the way, your review was well-written, zoyz. I like the lyrics to the songs kicking off each thought about the movie. Nice job. Oh, and your avatar kicks royal ass, man.

*bows*