Rollerball (1975 film)
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Rollerball is a 1975 science fiction film directed by Norman Jewison from the 1974 short story Roller Ball Murder by William Harrison, which was published in Esquire magazine and subsequently nominated for the Pulitzer prize. Harrison himself wrote the screenplay for the film.
In the film, the world of 2018 is a global corporate state, containing entities such as the Energy Corporation, a global energy monopoly based in Houston which deals with nominally-peer corporations controlling access to all Transport, Luxury, Housing and Food on a global basis.
The film's title is the name of a violent, internationally popular sport around which the events of the film take place. It is similar to Roller Derby in that two teams clad in body armor skate on roller skates around a banked, circular track. There, however, the similarity ends. The object of the game is to score points by throwing a softball-sized metal ball into their goal, which is a cone-shaped area inset into the wall of the arena (the opposing team's goal being on the opposite side of the track). It is a full-contact sport in which players have considerable leeway to attack opposing players in order to take or maintain possession of the ball and to score points; in fact, in this overpopulated future, the object of the game in the original short story is to kill off the players. In addition, each team has three players who ride motorcycles to which teammates can latch on and be towed. The player in possession of the ball must hold it in plain view at all times.
Rollerball teams, named after the cities in which they are based, are owned by the various global corporations. Energy Corporation sponsors the Houston team. The game is a substitute for all current team sports, and for war. While its ostensible purpose is entertainment, it also serves to demonstrate a valuable lesson: the individual athletes pale in importance to the team itself (evident in the fact that only their numbers appear on their uniforms, and not their names), just as the individual is meaningless compared with the coporation-centered society, which is paramount. Or, as Mr. Bartholomew puts it, it is a sport designed to show the futility of individual effort.
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[edit] Plot summary
The film tells the story of Jonathan E, the veteran star of the Energy Corporation's Houston team, played by James Caan. By virtue of his stellar performance over the years, Jonathan has become the most recognizable Rollerballer in history to the point where random civilians all over the world recognize him on sight. Naturally this is problematic for the hegemonic corporations and their Brave New World-esque "Everybody belongs to everybody else" rubric, and so, after another stellar performance in Houston's season-ending victory over Madrid, he is encouraged to retire by Energy Corporation chairman Mr. Bartholomew, played by John Houseman, being offered a nice retirement package including a televised highlight show and an incentive package featuring "privileges", the currency of the society. It is revealed that Jonathan had a relationship with a woman Ella (played by Maud Adams) that ended when she was promised to an executive.
The film revolves around the struggle of Jonathan to understand why he would be facing so much pressure to retire, with the incentives turning into a gradual degradation of the game itself into so much senseless violence. It is announced that the semi-final game versus Tokyo will be played with no penalties and limited player substitutions, yet Jonathan refuses to yield and plays in the game; the brutality claims the lives of several players and leaves his best friend and teammate Moonpie (played by John Beck) braindead.
The Corporations hold an emergency meeting to discuss Jonathan's obstinate refusal to retire, and it is decided that the championship game against New York will be played without penalties or a time-limit, in the hope that Johnathan E, if he decides to participate, will be killed during the course of the game.
After much personal introspection, and further delving into the true nature of the Corporations that run the world, Jonathan decides he is going to play in the game despite the obvious dangers. Naturally, the final game quickly loses all semblance of order as players are crippled and killed in swift order. The crowd, raucous and energetic at the game's beginning, gradually becomes more and more subdued as the carnage builds and degrades to a gladitorial "last man standing" event.
Toward the end, Jonathan is the last mobile member of the Houston team. Two players remain from New York. After a brief and violent struggle, Jonathan dispatches one of the players, then gets possession of the ball, grabs the last, helpless New York player by the collar and prepares to fatally smite him as the crowd, both coaches and Mr. Bartholomew all watch in complete silence.
With a moment's pause, Jonathan releases his opponent, slowly gets to his feet, and painfully makes his way to the goal, scoring for the last time. He "wins" in a game where there is to be no winner.
While Mr. Bartholomew leaves in disgust, the coaches and fans of both teams start chanting "Jon-a-than!" louder and louder as Jonathan circles the track. As the cheering reaches a crescendo, the movie cuts to a sudden end.
[edit] Corporate authority in Rollerball
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In Rollerball, the rule of the global corporations is absolute. With the defeat of the nations by the corporations, the typical bases of governmental authority -- consent of the governed, birthright of kings, concentration of military force -- are meaningless.
Instead the governance of the world is based on a corporate model. Some are executives, who play some role in decision-making. The rest are either employees or consumers, or some combination of the two. The relationship of employee/consumer to executive is not one of consent but one of mutual need. But it is an unequal relationship. The corporation holds everything valuable as its exclusive, patented property.
