| The SF, Horror and Fantasy Film Review |
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ROLLERBALL
Rating:
 ½
USA. 1975.
Director/Producer – Norman Jewison, Screenplay – William Harrison, Based on his Short Story Roller Ball Murder, Photography – Douglas Slocombe, Music Supervisor – Andre Previn, Special Effects – Sass Bedig, Joe Fitt & John Richardson, Production Design – John Box. Production Company – United Artists.
Cast:
James Caan (Jonathan E.), John Houseman (Bartholomew), Maud Adams (Ella), John Beck (Moonpie), Moses Gunn (Cletus), Ralph Richardson (Zero)
Plot: In the year 2018 all world problems have been quelled by the establishment of huge corporations which control resources. The masses are pacified and violence diverted by the spectacle of the ultra-violent game of Rollerball, a combination of pro-football, motocross rally and gladiatorial combat, in which players are frequently killed. One of the most successful players, Jonathan E., has become a superstar with the Houston team. The corporations fears this idolatry and ask him to retire. He refuses and goes on a quest to discover why corporate decisions are made. His defiance provokes the corporation who place him in a game with no rules or time limit to dispose of him.
This was one of the few A-budget and few successful sf films made prior to the big 1977 sf boom. It came from Norman Jewison, a director who had had success with films like In the Heat of the Night (1967), The Thomas Crown Affair (1968) and Jesus Christ Superstar (1973).
Jewison and screenwriter William Harrison (an acclaimed short storyist) are making a message movie. They signpost it and announce it all very clearly for us to see in a rather heavy-handed way – they are taking to task violence in sports and making a message about the triumph of individualism. It was one of the first dystopian sf films to rehearse the theme of the heroic individual triumphing against the mindless conformity of a totalitarian future. The future seen here falls very much in the 1970s vision of the future as seen by the likes of 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), The Andromeda Strain (1971), THX 1138 (1971) and Zardoz (1974) – where the future had either become or was becoming such a place of technological perfection that humanity was in danger of being drowned in sterility. Here society has been made perfect (some nicely futuristic locations in Dallas) but in all of it there seems a sense of serene dissatisfaction. One of the film’s most potent images is a frighteningly decadent one where a group of bored partygoers detonate trees with a flaregun. Although ironically of all 1970s dystopian futures Rollerball’s is the closest to actually having come true with its visions of a corporate elite ruling the world and cathartic ultra-violent sports being used to placate the masses – if you have any doubt about this look at the popularity of the Superbowl and the WWF. (Although contrary to what the film here says, both of these obtain mass catharsis through the promotion of individuality rather than its suppression).
Frequently though Jewison and Harrison do mistake the depiction of sterility for an onscreen bordeom. The film often becomes bogged down in solemn, stodgy dramatics. And, although the film spends much time on the subject, we are never engaged in any of James Caan’s crises about reconciling with his wife or his teammate being placed in a coma. Where the film does have a real visceral kick is contrarily exactly where it is supposedly trying to condemn – the effectively brutalizing nastiness and not-inconsiderable violence of the Rollerball game itself. We really do feel and become engaged in its kinesis and the brutality of its impact.
Most of the performances are fairly bland. John Houseman plays with implacable dignity, but the one who does add some brief colour in his few moments on screen is Ralph Richardson in an amusing performance as an eccentric librarian dealing with the irascible world’s central computer which has just misplaced information: “There goes the 14th Century – ah well, only Dante and a few corrupt popes.”
The theme of gladiatorial sports as public spectacle of the future has become a resilient theme since with the likes of The Running Man (1987), Temmink: The Ultimate Fight (1998) and the tv movie Future Sport (1998). The same year as this Roger Corman and director Paul Bartel made the amusing future sports satire Death Race 2000 (1975), which was actually designed as a quick low-budget cash-in on Rollerball but makes the same points with far less bombast.
The film was later remade as Rollerball (2002), which stripped the film of all message and the struggle for individuality themes, indeed even its futuristic setting, and mounted it as merely an action film.
Jewison later returned to the genre as producer of the fine revived caveman film Iceman (1984) and to direct the invisible companion children’s film Bogus (1996).
Copyright Richard Scheib 1990
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