![]() ![]() Even more problematic: Rollerball doesn’t seem like a particularly convincing distraction for the masses. He seems more angry than soulful, which pays off nicely in the bloody finale, but doesn’t really work for the rest of the film. “I yearn for high, lost, important thoughts, and that maybe, just maybe, I’ve got a deep rupture in the soul,” the original story’s Jonathan laments. It’s filled with suggestive details that need a bit more attention than they get in the film: the solemn singing of corporate anthems, the merry-go-round-like rotation of sexual partners among the privileged, and the indescribable ennui that afflicts those who think too hard about it all. That’s partly because Harrison’s short story, which the author adapted for the screen himself, reads more like a sketch than a blueprint. And as dystopias go, Rollerball’s never seems particularly believable. As fictional games go, it makes more sense than Quidditch, but not that much more. The tone wobbles between “meditative” and “sleepy,” and neither the world nor the sport get fleshed out satisfactorily. A later trip to Switzerland to visit the central computer on which all books are stored results in one of the decade’s less-probable visions of where technology was headed: toward an easily confused, water-based system named Zero, a “memory pool” that doubles as “the world’s brain.” But while the technology now looks laughable, the implications about knowledge and power in the digital age to come don’t:Īs a movie, Rollerball is less than perfect. Trying to correct this, Jonathan looks for books on the subject, only to find they’ve been placed off limits. ![]() That begins with the basic knowledge about how the world is run. And all it asks, all it has ever asked of anyone ever, is not to interfere with management decisions.” After his initial refusal to retire, Jonathan starts freely questioning those decisions, in the process realizing how much he, and everyone else, has surrendered. “Corporate society takes care of everything. “No poverty, no sickness, no needs, and many luxuries,” Bartholomew explains. While the eponymous sport figures prominently in the 1975 original, it’s less an action movie than a moody consideration of what it means to give up freedom for comfort. Rollerball is a widely misremembered film, in part because its posters and other marketing materials play up the game sequences, and in part thanks to a 2002 remake, about which the less said, the better. Having conquered the world with the free distribution of bread and circuses, they now have only one thing to fear: a man who can’t be bought. They’ve created a civilization in which individual achievement can have no part. He’s getting to be bigger than the sport itself, and by the overlords’ thinking, that won’t work out well for anyone in the long run. Bartholomew (John Houseman), that he should pack in his skates in exchange for a life of even greater pleasure and privilege than the one he now enjoys. A superstar for Houston’s team (like all teams, it’s owned by a corporate conglomerate, in his case, the Energy Corporation), Jonathan keeps receiving unsubtle encouragement from Energy’s chairman, Mr. A veteran in a sport that grinds through athletes, Jonathan has become one of the most famous men on the planet. True, democracy has given way to corporate control, but nobody seems to mind that much, especially with the distraction 0f Rollerball, a sport brutal, popular sport that grows more popular the bloodier it becomes.Īnd as the game’s biggest star, Jonathan E (James Caan), keeps noticing, it’s getting bloodier all the time. That’s the case in Rollerball, a Norman Jewison-directed 1975 adaptation of William Harrison’s 1973 short story “Roller Ball Murder.” Despite allusions to upheaval in the recent past, Rollerball depicts a world of peace and prosperity. Sometimes the toll isn’t that obvious-it’s just an insidious tax slipped into everyday life. One string of 1970s films portray paradise found, but at the cost of what makes us human. But what of futures that managed to have everything and then some? Why would this be something to fear? (Less common but still present fears: killer computers, disruptive ape visitors, underground bats, and other threats this column will get to in due time.) The world of Soylent Green managed the ruin of Earth with an iron fist, while No Blade Of Grass and A Clockwork Orange depict worlds spinning out of control. ![]() ![]() The science-fiction movies of the 1970s suggest a number of common fears were in the air: chaos, deprivation, and totalitarianism, usually in some combination. ![]()
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