ur feature opens with tracking shots across vistas of nature: dense foliage and flowers, dotted with rabbits, frogs, snails and turtles, and interspersed with small ponds and waterfalls. Only gradually is this pastoral setting revealed to be contained within a huge man-made dome drifting in space. This dichotomy between nature and the artificial will define this film, taking on an interesting twist by the climax.
This biosphere is one of six attached to a huge spacecraft named the Valley Forge, one of several such ships orbiting Saturn. These vessels contain all that remains of Earth's ecology. As later revealed by dialogue, the home planet, never seen, is apparently flourishing despite the eradication of nature (deliberate or accidental, we never learn). Disease has been eliminated, and "everyone has a job."
Such a sterile utopia does not agree with the atavistic Freeman Lowell (Bruce Dern), one of the four crewmembers who tend the Valley Forge, along with three semi-autonomous "drones," chunky little robots. He is convinced that someday people will come to their senses and call on the biosphere ships to bring back their cargo to reimpregnate the Earth. This attitude puts him at odds with his mates, who are all happy-go-lucky insensitive types with no sentimental attachment to nature. The fact that the whole ark project is an unimaginative government bureaucracy also does not jibe well with Lowell's sensibilities.
After several scenes limning the crew's daily routines and the tensions among them, we learn that a special message is due. Lowell fantasizes it's the long-anticipated recall to replant the Earth. But the actual message is just the opposite: The biospheres are to be jettisoned and destroyed. Earth has opted for a non-organic future. At first, a stunned Lowell goes along with the orders. Five domes are blown to atoms. But when it comes time for his favorite forest to be destroyed, he cracks and rebels.
Lore and logic are often lost in space
After fashioning much of the look of Stanley Kubrick's 1968 masterpiece, 2001: A Space Odyssey, SFX wizard Douglas Trumbull embarked on a directing career with Silent Running. Employing non-professionals as model-makers to cut down on expenses, and teaching himself directing on the fly, Trumbull succeeded in producing a film that still has the capacity to stir the emotions. As well, he anticipated several issues and developments still unfolding today. But gaping holes of illogic detract from the movie's overall appeal, as do the two screechy, tree-hugging songs wailed by Joan Baez ("Silent Running" and "Rejoice in the Sun," with music by Peter Schickele, better known as P.D.Q. Bach). These plot idiocies must be laid squarely at the feet of the writers, both of whom went on to fame and glory elsewhere, Bochco on the small screen and Cimino on the silver.
The main headslapper in this film used to have a certain notoriety in fan circles. Freeman Lowell, who has spent eight years devoted to his forests, is unaware for a long time during his crisis that plants benefit from sunlight. Thus, as he flees deeper into space and his leafy charges begin to wither, he grows more and more desperate, until he finally hits on the notion of adding supplemental lighting to the dome. But this idiocy, huge as it is, begs the question of what the ships were doing way out by Saturn in the first place, rather than simply residing in Earth orbit. One suspects that the locale was chosen simply so Trumbull could recreate the "LSD trip" sequence from 2001 as the ship rides the rapids of the rings (which of course are really so diffuse that the vessel would probably never notice them). And where does the gravity come from, both onboard the vessels and while performing EVA maneuvers? Surely Trumbull couldn't have forgotten all the physics he illustrated in 2001? One can only assume that budgetary concerns interfered. Finally, if the enormous infrastructure of the Valley Forge was needed to support the domes, how can Lowell expect the lone forest to survive on its own, without supplies?
Having gotten these gripes off my chest, I'll gladly affirm that there's much to enjoy in this heartfelt film. After the first half hour, the 35-year-old Dern is the only human actor onscreen, and he carries the film capably, exhibiting his trademark aura of fevered intensity. His dialogue and interactions with the drones (articulated by stunt people who were multiple amputees inside the carapaces, thus giving them a quasi-organic ambulation) provide both comic relief and real pathos. In fact, the ultimate twist is that the robots become the final guardians of nature. Mankind has passed on the stewardship to metal and plastic creations which might exhibit more concern than the callous flesh creatures.
The look of the film—portraying a future dotted with brand names—still holds up well. In an early moment, when the camera pulls back and through the walls of the ship to frame Lowell in a tiny window, the real vastness of the vessel and of space is communicated viscerally. The hardware and the software of the drones looks a little clunky in the light of actual developments, but the proto-Earth First! issues are amazingly relevant. In retrospect, the movie conveys an implicit flaw in the hippie ethos, a kind of fatalism which maintained that the little guy could fight the system only up to a certain point before failing.
