S O Y L E N T G R E E N

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S O Y L E N T G R E E N
I n t r o d u c t i o n
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S O Y L E N T G R E E N
I N T R O D U C T I O N
Soylent Green was first released in 1973 and was
recently reintroduced in DVD format. Starring
Charlton Heston and directed by Richard
Fleischer, the film is generally regarded as a
minor classic of science fiction cinema. In
the late 1960s and early 1970s Hollywood
released a number of films that presented the
future in a pessimistic light. Often politically
motivated, the films attempted to use cinema as a
means of raising issues about the consequences of
contemporary mans increasing dependency on
modern technology. Soylent Green represents a
prophetic voice and a seminal place within the
dystopic genre.
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S O Y L E N T G R E E N
S E T T I N G
Soylent Green is set in New York City 2022, where
the population has exploded to 40 million.
Industrial technologies and environmental abuse
have caused the earths temperature to rise to
the point where plant and animal matter are on
the brink of extinction. Poverty runs rampant
in the city where half the population is
unemployed. Millions of people have resorted to
sleeping in stairwells, churches, subways,
abandoned cars and on the streets. Because fresh
food is so expensive, the masses are fed rations
of a synthetic food product resembling a thin,
dry biscuit. Known as soylent green, it was
composed of soy beans, lentils and
plankton. Within the city there is an enormous
class divide with the wealthy living a
comparatively extravagant lifestyle. Living in
high rise apartment complexes the futuristic
flats come equipped with automated sliding doors,
running water, video game consoles, and
refrigerators stocked with real food. As a city,
New York has fallen into a state of disrepair.
The wealthier neighborhoods are kept separate
from the impoverished by thick concrete walls.
Cathedrals have become homeless shelters and the
parks have completely dried up.
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S O Y L E N T G R E E N
P L O T
Soylent Green was adapted from a novel written by
the sci-fi novelist Harry Harrison. The book was
written in 1966 and was titled MAKE ROOM! MAKE
ROOM! In the original book, the story supposedly
takes place in New York city on the eve of the
millenium in 1999. Incidentally, Harrison didnt
serve as the screenwriter for the film and
apparently wasnt happy with the results. The
plot is a sci-fi take on a basic murder mystery.
The film begins with Charlton Heston, who stars
as Thorn - a police officer sent to the scene of
the crime. The murder victim is Simonson, a
wealthy man that served on the board of directors
at the Soylent corporation manufacturers of
Soylent Green. Simonson was murdered in his
apartment apparently by a burglar. As Thorn and
his research assistant/roommate dig deeper into
the murder, they begin to understand that the
murder was in fact an assassination. At this
point, Thorn himself becomes a target for the
assassins who have a larger secret they are
trying to cover up.
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S O Y L E N T G R E E N
C R I T I C A L S U C C E S S
Soylent Green was well received when it was
released in 1973 - both critically and at the box
office. It was very popular overseas, where it
was translated into a number of different
languages. It did particularly in France where
it was known as Soleil Vert. Today, Soylent
Green is still regarded as a minor classic of its
genre. If anything, its been criticized for not
aging as well as its contemporaries especially
2001 A Space Odyssey (1968) and Star Wars
(1977) which still look amazingly fresh. For a
movie that is supposedly set in 2022, the scenes
manage to look decidedly seventies. The opening
scene in Simonsons apartment with the groovy
plastic furniture, hanging bead curtains and
black and white space shooter video game has
ridiculed by a number of critics. Ultimately,
Soylent Greens success lies in its willingness
to deal with the environmental, political and
sociological issues of global warming, class
divisions and the implications of technology. It
survives today as a film that challenges the mind
as much as the senses.
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S O Y L E N T G R E E N
E N V I R O N M E N T
Soylent Greens bleak vision is motivated by an
understanding of the damaging effects of
industrial technologies on the environment. In
2022, global warming has raised the temperatures
to a point where life barely tolerable by plants,
animals and human beings. In the city, the parks
have become barren. Without air conditioning or
any other effective way of staving off the heat,
each of the characters is drenched in sweat both
day and night. Throughout the film, Hestons
character wears the same sweat soaked white
T-shirt. Another environmental consequence is the
lack of real food fruits, meats and vegetables.
Hestons character has survived entirely on
Soylent his entire life and only gets a taste of
real food when he smuggles some away from
Simonsons apartment. His elderly roommate Sol,
is old enough to remember eating fresh food and
the picture to the right shows him enjoying his
first non-soylent meal in decades. Similarly, Sol
is able to remember a time when the nature still
existed. At his self-induced death at a
euthanasia clinic Sol chooses to die in front of
a three dimensional screen projecting images from
the natural world. Seeing this footage for the
first time, the beauty of nature causes the
usually abrasive Heston to pause for a minute in
subdued awe.
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S O Y L E N T G R E E N
H U M A N D I G N I T Y
Human dignity is constantly in question
throughout the film. The overpopulated city has
no need for more occupants and offers free
euthanasia clinics as a means of relief from this
congestion. The first picture shows Sol on his
deathbed. The upper classes live in luxurious
apartments that come equipped with concubines
known only as furniture. Like real furniture,
it has no voice, no rights and is completely
under the ownership and authority of its
master. The dead are no longer given funerals.
They are simply dumped into garbage trucks and
disposed of at a location outside the city. The
third picture is taken from the service area
outside the euthanasia clinic. Here, the
attendant takes the corpse and dumps
unceremoniously dumps it into the back of a
garbage truck. The last image is taken during a
riot in the city market when the crowd realizes
the merchants have run out of Soylent Green.
Unfazed the police simply drive in and shovel the
rioters into the back of their trucks in a final
inhumane gesture.
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S O Y L E N T G R E E N
T E C H N O L O G Y 0 1
Three major themes emerge from Soylent Green, the
first of which is technology. Soylent Green
simultaneously embraces and condemns technology
as the builder and destroyer of the modern
city. The film begins with a short sequence of
still images that document the evolution and
fallout of the machine. Beginning with simple
devices like the fishing rod, the images rapidly
move into transportation technologies like the
automobile and airplane. At this point, the
images begin to show parking lots, traffic jams,
elevated highways and suburban developments.
Finally, the full implications of industrial
technologies are depicted in images of garbage
dumps, smoke stacks, junkyards and other polluted
environments. While the first images of the
automobile and airplane evoke the modernist
excitement and faith in the machine, the latter
represent the implications of rampant
technological abuse.
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S O Y L E N T G R E E N
T E C H N O L O G Y 0 2
The same love/hate relationship with technology
carries over to each scene in Simonsons
apartment. Shot from the exterior, we understand
the complex represents a higher standard of
living than the surrounding squalor. In each
scene that takes place inside the apartment, the
viewer is seduced by the amenities afforded by
technology. From the video game console, to the
running water, to the air conditioning each
device seemingly makes life easier, or more fun
than life without it. Based in the
science-fiction genre, the entire genre is based
on the aesthetic and seductive nature of
technological advancement. Even in a blatantly
openly dystopic and pessimistic film, the alure
of technology still