Essay: I Can't Stop Thinking About This Scene From 'Soylent Green'
And it has nothing to do with the famous catchphrase
Soylent Green is probably best known as a punchline. In 1993, Phil Hartman parodied the movie on Saturday Night Live, although he was making fun of Soylent Green’s growling, manly-star, Charlton Heston, more than the actual movie.
**Spoiler alert: I hate writing a spoiler alert for a movie that came out in 1973, but if you haven’t seen Soylent Green, rent it now. It’s good.**
In the sketch, Hartman’s Heston shouts the film’s stunning final line: “Soylent Green is people!” It was hilarious at the time and still is, though both Hartman and Heston have faded somewhat from pop culture consciousness. Hartman was one of the most talented comedic actors SNL ever produced. Heston is still recognizable as Moses and as the astronaut in Planet of the Apes. That is a classic, but Soylent Green is Heston’s best post-apocalyptic movie—he made more than two.
The dramatic line “Soylent Green is people” refers to Heston’s futuristic cop character discovering that New York City is being fed free crackers secretly made from the dead. Soylent Green is a sci-fi drama set in an overpopulated 2022, where resources are scarce and the climate has collapsed. The only thing keeping hot, crowded cities from plunging into anarchy is brutal police forces and inexpensive plankton-based foods called Soylent, supplied by a powerful and mysterious corporation.
The movie isn’t funny. It’s disturbingly prescient, a rare dystopia made decades ago that still holds up. “Soylent Green is people” is still a catchphrase that can get a laugh when used correctly—especially when mysterious food is served. But the film chillingly predicts that humanity will grow and grow until we eat each other.
Soylent Green is full of sublimely depressing little moments. During a routine murder investigation at a rich man’s apartment, Heston is shocked by unheard-of luxuries: soap, ice for drinks, and even sex slaves they call “furniture.” Heston is grimy the whole movie. The stairs to his apartment are covered with homeless people trying to sleep. The world is dying in Soylent Green. There is no future, only survival. It’s no wonder the movie isn’t as beloved as the one about talking monkeys.
It was a movie that moved my mom when it came out, which is why it was one of the first films our family rented when we bought our first VCR. I suppose we should have watched a Disney movie or maybe Superman first—but no. There’s one scene I’ve never been able to forget. It’s also a reminder that the conversation about climate change has been happening for a long, long time—even if very little has been done. Humanity was warned.
The scene involves Heston’s elderly roommate, Sol Roth, played by Edward G. Robinson in his last film role. Robinson died of bladder cancer twelve days after the shooting wrapped. This was the second time the legendary star of Little Caesar appeared alongside Heston, the first being The Ten Commandments. Robinson is marvelous in this part.
Roth realizes that the oceans are gone, and there is no plankton: Soylent is a lie. This revelation drives him to despair. He writes Heston’s character a note about going “home,” and Heston cannot stop him in time. “Going home” refers to a large, clean euthanasia clinic, where people are asked their favorite color and music, laid on a bed, and given a poison to drink. They are shown suppressed movies of what Earth once was—rivers, trees, mountains, animals—all extinct.
And while ocean waves crash and the sun shines, gorgeous classical music fills the room. It’s a final look at a beauty that no longer exists, a corporate entertainment designed to distract happy customers while they slowly expire. The scene is heartbreaking, and not just because it is one of Robinson’s last performances.
Heston’s character breaks into the control room that oversees Roth’s suicide, but he’s too late. And then he sees the impossible.
He’s also overwhelmed by images on the screen; he was born into a dead world. The two men share a few tender moments before the end. Later, Heston’s character will follow his friend’s corpse to a giant processing center and the ultimate truth. Soylent Green is people.
But it’s Robinson’s elderly Roth, staring with childlike awe at projections of crashing waves and a setting sun, before closing his eyes forever, that has stayed with me for years.
We will mourn the environment once it’s destroyed, and it will be too late. Those of us who remember it will talk about it, and the next generation will have to imagine what was lost.
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I love this film, the scene where Chuck brings home real meat, fruit and vegetables and Sol breaks down is my favourite. Not to viewed in a double bill with Silent Running - I can only take so much despair for the world.
I think about this film a lot. It really hit me when I first watched it when I was younger. We were exposed to so many different versions of the apocalypse in our sci-fi, from _Mad Max_ to _The Day After_ (42 years ago yesterday!). I was telling my wife the other day, of all those scenarios, it would figure that we're on track for the absolutely most depressing, most prolonged option. Every time I hear that particular music from that scene, I always find myself saying, "Can you see it? Can you see it?" "I can see it, Saul."
And of course, given current inflation, I have found myself astonished when my wife comes home with eggs or a certain cut of meat that she was able to buy "on sale" in a way that now makes both a kind of luxury; and that scene with Saul crying over the meager bread and jam that Thorn brings home.
Again, of all the damn apocalypse scenarios in film that I saw as a kid, it had to be this one that is actually coming to pass.