MovieChat Forums > The Dam Busters (1955) Discussion > 'The Wall'

'The Wall'

posted 20 years ago by t-mieczkowski
3 replies | jump to latest

On the first edition of Pink Floyd's "The Wall" DVD, the
audio commentary track from the filmmakers: Roger
Waters' conversation with Gerald Scarfe reveals that the
American version of "The Dam Busters" dubbed over the
dog *beep* name as "Trigger", which is coincidentally
the name of Roy Rogers' horse.

I'm sure lots of other people remember this movie fondly
and it's quite interesting that it ended up in the
unconscious parallel realities of the lead character
in "The Wall".

[–] libertarian45 15 years ago

Interesting. The Wall is one of the movies that that I still only have on VHS. The tape version most definitely uses the original dialogue. I remember watching the Dam Busters a few years ago and was struck by the fact that all the scenes with the dog were edited out. I can accept that it is now considered a very offensive word, but, censoring and saniyizing history in the interest of being PC makes me uncomfortable.

[–] darryl-tahirali 11 years ago

I can accept that it is now considered a very offensive word, but, censoring and saniyizing history in the interest of being PC makes me uncomfortable. - libertarian45

I agree.

As you say, censoring and sanitizing history may assuage contemporary sensibilities, but it is simply a short-term solution that covers over the reality. The reality is that at the time The Dam Busters came out, the dog's name was not yet considered culturally unacceptable. Moreover, it was the actual name of Guy Gibson's dog, and he chose its name as a codeword for the Operation Chastise mission.

What is more important is to recognize that the film and its language is a product of its time, and it is more instructive to keep it as it was created so we can see how attitudes and perceptions have changed over time. "Being PC" is relative to your viewpoint, and I have no problem with accepting that the "N-word" is now considered to be derogatory.

But I am just as strongly opposed to "presentism," the need to retrofit past artifacts to conform to present-day convention. This movie was released in 1955, and not only does it reflect contemporary convention of that time, but "N-word" was the actual name of Gibson's damn dog. (Yes, please excuse the pun.) We are better served by accepting the past and learning from it than from covering it up.

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"We hear very little, and we understand even less." - Refugee in Casablanca

[–] darryl-tahirali 11 years ago

I'm sure lots of other people remember this movie fondly
and it's quite interesting that it ended up in the
unconscious parallel realities of the lead character
in "The Wall". - t-mieczkowski

I don't think it's unconscious at all--in fact, I think it is a very conscious decision by Pink Floyd's Roger Waters to have "Pink," his protagonist in The Wall, affected by World War Two as Waters himself was affected by it.

Like many rock musicians of his generation, particularly British ones, Waters was a war baby. His father was killed serving during the war, and that absent-father motif runs through both the source album and the film. (Pete Townshend of the Who also used a similar missing-in-wartime-father motif in Tommy, although Townshend's father survived the war. Ray Davies of the Kinks, another wartime baby, also used the war experience in his song "Mr. Churchill Says.")

One of the songs not on the original album but included in the film version of The Wall is "When the Tigers Broke Free," which describes Waters's father's death during the Anzio invasion. When I first saw the scene of Pink watching a rerun of The Dam Busters, I thought of him entering a fugue state as he ruminated about the loss of his father, and by extension Waters ruminating as well.

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"We hear very little, and we understand even less." - Refugee in Casablanca