What happened to your reaction of Pompeii?

This album / movie has haunted me for nearly half a century now. It's by far more terrifying than a horror film about mythical monsters or specters. This is the real time terror of a mind disintegrating and tumbling into madness. The story of someone stretched past their ability to cope with their life's traumas. Replaying them in memory, alone in a foreign hotel with the TV playing. "In perfect isolation behind the wall" they built.

The last scene is important. Watch each child. The little girl is collecting milk bottles (ie food) the one little boy is collecting bricks (ie to rebuild) and the last little boy dumps out the malatoph cocktail (ie disarming). I seen this alot as a teen but never noticed that until I was an adult.

Pinky's poem is "Money" lyrics.

"Outside The Wall" ( closing song during credits  )

All alone or in twos
The ones who really love you
Walk up and down outside the wall

Some hand-in-hand
And some gathered together in bands
The bleeding hearts and the artists make their stand

And when they've given you their all
Some stagger and fall, after all it's not easy
Banging your heart against some mad bugger's wall

Isn't this where we...

From the outset, Pink’s life revolves around an abyss of loss and isolation. Born during the final throes of a war that claimed the lives of nearly 300,000 British soldiers – Pink’s father among them – to an overprotective mother who lavishes equal measures of love and phobia onto her son, Pink begins to build a mental wall between himself and the rest of the world so that he can live in a constant, alienated equilibrium free from life’s emotional troubles. Every incident that causes Pink pain is yet another brick in his ever-growing wall: a fatherless childhood, a domineering mother, an out-of-touch education system bent on producing compliant cogs in the societal wheel, a government that treats its citizens like chess pieces, the superficiality of stardom, an estranged marriage, even the very drugs he turns to in order to find release. As his wall nears completion – each brick further closing him off from the rest of the world – Pink spirals into a veritable Wonderland of insanity. Yet the minute it’s complete, the gravity of his life’s choices sets in. Now shackled to his bricks, Pink watches helplessly (or perhaps fantasizes) as his fragmented psyche coalesces into the very dictatorial persona that antagonized the world during World War II, scarred his nation, killed his father, and, in essence, affected his life from birth. As much as this story tips toward nihilistic victimhood, there also runs a strong existentialist countercurrent in which freedom cannot be separated from personal responsibility. The narrative culminates in a mental trial as theatrically rich as the greatest stage shows, with Pink’s tale ending with a message that is as enigmatic and circular as the rest of his life. Whether it is ultimately viewed as a cynical story about the futility of life, or a hopeful journey of metaphoric death and rebirth, the Wall is certainly a musical milestone worthy of the title “art.”

Eric Fletcher Waters second lieutenant of the British Royal Fusiliers, the father of ROGER WATERS, bassist, composer and singer of PINK FLOYD.
Eric Fletcher Waters was one of the British soldiers who landed at Anzio (little town near Rome - Italy) whose body was missing: he died aged 31 on 18 February 1944.
Roger was only 5 months old at the time and grew up with the serious lack of a father figure, reporting his internal suffering in some of Pink Floyd's songs.  In “WHEN THE TIGERS BROKE FREE” written by Roger in 1982, the singer attempted to describe his father's death in the operations to defend the Anzio bridgehead. Poignant in the piece is the memory of the moment in which, at the bottom of a drawer, he found a parchment sent by King George VI to communicate his father's death. With great bitterness he noted that the letter had not even been signed by hand, but only with a rubber stamp. Due to his sad personal experience, Roger Waters has always demonstrated a pacifist tendency, against war and religious discrimination.  I was born in Rome, Italy to Italia n parents on 1 July 1964 and if I live in a free country I also owe it to Eric Fletcher Waters second lieutenant of the British Royal Fusiliers

This is probably the film I’ve watched more than any other, and I could talk for hours about its music, imagery, and psychology. But as a German who knows the history of his own country, I want to say just one thing: especially with what’s happening in parts of the world right now, it is absolutely right — maybe even necessary — for art to show clearly where xenophobia and fascism lead if they are allowed to grow. This is not something that happened “once, long ago, only in Germany.” The Wall is a warning, not a relic.

1:35:51 His mother actually did show him love. She was a smothering mother who would give TOO MUCH love and was super overprotective.  His wife wanted to show him love as well, but he had shut her out emotionally which led to her having an affair.  (In the album version he cheated first through due to his sexual repression as a result of his mother's smothering)

The grinding up of students is symbolic, to show how the school system tries and makes all the students the same.

the death of the rat that he was trying to save always gets me

The operator driving the stake thru his heart with “There’s a man answering”. Yet another brick in the wall.

20:05 this part always gets me right in the feels. My dad fought in WWII,  and although he came home safe and raised 8 kids, he passed away in 2020 during the whole c-19 flu thing at age 93 from dementia.  I still miss him very much.

37:19 Fun Fact. The operator is a real recording of a AT&T  telephone operator and the reaction and tone of another man answering is completely real.

"The phone call originated at a recording studio in Los Angeles where the band was recording, the call was placed by Chief Engineer James Guthrie who called his own London apartment where Chris Fitzmorris, his next-door neighbor, was asked to answer the phone, listen to the operator and simply hang up the phone. The actual phone call was dubbed onto the end of the song.
The operator that can be heard talking to the caller was a real AT&T operator who was not informed that she was being recorded. Reportedly two such phone calls were placed, the operator in the first call apparently didn’t provide dialog that was thought to be suitable so a second call was made which happened to capture a better discussion by the operator."

This was my favorite movie in the late 80's watched it so many times. Thank you for watching it with us.

The Nazi themes in this movie are a warning. Pink Floyd weren't racists. Roger Waters father died fighting in Anzio, Italy in World War Two.

@1:39:15 I beleive, IMHO, Syd plays a role in a lot of Roger's stories/lyrics. I confer, this is not a story about Syd but he is often an influence to many of Roger's storylines. Syd went mad and became isolated in his madness and that loss was overwhelmingly to Roger. In a "hopeful" outcome for Roger (IRL) Syd's walls could have come down and he and Roger could have been reunited. So yes, I agree that "tearing" down walls in impracticale and dangerous. Here the story tries to paint a "happy/hopeful" ending for all the "bleeding hearts and the artists" who have been endlessly (out of love) "beating their hearts against some mad bugger's wall".

I'll never forget seeing this at the late night movies at Northridge Mall in Brown Deer, WI back in '83. The theater was called "The Movies" and sadly,  that mall was just torn down last year. So sad, and so many memories.  Instead of "tear down the wall", it was "tear down the mall!" 😢

Roger Waters deciding to trauma dump all over the entire world was one of the best things that ever happened. Can you imagine being as famous as Pink Floyd and having all your deepest, darkest traumas right out there for the entire world to see? Terrifying.

Dave wrote the Run Like Hell song.He refuses to play it now, as he says it is too violent, and it makes him uncomfortable.