The corporations impose strictly limited access to knowledge including all knowledge of history - so that there will be no competing belief systems such as science or religion.
The corporate system could be seen as a form of neofeudalism. Historical evidence of the Corporate Wars, by which they had originally come to power, is hidden. All printed material had been converted to digital form and summarized by the corporations. It is systematically purged so that periods of history that might provide lessons on the weaknesses of corporate control or inspire individual action no longer trouble mankind.
Corporate life is one of control. Control of potential troublemakers was enhanced by the fact that Transport could control their movements, Housing could monitor their behavior, Food provided them with drugs and Luxury could assign and re-assign their female mates at will - placing spies.
In the film, Jonathan opines that society lost something when it allowed the global corporations to take over all aspects of life for the benefits of safety and comfort. That something was self-determination and individualism. At one point he says the public has given up freedom for the sake of comfort.
The story also skillfully unmasks and explains what is perhaps most powerful aspect of corporate culture -- its ability to obscure how decisions are made. That obscuring prevents accountability; the flip side of the "futility of individual achievement" idea. When those in power can place responsibility on faceless and absent colleagues or higher-ups for a decision, there is no one for people to blame or from whom to seek justice.
A key scene in the film shows a board meeting with Dr. Bartholomew courteously but firmly pressuring other executives to agree to the rule changes. They all vote, they all share in the responsibility of the decision. But when the changes are announced, Bartholomew -- as corporate leaders have done and do now -- hides the corporate process by simply saying this is what "has been decided."
[edit] Differences from the short story
| Roller Ball Murder | Rollerball |
|---|---|
| The track is oval, with a long axis of fifty yards and a short axis of thirty yards | The track is circular, approximately fifty yards in diameter |
| Teams consist of twenty players: ten roller skaters, five motorbike riders, and five runners (or clubbers) | Teams are ten strong: three motorbike riders and seven skaters (five skaters + two catchers) |
| Points are scored when a team's runners manage to pass the opposing skaters, pick up a ball and pass it to one of their bikers | Teams score by throwing or placing the ball into the opposing team's goal, a small, conical, magnetic hole on the outer edge of the track |
| Balls are fired by several cannons (up to four will be in play at once in one game), in the same direction players skate, with the aim of hitting and disabling players from behind. In the last two games of the story, the balls are oblong, to increase the chance of hitting players | There is apparently only one cannon, balls are fired in the opposite direction, are always spherical, and are used for scoring points |
| Games typically last two hours, with no rest periods | Games have three periods of twenty minutes, with rest periods of two minutes in between |
| At the start, games with Jonathan E already have no substitutions and - in practice - no penalties. Other games, which he has heard about but not apparently seen, have no time limits or mixed sex teams | No time limit, no penalties and no substitutions is only in place for the final game |
| Rules changes are presented as being made to satisfy the global audience's demand for more blood during games | Rules changes are made to put pressure on Jonathan E to retire |
[edit] Filming locations
Among the filming locations used was the then-new BMW Headquarters and Museum buildings in Munich, Germany, appearing as the headquarter buildings of Energy Corporation.
[edit] Film Trivia
- This was the first motion picture to give screen credits to stunt performers. Prior to this film, their work appeared on screen anonymously.
- Contrary to urban legend, no one was killed during the filming of this movie. James Caan did break his thumb during filming, as he disclosed in an interview to Howard Cosell on ABC television's Wide World of Sports.
- The poster strapline for the film was "In The Future There Will Be No Wars...But There Will Be.....Rollerball".
- The movie has several apparent references to The Prisoner including the overall theme, the protagonist's jersey number, and the Zero computer.
- The very memorable party scene in Rollerball is an homage to Renoir's iconic film 'The Rules of the Game' which contains a very similar party with a similar set of decadent characters at a party in honor of a daring hero. 'Rollerball' even includes 'Rules' architecture and has the camera zeroing in on vignettes while moving in and out of multiple sets of french-doors.
[edit] Other Media
- IJK Software based its Commodore 64 game Rocketball (1985) on Rollerball.
[edit] See also
- Rollerball, a 2002 remake.
[edit] External links
Rollerball (1975) at the Internet Movie Database
- The Rules of The Game – The evolution of the sport of Rollerball, collecting together all known official rules.
- Virtual Rollerball Stadium – Virtual Rollerball Stadium, Rollerball font and links.
- Rollerball Resource – Resource that includes a detailed hypothesis outlining the Rules to the Game.
- The Physics of Rollerball – An article on SciFi.com.
