The movie that moved Roger Waters “to tears”
In recent times, former Pink Floyd leader Roger Waters has become something of a pantomime villain. Without wading into a complex debate, the Cambridge native is certainly one of the most outspoken men in rock, with his unwavering dedication to what he sees right plunging him into several tubs of hot water.
Whether it be the ongoing antisemitism debate or the long-running feud with his old Pink Floyd bandmate, David Gilmour – a story in which he comes across as somewhat dictatorial – for all of his creative brilliance, Waters hasn’t necessarily helped his public image over the years. He is also acutely aware of this and recently described himself as “frequently mouthy and prone to irreverence.”
Yet, despite the cold character that Roger Waters has been afforded in the usual conversation, he has shown that he is human like the rest of us at points over his extensive career. Whether this be his dedication to an array of humanitarian causes, such as putting the bad blood with Pink Floyd to the side for Live 8 in 2005, tackling mental illness ahead of the curve in The Dark Side of the Moon, or his critiques of Margaret Thatcher; Waters has a comparatively warm heart.
However, perhaps the most indisputable evidence came when speaking to the Los Angeles Times in 1992. When asked if he had any sense of who his audience was, Waters suggested they were sensitive types moved by the music. In a reflection of the era, he said they’re not people who want to see explosive Bruce Willis action movies. Instead, the former Pink Floyd man said they’re the sorts who want to watch classic Italian films such as Rocco and His Brothers and The Bicycle Thief (or Bicycle Thieves). Somewhat shockingly, Waters revealed that the latter title moved him “to tears” the first time he saw it.
He said: “I do, yeah. I do have a sense of who they are. They have no age. They’re people who read the lyrics, and they’re people who are moved by the music. They’re people like me. They’re people who don’t want to see Bruce Willis. They want to see Rocco and His Brothers again, or The Bicycle Thief. I remember seeing The Bicycle Thief, I can’t have been more than 11 or 12 years old, and I remember being moved to tears by that movie.”
Waters explained what it was about the Italian movie duo that moved him: “They’re real stories with real beginnings and middles and ends about people’s real feelings. I need to be involved with the characters, and they can’t be shallow characters for me to enjoy them. I couldn’t be less interested in Arnold Schwarzenegger or Sylvester Stallone or Bruce Willis or that action nonsense because the character is a completely meaningless, cardboard character… They have to be real people that things happen to.”
Watch the trailer for The Bicycle Thief below.
