Pastoral

it's Earth Day and I offer something from Soylent Green, a science fiction film from the past that describes a future in which overpopulation has destroyed the environment. You may laugh, but the first time I saw this scene in the video clip posted below I was so touched I cried, not because one of the characters was dying, but because of the lost beauty of the planet's creatures, plants, oceans, that had in the film already died long since. Here's how Wikipedia describes the scene .....

In the film, after the aged Roth learns the truth about Soylent Green, he decides he "has lived too long", and states that he is "going home". By this, he means that he is going to sign up for government-assisted suicide. When Roth arrives at the clinic, he is asked to select a lighting scheme and a type of music for the death chamber. Roth selects orange-hued lights and "light Classical" music. When he goes to the death chamber, a selection of Classical music (Beethoven - 6th Symphony - Pastoral) plays through speakers and films are projected on large screens.

The "going home" score in this part of the film was conducted by Gerald Fried and consists of the main themes from Symphony No. 6 ("Pathétique") by Tchaikovsky, Symphony No. 6 ("Pastoral") by Beethoven, and the Peer Gynt Suite ("Morning Mood" and "Åse's Death") by Edvard Grieg. As the music plays, scenes of majestic natural beauty are projected on film screens: "deer in woods, trees and leaves, sunsets beside the sea, birds flying overhead, rolling streams, mountains, fish and coral, sheep and horses, and lots and lots of flowers — from daffodils to dogwoods". Amidst the music and the scenes of nature, Roth remembers the world as it once was. Yet, he cannot peacefully take his last breath as he is pained by the beauty lost and cannot stand the awfulness of the real world. Roth struggles to tell Thorn about the secret of "Soylent Green", urging him to "prove it" before taking his dying breath.