I watched the video clip for Metallica’s "One". It’s from the movie "Johnny Got His Gun", which I watched years ago. This movie has always stuck with me. It was disturbing and wonderful at the same time when I first watched it.
We hear out load the thoughts of a “de-cerebrated individual”, severely injured in warfare. He lies on an operating table, his entire body covered up by a sheet.
He has no arms or legs. He is totally paralysed. He is blind, deaf, mute, he cannot feel or smell anything. He of course knows nothing of his whereabouts.
Yet he is fully conscious. He lies there, his thoughts and memories racing around crazily, for YEARS. Year upon year of misery, frustration, loneliness, desperation and helplessness stack up. He thinks “inside, I’m screaming, but nobody pays any attention”. “If only I had arms, I could kill myself”. It drives him insane that he is living COMPLETELY in his own mind, and that nobody can understand the pain that he is suffering.
The man eventually gains of his neck muscles. Remembering Morse Code, he instructs the doctor, using his head movements, to please kill him.
The doctor knows that it is illegal to do so, and he refuses, though he cannot communicate this to the patient or apologise for not being able to.
And so the man goes on as the screen fades...
“I’ve just GOT to do something. I can’t see how I can go on living like this, like a piece of meat”.
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Never try to teach a pig to sing – it won’t work, and he’ll be angry with you.
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4 comments:
Which of their albums is that on?
Metallica, though I will be mocked by some for saying so, isn't just a bunch of loud wastoids. Some of their stuff is quite thought-provoking.
It's from "And Justice for all..."
Great video clip...
In the video clip, it's almost as though he's headbanging when he's trying to communicate in morse code.
Some of Metallica's lyrics are trash - have you seen their confessionals as to how they came up with them on the movie "Some kind of Monster"? But others are really meaningful, and just aren't well understood by others. It irritates me when people don't understand the meaning of a song and yet think it is "just anger" etc.
I need to see that movie. One of the thousand things to do before I die.
The only problem with this whole concept, is that some of the most believing people in the world are the ones in such straits.
The skeptics are those of us in perfect health observing/contemplating/hypothesizing their misery.
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