Tearing Down The Wall

What I Think The Movie, The Wall, Is About: Tearing Down The Wall

    The movie, The Wall, written by Roger Waters, the lead singer of Pink Floyd, is a very interesting movie to begin to analyze, twenty seven years later after it was released in theaters.  I believe that the movie, directed by Alan Parker, is a very complex movie that encompasses both relationships between man and the world, man and himself, man’s struggle for self control, man’s important values, as well as the belief that man is better than he thinks he is if he only can center himself and go through life a changed man.  I also think that the movie, The Wall, is about the process that man experiences as he transcends through life according to time, through aging, comprehension, and wisdom.  The movie, The Wall, details the changes that man must make in order to see through “the walls” that exist in their own lives, and tear them down, piece by piece, correctly; this part is enacted through education, and powerful thinking, in order to achieve what man feels he is really worth in an industrial environment.  Essentially, man believes that if he can tear down these walls, then the wars he is fighting will come to an end.

    Once man approaches adulthood, he realizes that he has become part of a bigger picture that the world has created either before his existence, during his childhood, or presently as an adult.  This bigger picture is always getting bigger, with new philosophies, hopes, values, lessons man learns growing up, and many other idiosyncratic routines that man is expected to live in accordance with, hopefully harmoniously.  It is very smart for a man to begin to take inventory on where and how he can fit into this world that is established just for him.  This begins in childhood when a child is able to see the world from a different perspective, not just the perspective of a youth, but from the perspective of a person who will one day become an adult.  As a person gets older, he still does not possess the entire perspective he needs to be as successful as an adult, but he gets the feeling that he is more capable and that he will in fact become more successful at becoming a happy adult by the time he reaches adulthood.  You see both of these modes of motivation pertaining to man’s relationship to the world in the movie, when the main character, Pink, is shown as a very young child, as well as a few years down the road.  As Pink becomes older, you see that he has made it as a very successful rock artist, and that even though he is loved by fans, and numerous women, he has began to suffer from feelings of isolation, self loathing, and loneliness; the movie, near the end does in fact emphasize that Pink was loved by three important women, and that is important to remember.  Although Pink gets older, and is now successful, he lives in secluded dark hotel rooms, locked in from the rest of the world, he has a brisk with suicide after convincing himself that he cannot be cured of his self, and that the world would be a better place without him.  It is at this point in the film that Pink begins to mutate into a different sort of person, a person who has given up all signs of hope in himself, because he does not believe he is worth it, but through this becomes a totally enlivened person who can perform to the best of his abilities, because he has refused to give up hope in himself, perhaps unconsciously.  There is a belief that if you think of something, you can do it, and I think that Pink’s character in The Wall wanted things his whole life, and he possessed the right tools after years of wanting, and caring for himself, that he was able to find something in himself to break through the blurred areas of his life that plagued him to finally find some clarity that would end up expulsing the confusion that had either surrounded him, or that he felt surrounded him.  Pink is destitute for answers that only he himself, and those closest to him know exist for Pink.  If Pink questions himself enough, and challenges himself enough, that he can liberate himself, and find new self defining reasons for his relationship in the world around him.  During this attempt to free him from the shackles of life that have caused him pain so far, he is thrust into a fantasy world that allows him to realize that it is not worth his giving up, that all of his self exploration, and answer seeking was indeed worth all of his attempts, trials, and tribulations, and that he is in fact worthy of finding a way into a new world that will offer him a better life, thus, breaking down the walls between him, and the rest of the world, and no longer living in isolation and pain, instead, becoming apart of a greater whole, or self induced state of peace.

