SOYLENT GREEN AND OTHER PROPHECIES…
For those of a certain age, we may remember sitting in a movie theater in the early Seventies with the strains of Grieg’s Peer Gynt echoing around us while on screen an aged and disillusioned Edward G. Robinson departed this life. Personally, I was seated in a small theater near Soho in London. I was young, just in my early teens, though I knew I was watching something that was far more profound than the science-fiction movie that was billed. Soylent Green. Based on the book Make Room! Make Room! by Harry Harrison, the movie is set in a dystopian New York in the year 2022. Society is a Darwinian melting pot of people fighting to survive, with climate change and overpopulation having wreaked havoc on the planet.
Soylent Green contains a strong message against euthanasia, depicting a world where the existence of Joe Public has been reduced to such little worth that state assisted suicide has become a lifestyle choice. The daily struggle of the masses to survive is set in stark contrast to the extravagant lifestyles of the elite in their private walled cities, those who have come to be known in the present vernacular as the 1%. As euthanasia laws in countries around the world move further away from the strict guidelines that were supposed to protect all, we are now seeing it offered to those who are just bored of life or unfortunates whose medical bills are deemed unaffordable by their insurers. Those who warned of The Slippery Slope have been proven right. It is for its prophetic portrayal of the perils of euthanasia that Soylent Green stands as one of the most profound movies of the 20th century.
THE CAST
Charlton Heston – Detective Thorn
Edward G. Robinson – Sol Roth
Leigh Taylor – Young – Shirl
Chuck Connors – Tab Fielding
Joseph Cotten – William R. Simonson
Brock Peters – Chief Hatcher
Paula Kelly – Martha
Stephen Young – Gilbert
Mike Henry – Kulozik
Lincoln Kilpatrick – The Priest
Roy Jenson – Donovan
Leonard Stone – Charles
Whit Bissell – Gov. Santini
SOYLENT GREEN (1973)
RICHARD FLEISCHER – DIRECTOR
STANLEY R. GREENBERG and HARRY HARRISON – WRITERS
WALTER SELTZER and RUSSELL THACHER – PRODUCERS
FRED MYROW – Music
OTHER RELEVANT MOVIES
ICH KLAGE AN (1941)
Ich klage an (I Accuse) is a German film released in 1941 during the Nazi regime. Directed by Wolfgang Liebeneiner, the film revolves around the mercy killing of a woman by her physician husband, and the legal fallout and trial that follows. Tobis, the production company involved, worked in direct cooperation with the Reich Ministry for Public Enlightenment and Propaganda, headed by the infamous Ad Man, Joseph Goebbels. The purpose behind the movie was to convince the German people of the merits and morality of the government’s Aktion T4 program, which was already euthanizing the sick, the elderly and the disabled. In the aftermath of WWII, the Allies banned the film for promoting the ideaology that led to the Holocaust. Even to this day, Ich klage an is still prohibited from public screening in Germany.
There has been considerable effort spent in more recent times by the pro-euthanasia lobby to rehabilitate the work, hailing it as a forerunner to such contemporary movies as The Sea Inside (2004), Me Before You (2016), The Farewell Party (2014). Indeed, the public is being subjected to an ever-increasing number of films extolling the virtues of euthanasia, as one by one countries succumb to the Cult of Death.
LOGAN’S RUN (1973)
Released in 1973, Logan’s Run remains a seminal science fiction film that captivated audiences with its innovative storytelling and thought-provoking themes. It is directed by Michael Anderson and based on the novel by William F. Nolan and George Clayton Johnson. Set in the year 2274, the film presents a dystopian future where all people are chipped at birth with a crystal in their palm that serves as a countdown clock for a fixed lifespan. Upon reaching the age of 30, all must enter a ritual known as the Carrousel, which they are told offers a chance of rebirth but in actual fact leads only to a euthanized death.
For all its futuristic setting and sci-fi melodrama, one might argue that elements of Logan’s Run are not as farfetched as they might appear. Many see prophetic similarities between the sinister crystals depicted and the much rumored plans for biometric chip implants of present times, with their Mark of the Beast connotations.
