The Wall

Pink Floyd is a very popular rock band in London, England in 1965 composed mainly by: Syd Barrett, Roger Waters, David Gilmour, Nick Mason and Rick Wright. Syd Barrett was the song writer of the band but a year after the launch of Pink Floyd, he left the band because of his mental health and the band stayed with only 4 members. After this tragic departure, Roger Waters became the main song writer of the band. In 1979, the album “The wall” got released containing 26 songs which most of them were written by Roger Waiters based on the tragic events of his life. According to the band, “the "wall" is the self-isolating barrier we build over the course of our lives, and the "bricks in the wall" are the people and events that turn us inward and away from others.”  A movie was made based on the story that the songs in the album are telling, and more specifically Roger Waiters Life with only one character named “Pink”. Instead of telling the story in a traditional format, the band used surreal images and the music in their album “The wall”. The movie is about isolation and alienation. Alienation is when you feel you have no connection with the people around you, and depressed people are usually the ones who feel this way.

To explain to you more the link between Pink and Roger Waters, here’s an example: In the movie, Pink is a boy who had lost his father during the war and at a very young age and kept searching for him through London which is very similar to Roger Waters story, who also at a very young age lost his father during the world war 2.

During the movie, we can witness how Pink builds an allegorical (and once in a while physical) wall to be shielded from the world and enthusiastic circumstances around him. This wall is made, as I said earlier, by all the people and events that happened during Pink’s life.  Each occurrence that causes Pink torment is yet another brick in his regularly developing wall: a fatherless childhood, an oppressive mother, a withdrawn instruction framework keen on creating agreeable pinions in the societal wheel, an administration that treats its residents like chess pieces, the triviality of fame, a repelled marriage, even the drugs he swings to in order to find relief. And these events are very similar to the ones in Roger’s life; he said it in multiple interviews like the one done by Tommy Vance, a radio one DJ. He admitted that he always felt lonely and isolated from the world. Now alienation and isolation are two very common feelings. Numerous sociologists have watched and remarked upon an expansion in this sentiment estrangement among youngsters since the 1960s. They credit this estrangement to an assortment of societal conditions: the fast changes in the public arena amid this period, the expansion in liquor and drug misuse, viciousness in the media, or the absence of collective qualities in the way of life on the loose. A few sociologists watch that people get to be distanced when they see government, business, or instructive foundations as cool and unoriginal, lethargic to the individuals who require their administrations.

We could really see the relationship between the explanation of the scientists about alienation and isolation, and the life of Pink in the movie “The wall” and also with the life that Roger Waters lived.