Pink Floyd The Wall. Now The Film.

The Memories. The Madness. The Music... The Movie.

Inspired by Pink Floyd's album of the same name, Pink Floyd: The Wall is a dark, expressionistic musical, told from the point of view of Pink, a depressed rock musician. The film is structured around Pink's reflections on his life, all of which center on the building of "the wall." This wall is a metaphor for psychological isolation, a barrier Pink creates to distance himself from his pain. The foundations for this wall are lain in childhood, with the death of Pink's father leaving him to be raised by an overprotective mother and a repressive school system. He seeks freedom from this world through writing and music. However, even after he achieves success as a rock star, the wall continues to grow, with Pink feeling trapped by fame and wounded by his failed personal relationships. Lost in despair and self-loathing, he attempts to isolate himself from the world entirely. Director Alan Parker approaches this material in a highly stylized manner, mingling animation and dream-like sequences to suggest Pink's perception of the world. These techniques complement the almost constant music, which the film often uses in place of dialogue. Songs include "Another Brick in the Wall" and "Comfortably Numb".

For the Pink Floyd album, see The Wall. For other works related to the Pink Floyd album, see Wall (disambiguation)#Music.
Pink Floyd – The Wall
Pink floyd the wall.jpg
Theatrical release poster
Directed by Alan Parker
Gerald Scarfe (animated scenes)
Produced by Alan Marshall
Screenplay by Roger Waters
Based on The Wall
by Pink Floyd
Narrated by Pink Floyd
Starring Bob Geldof
Christine Hargreaves
Eleanor David
Alex McAvoy
Bob Hoskins
Michael Ensign
Music by Pink Floyd
with
Bob Ezrin
Michael Kamen
Cinematography Peter Biziou
Editing by Gerry Hambling
Studio Goldcrest Films International
Tin Blue
Distributed by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (original)
Warner Bros. (current theatrical and TV distributor)
Release date(s)
23 May 1982 (Cannes)
14 July 1982 (United Kingdom)
Running time 95 minutes
Country United Kingdom
Language English
Box office $22,244,207
Pink Floyd – The Wall is a 1982 British live-action/animated musical film directed by Alan Parker based on the 1979 Pink Floyd album The Wall. The screenplay was written by Pink Floyd vocalist and bassist Roger Waters. The film is highly metaphorical and is rich in symbolic imagery and sound. It features very little dialogue and is mainly driven by the music by Pink Floyd.
The film contains fifteen minutes of elaborate animation sequences by the political cartoonist and illustrator Gerald Scarfe.


The Wall was shown "out of competition" during the 1982 Cannes Film Festival.[17]
The premiere at Cannes was amazing – the midnight screening. They took down two truckloads of audio equipment from the recording studios so it would sound better than normal. It was one of the last films to be shown in the old Palais which was pretty run down and the sound was so loud it peeled the paint of the walls. It was like snow - it all started to shower down and everyone had dandruff at the end. I remember seeing Terry Semel there, who at the time was head of Warner Brothers, sitting next to Steven Spielberg. They were only five rows ahead of me and I'm sure I saw Steven Spielberg mouthing to him at the end when the lights came up, 'what the fuck was that?' And Semel turned to me and then bowed respectfully.
What the fuck was that? indeed. It was like nothing anyone had ever seen before - a weird fusion of live action, story-telling and of the surreal.
Alan Parker[18]
The film's official premiere was at the Empire, Leicester Square[19] in London, on 14 July 1982. It was attended by Pink Floyd members Roger Waters, David Gilmour, and Nick Mason, but not Richard Wright,[19] because he was no longer a member of the band. It was also attended by various celebrities including Bob Geldof, Paula Yates, Gerald Scarfe, Pete Townshend, Sting, Roger Taylor, James Hunt, Lulu, and Andy Summers

The film opened with a limited release on 6 August 1982 and entered at #28 of the US box office charts despite only playing in one theatre on its first weekend, grossing over $68,000, a rare feat even by today's standards. The film then spent just over a month below the top 20 while still in the top 30. The film later expanded to over 600 theatres on 10 September, achieving #3 at the box office charts, below E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, and An Officer and a Gentleman. The film eventually earned $22 million before closing in early 1983. It earned its creators two British Academy Awards; 'Best Sound' for James Guthrie, Eddy Joseph, Clive Winter, Graham Hartstone & Nicholas Le Messurier;[22] and 'Best Original Song' for Waters.[22]
The film received generally favourable reviews. Reviewing The Wall on their television program At the Movies in 1982, film critics Roger Ebert and Gene Siskel gave the film "two thumbs up". Ebert described The Wall as "a stunning vision of self-destruction" and "one of the most horrifying musicals of all time...but the movie is effective. The music is strong and true, the images are like sledge hammers, and for once, the rock and roll hero isn’t just a spoiled narcissist, but a real, suffering image of all the despair of this nuclear age. This is a real good movie." Siskel was more reserved in his judgment, stating that he felt that the film’s imagery was too repetitive. However, he admitted that the "central image" of the fascist rally sequence "will stay with me for an awful long time." In February 2010, Roger Ebert added The Wall to his list of "great movies," describing the film as "without question the best of all serious fiction films devoted to rock. Seeing it now in more timid times, it looks more daring than it did in 1982, when I saw it at Cannes...It's disquieting and depressing and very good."[21] It was chosen for opening night of Ebertfest 2010.
While Rotten Tomatoes ranked the film with a critics review of 100% rating (of 17 reviews), the community of the website ranked the film with an 100% (out of 375 reviews). Danny Peary wrote that the "picture is unrelentingly downbeat and at times repulsive...but I don't find it unwatchable - which is more than I could say if Ken Russell had directed this. The cinematography by Peter Bizou is extremely impressive and a few of the individual scenes have undeniable power."[23]
Waters has expressed deep reservations about the film, saying that the filming had been "a very unnerving and unpleasant experience... we all fell out in a big way." As for the film itself, he said: "I found it was so unremitting in its onslaught upon the senses, that it didn't give me, anyway, as an audience, a chance to get involved with it," although he had nothing but praise for Geldof's performance.[24] Parker, who frequently clashed with Waters and Gerald Scarfe, described the filming as "one of the most miserable experiences of my creative life."[25] David Gilmour stated (on the "In the Studio with Redbeard" episodes of The Wall, A Momentary Lapse of Reason and On an Island) that the conflict between him and Waters started with the making of the film. Gilmour also stated on the documentary Behind The Wall (which was aired on the BBC in the UK and VH1 in the US) that "the movie was the less successful telling of The Wall story as opposed to the album and concert versions."
Although the symbol of the crossed hammers was a creation of the film and not related to any real racist group, it was adopted by Southern US racist group the Hammerskins in the late 1980s.


Release date: August 13, 1982 @ The Ziegfeld

Distrib: MGM

Boxoffice: $22,244,207 2013: $61,739,000