In a future Earth barren of all flora and fauna, the planet’s ecosystems exist only in large pods attached to spacecraft. When word comes in that the pods are to be jettisoned into space and destroyed, most of the crew of the Valley Forge rejoice at the prospect of going home. Not so for botanist Freeman Lowell who loves the forest and its creatures. He kills his colleagues taking the ship deep into space. Alone on the craft with his only companions being three small robots, Lowell revels in joys of nature. When colleagues appear to “rescue” him, he realizes he has only one option available to him.
Silent Running, had I seen it in 1972, probably would have been totally engrossing and astounding as a piece of science fiction film-making that pushed the special effects limits just a nudge further from 2001, and gave a positive (if rather, ultimately, bittersweet) message about taking care of the planet. Today, however, is when I saw the movie, and it’s sad for me to see how much of the film hasn’t aged very well. Not so much all of the special and visual effects; most of the exterior space shots and the repetitive (sometime too repetitive) shots of the Valley Forge ship drifting along, as well as that quick and trippy thrill-ride through the Saturn rings, are very well done for its time and work for the sake of the movie’s own reality of sorts. Just little things, like, say, all of the Joan Baez songs, which screeches the mood to a halt with its hippy-dippy flavor (unless, of course, you’re into that sort of thing).
That, and the fact that it being Douglas Trumbull’s first film as a director (he’s a well-deserved Oscar nominee for Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and has his name proudly stamped forever on 2001 and Blade Runner as a special effects man), and whether it was his call or that of the director of photography, Charles F. Wheeler, to shoot a lot of the interiors like it was for television (sometimes they’re creative with it, but for the most part it’s almost too basic for its own good). So, there are things like that, and a few little scenes (mostly early on with character actors Cliff Potts, Ron Rifkin and Jesse Vint) that fall flat. And yet… this is definitely, when it’s at its best, one of the most unusual and curious pieces in the genre from the period, or maybe any. Taking aside the pro-environment message of the film, it’s a really excellent story about a man going over that certain edge, and being possessive of the very thing that should be shared with the world.
It’s a complex character that the writers, Cimino, Bochco and Washburn have created here with Freeman Lowell (Bruce Dern), so much so that he’s both very complex and too simple-minded to figure on. He loves his forest and his trees, worked on it for 8 years, and is told at the drop of a dime to let it all go and the plans for repopulating the Earth with actual greenery is done with, and it’s back to a pat return to 75-degree all-the-time normalcy. He snaps, kills his co-pilots, and tries his best to break off contact with his boss ships. And yet there’s a level of loneliness seen as the film develops, a struggle with himself not being a bad person but one who’s torn up from what he’s done. All he has, apparently, are three strange, almost kinda cute robots he names Huey, Dewey and (after the fact of losing him around Saturn’s rings) Louie, who do tasks all over the ship.
What the film lacks in directorial polish, therefore, is made-up in spades by the wonderful story and this character who, for 2/3 of the movie, is the only human we see on screen. It’s so crucial then that the one consistently brilliant aspect is Bruce Dern’s performance. He’s an actor of incredible depth when called upon to action in the right part, and here he gives one of the best he had to offer in his prime period. He is so precise at going between subtlety, rage, bewilderment, amusement (i.e. poker game w/robots), sadness and shame, that he commands the screen every time he’s on; even when he’s put into a ridiculous bit walking outside of the ship in his blue suit walking normally- maybe the lamest moment of the movie- he does interesting stuff. In fact, I’d go as far as to say it was one of the best performances of that year, which had the likes of Brando and Pacino and Olivier to contend with. Now if only the rest of Silent Running, a very good but spotty film of and for its time, held up so well.
