Bob Geldof on The Wall “I don’t like the film. I think I’m really bad....I don’t like the Record

[Gilmourisgod]

I disagree I love the film I have all the different masterings of the cd MFSL etc and immersion box set. I also own all the unauthorised bootlegs and videos.
I own all the concert programmes and tickets and Vernon Fitch book.
I have in my collection one of the original scripts what belonged to Alan Parker RIP

[David S CA]

As a lonely, awkward and nerdy high school senior, I listened to The Wall's two LPs every afternoon after I got home from school on repeat for more than half a year. At the time, I related to Roger's expressions of isolation, angst and anger of the situation he felt living as a rock star. To this day, I still find the album to be a masterpiece of writing, performance, production and cover art. But it is a heavy slog emotionally. I still appreciate The Wall, the album, as a great work of art, but I listen to it infrequently, because of that heaviness.

As I was so engaged with the album, I saw the movie immediately when it first came out in the theaters. I remember being so excited to see it, especially since I also really liked the Boomtown Rats album The Fine Art of Surfacing. I had high hopes for Bob Geldof portraying Pink.

But The Wall, the movie, was a real let-down. Despite the great music soundtrack, the imagery did not convey the passion of the performance on the album, and, worst of all, the moment of redemption and transcendence of the narrative, "Outside The Wall", was relegated to the credits section of the movie. I walked out of the theater with a very bitter feeling towards the production of the movie.

Thirty-eight years on since the movie's original release, I found myself in the midst of a shelter-in-place due to the Covid pandemic. During 2020, I felt much solace in the, for me, re-discovered music of Pink Floyd. So, I ordered a copy of The Wall DVD from Amazon to give the movie another chance. Unfortunately, I felt no better about the movie in 2020 than I felt about it back in 1982.

So, I agree with Bob's opinion of the movie. But I don't put the blame on his acting. I think the movie's main weaknesses are its direction and editing. Somehow, despite the great material Alan Parker and editor Gerry Hambling had to work with, the movie does not make a connection to me anywhere close to how I connected with The Wall, the album.

[Alanko]

I've seen the movie, years ago, but it didn't leave much lasting impression. Lots of brown-grey haziness and visual metaphors getting beaten (or hammered!) to death. Not as clever or edgy as i feel it was intended, perhaps, with a snide University PolSoc debating team earnestness about it. A joyless, unfunny version of Terry Gilliam's Brazil, without the wit and with only a marginally better soundtrack.

If the character Pink is a vehicle for Roger Waters to express his own feelings about various things then I struggle to muster any sympathy. Morose, self-pitying rock star; upset because his gigs became too big and impersonal. Let's work in a bit of Nazi imagery, clumsy mental illness storyline and weird, paranoid misogyny.

Risking my Floyd Fan status slightly, but I've never liked Gerald Scarfe's footling, scratchy cartoons. Either as static images or brought to life as lurching cartoons. Basic visual metaphors flogged to death, yet again.


Cutting between dreary scenes filmed on a big and obvious, very '80s-looking soundstage, and jerky cartoons does not a good film make.