    Pink is not satisfied with the life he has created for him.  Pink is an optimistic character in The Wall, even though he does not always appear this way, and instead morose, sitting behind a television screen, smoking, staring off into space.  It is clear though, after watching some of the film, that Pink is indeed in thought, and he is desperate for answers that will make him feel better about himself.  When Pink is finally at the point of feeling entirely hopeless, and shaves his body, and rests behind his television set, bleeding, the room begins to become animated, and it is clear that all of his resentment toward himself must stop because he is looking as feeble as he feels, and that he is ready to face his demons, or else fail at everything he has worked at up until this point.  Pink prepares himself to ready these approaching demons by getting serious on the things that have always made him feel small, and finally, when he does appear fed up, shaven, and frustrated, and ready to fight, then the evil that hid behind the walls appear, and he stands tall against them, hoping that his mind and his emotions, and his physical body can bold the elements, and the events that follow.  Pink is able to face his demons by means of observation.  When he feels something is bothering him, he is observant enough to try and find out what it is.  Pink’s fearlessness, and belief in himself are his tools that allow him to be brave enough to become a better person, and in an essence, shed his old skin like a snake would.  Pink would not be able to force about a change if he did not have an educated point of view.  If Pink were unable to academically analyze and make sense of some of the problems he felt he suffered from, then he wouldn’t be able to handle a situation that gets him out of feeling worthless, and let down.  As Pink begins to fight the adversity in himself, he realizes that he hasn’t done anything wrong, and that nothing is really his fault, but that there is a growing sense of purpose in his life that he must adhere to.  This is how man’s relationship with himself will allow him to stay himself, without leaving himself behind.  It could be estimated that man deems himself very important, and does not want to let himself down, because he knows what is right for him, and that it is smart to try and respect those feelings and nurture them accordingly so.

    In the context of the movie, The Wall, Pink is left alone from a very early age, and his search for self control, and attainment over the situation drives him to find the best life of what is left for him to discover in himself.  Pink’s father died in the movie while at war, while he was still a child.  Pink is left utterly off of the hook when it comes to his own self discovery at first, and decides that he must utilize all of his god given talents and tools to figure out how to survive in the modern world.  Through schooling, Pink is given the opportunity to find a sense of self that will stand the tests of time, and that it isn’t always easy at times to get along with the idea of conformity, and that there is indeed an industrial world that thrives on this sort of person that they create out of regular people who are in fact Pink’s schoolmates.  By acknowledging this sort of factorization of persons, Pink creates his own perception on how he should live his life, because he no longer identifies with his fellow schoolmates, and begins to realize that he must take control of his own path in life, and find what challenges there are out there for him.  This plan of attack works out for Pink, but there had to have been many of life’s challenges for Pink, because he becomes a famous rock star, part way through the film.  It is often you will see a person who has chosen his or her own path, and found the right environments for their own success to begin to seek enlightenment, after it seems that there is nowhere else to go after lots of time spent achieving things and working at being a success in their own right, and that they have begun to feel that they’ve reached a dead end of sorts.  In order for this enlightenment to work though, Pink feels that he has become so good at being a “lone gun” that he wants to establish an enlightenment that will change lives, something he has built for everyone to experience, because he realizes that it is not important for him to feel alone, and isolated, and that the very reason behind his experiencing this was because he knew that his work was taking him someplace, but that it all needed to finally change.  Pink knows to channel his enlightenment to others by the end of the film, because of his observant attitude about life that he embodied for many years; Pink had essentially lived through so much pain, confusion, and guilt, that he knew these things were bad, and all he really wanted was for these feelings to leave him, but for good.  Self control is important for Pink, and he learns this from his school teacher, who is illustrated as a puppet, partly because the school teacher knows what he is teaching, but other things that Pink sees at school he doesn’t relate to.  It can be assumed that Pink exhibits much of this self control, and composure throughout much of his adult life, until it finally brings him to the point where he can show the world that it works, and that it worked for him, and has made him into a rock star, and an icon.  The Wall goes to show that, in one aspect, self control is important, and obeying the rules can lead to greater things, namely becoming a responsible person, and this is illustrated best when Pink finally undergoes his big change, largely because of his knowing that what he is doing is a prescribed method of behavior, and that according to the schoolteacher, Pink has lived a model life so far, in his doings, and his mode of thinking.  Pink exhibits self control by refusing to give up, not without answers, and is eventually led to a more powerful stance on who he actually is.  With Pink’s new version of enlightenment, it is important to him to remember that self control helped get him there, and that his future is completely in his own hands, thanks to his own patience and perseverance.  The fact that the film was written in an autobiographical way, by Roger Waters, could mean that although the character Pink has gotten over this hump that he is always referring to, that his being in his late twenties, may illustrate that as we get older, life’s challenges get bigger, and that all of the reflection and pain that he experiences both during childhood, and as the rock star, are symbolic of the challenges he is experiencing as he approaches the enlightened, older Pink.  It might be important to think that Pink has no more challenges to face as he grows even older, and they have ceased to cause him as much pain as they did when he was young, or just before he becomes the powerful icon.