Silent Running dvd movie.|
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List Price: $14.98 Our Price: $10.99 You Save: $3.99 Features • Anamorphic • Closed-captioned • Color • DVD-Video • Widescreen • NTSC In Theaters : 10 March, 1972 DVD Release : 21 May, 2002 |
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Silent Running description After creating many of the innovative special effects for 2001: A Space Odyssey, Douglas Trumbull tried his hand at directing, and 1971's Silent Running marked an impressive debut. (In addition to creating the visual effects for Close Encounters of the Third Kind and directing 1983's Brainstorm, Trumbull later turned to the creation of high-tech cinematic amusement park rides.) One of the best science fiction films of the 1970s, Silent Running stars Bruce Dern as Freeman Lowell, a nature-loving crewmember aboard the Valley Forge, a gigantic spaceship in a small fleet that carries the last surviving forests of the Earth, which has fallen victim to overpopulation and ecological neglect. Freeman's name reflects his nonconformist philosophy, which runs counter to the prevailing recklessness of his three ill-fated crewmates, who are eager to jettison their precious payload and return to the bleakness of Earth. Before they can sabotage the forests, Freeman does what he must, and spends the remainder of his mission with three robotic "drones" as his only companions, struggling to maintain his sanity in the vastness of space. Dern is superb in this memorable role, representing the lost soul of humankind as well as the back-to-nature youth movement of the 1960s and the pre-Watergate era. (Appropriately, Joan Baez sings the film's theme song.) A rare science fiction film that combines bold adventure with passionate social conscience, Silent Running will remain relevant as long as the Earth is threatened by the ravages of human carelessness. --Jeff Shannon |
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| ♥♥♥♥♥ | Flawed by having almost no story |
| If SILENT RUNNING were literature instead of a film, it would be accused of being a short short story masquerading as a novel. Its greatest claim to fame is having been made by 2001 special effects guru Douglas Trumbull. And there is no question that this is visually the most interesting SF film between 2001 and STAR WARS. Like 2001 it was a SF film that was not intended to go directly to a drive in double bill. It was intended to be taken seriously.
There is no question that this is a film with good intentions and it was certainly made with great attention. And Huey, Dewey, and the posthumously named Louie are among the most beloved and fondly remembered movie robots (I suppose most people know that the robots were performed by multiple amputee humans). But the brute fact is that there simply isn't much of a story. And what little story there is, is pretty danged bleak. It is surprising that there is so little in the way of interesting story -- well, heck, that there is so little story at all, interesting or otherwise. This was a talented trio of writers. Michael Cimono and Deric Washburn would later win an Oscar for DEER HUNTER, while Steve Bocho would reinvent television with HILL STREET BLUES and other projects. In the end, SILENT RUNNING ends up being a visually less interesting distillation of the duller parts of 2001. I will add that Bruce Dern is very good in what is essentially the only role in the movie (though I was amazed to see that I literally couldn't recognize Ron Rifkin in his small role). I suppose students of SF should see it because of its "classic" status, but to be honest, it is not a terribly interesting film. |
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