Pink Floyd : The Wall
Directed by Alan Parker
MGM/UA
Premiered May 23, 1982
Columbia Music Video, 1999 (DVD, Remastered VHS)

The history of movies based (loosely or not) on rock songs/albums is, as a general rule, a rather cringe-worthy affair. Therefore, stating that 'Pink Floyd - The Wall' is better than most films of it's ilk may seem like backhanded praise when considering the company it keeps within the genre. However, the quality of the finished product, while undeniably flawed, is still an occasionally striking example of rock-influenced cinema.

Shot at a cost of 12 million dollars, 'Pink Floyd - The Wall' was initially slated to be a conceptually modified document of the 'Wall' concert experience. However, any possibility of this film becoming a definitive concert document for the ages was quashed by a gaggle of otherwise-professional cinematographers who not *only* grossly miscalculated the ambient lighting difficulties of filming a live 'Wall' performance in 1981, but (for whatever reason) went ahead with their wonky game plan anyway and royally screwed the pooch EVERY GODDAMNED NIGHT THE CONCERTS WERE FILMED. So, with *that* lunk-headed disaster behind them, the filmmakers opted instead to transform 'The Wall' into what amounts to a full-length conceptual video for the album, starring then-Boomtown Rats lead singer Bob Geldof in a nearly mute performance as a loony rawk gawd named Pink.

As a viewing experience, 'Pink Floyd - The Wall' makes a hell of an impression right from the get go. The plot of the movie, for those who have to know, is exactly the same as the album -- only this time we get to WATCH a twitchy rock star pop his cork and fuck shit up for 90 minutes. And boy, does he -- packed to the gills with explosions, violence, blood, titty, and *more* blood, while also sporting a pounding soundtrack cranked well into the red, the overall effect of sitting through this movie is not unlike being continuously pounded over the head with a sack of wet laundry for 90 minutes.

In all fairness, though, there are a few excellent set pieces that make wallowing in all of this unrelenting misery worthwhile (well, at least once). "In The Flesh?" brutally simulates the all-out chaos of war in a visceral, harrowing fashion sixteen years ahead of 'Saving Private Ryan' (though cutting between hundreds of soldiers being bombed to pieces at Anzio and a mockup of the Los Angeles Sports Arena being overrun by legions of rowdy teens comes off as shamefully silly). Also effective is the truly eerie, near-silent bit sandwiched between "Nobody Home" and "Vera."

Far and away the most memorable aspect of 'Pink Floyd - The Wall' is the occasional use of richly-detailed animation that serves to enhance the experience of poor Pink completely losing his fucking marbles. The product of three years of work by a team under the direction of Gerald Scarfe, the 20 minutes of animation sprinkled throughout this film (during "Goodbye Blue Sky," "What Shall We Do Now," "Don't Leave Me Now," "Waiting For The Worms" and "The Trial") wind up stealing the entire movie from under the noses of the actors.

Oh yeah, the music. The band recast a few of the songs from the album to better fit the big screen experience and also threw in a new track called "When The Tigers Broke Free" (which is, of course, broken up in true Roger Waters fashion into two separate halves). "Mother" gets the most obvious facelift, stripped down to a haunting, bare shadow of itself (yet it still works brilliantly) while "Bring The Boys Back Home" is merely extended a bit and beefed up with additional orchestral flourishes. On the downside of things, for whatever reason, "Run Like Hell" and "Waiting For The Worms" are edited down in a brutal, chop-shop fashion in order to speed us along to "The Trial" (which in itself suffers the unfortunate deletion of the cartoon dude yelling "GO ON, JUDGE!! SHIT ON 'IM!!").

Fun for the whole family.

DVD Addendum
Even if it were included as the finished product instead of the very rough black-and-white cut version it's shown in, "Hey You" is largely unremarkable, and the reasons for it's removal from the finished cut are obvious after sitting through it. Moreso than any other included song in 'The Wall,' "Hey You" looks and feels like nothing more than a conventional music video circa 1982 (with higher production values of course), and it's vibe makes it stick out like a proverbial sore thumb from the intended surrounding footage (which, if nothing else, flows as a thematic whole).

As below par as "Hey You" may be, it still towers above that godawful promotional clip for "Another Brick In The Wall, Part 2" (reviewed in the 'Pink Floyd Video Anthology Volume 2' post), which set the Pink Floyd standard for half-assed promo video clips that lasts to this day. During the course of the bonus commentary, it becomes apparent that the blame for this clip lies at the feet of Gerald Scarfe himself. Adjust your opinions of the man's genius accordingly.

Of ostensibly greater interest on the DVD are the two little featurettes dealing with the making of the movie -- one shot in 1982, the other in 1999. The 1982 documentary, titled 'The Other Side Of The Wall,' was obviously shot during the making of the film itself and runs like a "Coming Attractions" reel gone amok -- stuffed with chummy "ain't we/he/they great?" accolades and smug "wait till you see THIS, folks!!!" bits that make it a rather grating view. Honestly, this is the kind of movie industry-sanctioned filler that HBO used to show when they had 20 minutes to kill between feature films. Oh, and keep your eyes peeled, Roger freaks -- in true 'Final Cut Video EP' fashion, Roger is seen exclusively from the back in one shot during this documentary, and otherwise appears nowhere else save for a few voiceover bits.

Shown in two parts, the 1999 documentary 'Retrospective' is made up exclusively of interview footage with grizzled old Roger Waters, roly poly Alan Parker, nasal fuzz puff Gerald Scarfe, vaguely creepy James Guthrie, not-so-vaguely creepy Peter Biziou, and 100% personality-free producer Frank Marshall. If you've seen other DVD features like this, you're really in for no surprises here. Nearly everyone spends their allotted time patting themselves and each other on the back over what a great job they did and blahbety blah blah blah, with only a few isolated pronouncements worthy of the time it takes to sit through the whole thing. Particularly amusing is Parker smugly oinking "we were here (in this territory) before MTV" (which is, in fact, false), and Waters' assertion that "humor is a huge part of my life," which sounds like a bald-faced lie until you listen to the truly riotous audio commentary track that runs with the movie (if anything, THIS feature alone is what makes the DVD worth the purchase).

Also included for ultra geek perusal are a dozen or so stills from the film production (behind-the-scenes and before the camera), including a few shots of Waters and David Gilmour in the same room together without a lawyer present, a boatload of sound effects and sonic snippets from the Pink Floyd catalog accessible by "secret buttons" (ask the mini-FAQ people which buttons these are...I forgot), and a built-in stereo test program to optimize the audio playback.

Overall, a very nice package indeed, and a promising look at what may lie ahead for the long-awaited DVD version of 'Live At Pompeii.'

. . .

Ah, fuck, maybe not.

'What Shall We Do Now?'	'Don't Leave Me Now'	'Waiting For the Worms
'Hey You'	'Theatrical Trailer'	Retrospective
	The Other Side of The Wall