Arch 484/684:
Architecture and Film
Fall 2003

Soylent Green (1973)

Welcome to the Dystopic view of our future as portrayed in contemporary film. Soylent Green is the first in our series of such visions of the future, and perhaps, the bleakest. Generally speaking, attempt to relate your specific question to the general issues presented in the film as related to: the environment, greenhouse effect, fuel dependency and fear of overpopulation, as perceived by the psychological state of the year 1970. The question for this film asks for a discussion of the assigned images (screen captures) and the relationship between these images and the general and specific question/statement.

Each thumbnail below is linked to a larger screen capture of the same image in case you need to see the image in greater detail.

Your name is BELOW the series you are assigned. It would be greatly appreciated if Masters students could also send in their short paragraph.

Matthew Tsui M
The role of the church has reverted to times of old. Comment.

Instead, a large corporation manufactures dry ‘supplementary-like’ foods to feed the masses. They line up to receive their rations of these crackers and water weekly. Bare survival is difficult due to the schism of man and his means to live naturally. He has become a mere extension of the machine that has overrun the world, incapable of operating separate from, or against it.

Today, within the modern city we pass through our daily lives without giving a thought to our individual survival needs; we purchase our food at the grocery store, take transit to work, and then back home to a dwelling already planned and built for us. We have no understanding of the systems that provide for us. “Soylent Green” projects this condition beyond moral boundaries. The city is a labyrinth. Everything is enshrouded in secrecy to the point that cannibalism can be unleashed unknowingly on the public. There is no freedom; the survival needs for which people fight are produced only by other humans, none by nature.

In the movie, however, it seems that society is regressing; it has reverted to a medieval situation where the vast majority of people eat just to survive, as in the dark ages. In both the past and the movie’s vision of the future, the food of the poor was, and is, very bland; medieval peasants got thin, watery gruel, and the common people of the future in Soylent Green get bright-coloured plasticky chunks of soy, human, and plankton-based products.

It is interesting that what is considered an extravagant, sinful, illegal way of life in Soylent is so similar to that of the ordinary person in the 70’s. It raises the question of whether the way most people were living in the 70’s was sinfully extravagant as well. In the Soylent world, which has very limited natural resources, it can be assumed that growing vegetables, not to mention raising cattle, uses up resources which are not available for everyone. During the 70’s, people in “developed” countries started considering the implications of their exploitive resource use, so it is not surprising that a movie like Soylent chooses to take contemporary environmental fears and extrapolate them into the future to create its dystopic vision of the future, in which the senses of most people have been dulled, and there seems to be no reason for many people to live; the majority of people have no pleasant visual, aural, olefactory, alimentary or mental stimuli.

8.

Soylent Green too gives us a little history lesson in its still image format. Starting with early 20th century imagery, we find see a gradual escalation transportation issues, as with Just Imagine. The film here, delivers these images in ever more rapid succession, with scenes of environmental wastelands, garbage heaps and fuming factories between all of this “progress”. This technique of speeding up the imagery alludes to the onslaught and actual pace of development that is experienced, and what was foreseen to happen over the next 50 years after the film was made. Most importantly then, is the actual environmental impact that is seen as a result of the masses of vehicular traffic, city growth, and overpopulation. The music during this entire scene too increases its tempo, though at no point seems that dreary or upsetting, contrasting with the imagery itself, which gives a great feeling of unease (as felt essentially throughout the remainder of the film).

The comical look at what I would call technical difficulties of Just Imagine are no doubt simply playing on the evolution of gadgetry and the rapid development of industrialization. Contrasting this, I think then Soylent Green’s message of our imminent destruction of the environment and subsequent destruction of all values is a simple one to grasp, which is constantly reinforced by either the contrasting happy (and often funky) music, as well as the cozy (and creepily furry) surroundings the apartments of the rich, which makes the entire experience of watching the film an uneasy one.

_In this dystopic tale of the not so distant future, characters succumb to the smog and heat of an overworked environment. To die is to escape from this futile existence. A severe lack of resources has detrimental affects on every aspect of daily life, leaving 40 million New Yorkers without work, food, or shelter.

_Commodities once taken for granted become priceless objects of desire. While the rich get fat off of strawberry jam and beef, the poor sleep in stairwells and manage to sustain a pathetic form of existence through the consumption of red, yellow and green soylent biscuits.

_The loss of reality erases any ability to dream, imagine, experience or understand. There is no energy left for these luxuries, life is dull, what remains is a land of the dead and dying. Perfume is an expensive rarity, sweet tasting foods a long forgotten memory and running water scarce.

_When the characters are given a chance to enjoy food from the old days; it recalls a series of long forgotten rituals. The carefully articulated practice of eating and dining subtlety parallels a symphonic backdrop of soothing sounds, and viewers visually experience the taste of such a luxury. Like a deeply private moment between two lovers, the characters first shy, and then slowly assured enjoy lettuce, apples, and beef. Suddenly we are shook with the seriousness of the film, those things so common to our diet could one day be gone.

_In the scene with the furniture and the $150 jar of jam, we again experience the extravagance of such an item. As the woman licks a spoon covered in sweet jam, lounging in satin with the stereo blasting, our senses are heightened to a euphoric state. Sensual and raw we are exposed to a woman’s delight in jam and her consequential fear in being discovered.

_These scenes serve to emphasize the underlying message of the film reminding us that in our lack of care or concern for the environment we will soon become the source of our own demise.

In this film the future creates a curfew that takes all these places and makes them not accessible. The only places that are left for homeless and unemployed people to use are semi-public or private areas. It is very hard to imagine this action as we often associate the homeless with people who live out on the street. The movie is not focused upon these people, but in Soylent Green there are powerful shots of full corridors and stairwells with people scattered and laying everywhere. A few times the main character actually climbs over people to his apartment. This is an image of the future that we don’t want to even imagine.

The portrayal and curfew of homeless people in the film Soylent Green helps create a world that is truly “used up” and controlled. The type of accommodation for the homeless becomes a larger demand and there are only so many places that people can go to get away from the curfew. The images not only show the mass of the problem, but they also show the vulnerability of the lower class.

The level and quality of accommodation for these people and also for the people who live in the apartments falls dramatically. There is no room for people to even move on the stairwells. The cleanliness and odour of these places is only left to the imagination, but can easily be judged by the portrayal of many people with no running water to even clean themselves.

The overall theme of degradation, mass and control of society is easily seen through the homeless/unemployed people. It may seem a little far fetched for the immediate (or planned 2022) future, but the idea of so many people and the curfew is easily believable for future societies.