Pink Floyd co-founder says new ‘Wall’ an anti-war protest film

Pink Floyd co-founder Roger Waters says a new movie about his remounting of the band’s famous “The Wall” album should be seen as a protest against the growing spread of armed conflict, rather than just a concert documentary. “Roger Waters: The Wall,” which had its world premiere on Saturday at the Toronto International Film Festival, documents the massive concerts but also includes vignettes of Waters visiting war cemeteries and memorials in Europe, including the grave of a grandfather who died in World War I and the site of the 1944 battle that killed his father when Waters was just a baby.

It’s a protest movie. It’s an anti-war, protest movie.

Pink Floyd co-founder Roger Waters

The concert itself featured projections on its set of veterans, activists and average people who died in wars, protests and attacks on civilians. Waters said a major theme of the original album is the need to challenge politicians who seem increasingly willing to resort to the use of violence. Waters said he had welcomed the opportunity to spread the album’s core message that politicians and citizens must work to overcome the divisions fueling the wars we see today.

It’s a question that’s not being asked of our leaders often enough. If this film asks that question, at least in part, then it would be good.

Roger Waters

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