I am struck by how the only bit of the film Rollerball which hasn’t yet neared reality is the cultural ubiquity of the game itself: the film’s portrayal of the destruction of traditional sources of knowledge with digitised and sanitised information, the rise of hallucinatory AI and the rising power of corporations (and their executives) over governments was at the time satirical (and faintly ridiculous) but now seems painfully prophetic. Here’s the sequence where Jonathan E starts to realise his thirst for knowledge is not going to be satisfied (reducing him back to ‘just’ a sportsman, with only power through violence left to him)…
Also see:
https://reel-librarians.com/2017/02/01/reel-librarians-in-rollerball/
Yes this is a a subtoot ;-)
(Norman Jewison also directed the movie of Jesus Christ Superstar, which includes the use of IDF tanks and a fighter jet)
