Film Techniques: The Wall

            Pink Floyd: The Wall was rich in symbolism which was present in the audio of the songs as well as the in the visuals of the opera. In my opinion, this symbolism was most often used to communicate a feeling of powerlessness to the audience. The lyrics of one of the songs often repeated the phrase “You’re just another brick in the wall” which portrays the way the school system he was in made the children feel. They didn’t treat them like unique people, instead they tried to shake off these differences in order to mold the children into what they wanted them to be. Regardless of how much the children may want to resist this, it seemed nearly impossible to escape this system with any bit of individuality intact. Something that I found interesting was how this film portrayed those who took power away from the children as being powerless themselves. This was shown very well in the scene in which the school teacher was holding a student up by strings like a marionette doll and beating it with a ruler. The scene then zooms out and allows us to see strings coming off of the teacher, who is being held and beaten by his nagging wife who dominates him in his personal life at home. It seems that pink Floyd was trying to communicate the idea that every man is a slave to another regardless of who they are.

Finally, I think the theme of powerlessness was shown best by the rather abstract scene in which a leaf grows from a tree, turns brown, and falls off in the changing of the seasons. On its way down, it slowly tumbles and turns and as it does so it changes between being a leaf and being a man. This man is completely powerless to the slow, deliberate fall through his life but doesn’t seem to struggle. It is as if they’re showing how there are no breaks on the movement of time and since we cannot change it we must roll along with it during our short time here.