Lord Of The Flies (DVD)

Lord of the Flies – 1963

Today, this story is probably not as powerful as it was back in 1963 when it was filmed or in 1954 when William Golding’s book was published. These days we have all become desensitised to the violence and random, meaningless killings that seem to happen on a daily basis, especially in this day and age when children whom are only three or four years older than those depicted in the film do far worse things than ...
...well respected theatre director with Lord of the Flies being one of his first film productions. The film itself had very little budget with only Hugh Edwards (Piggy) being flown out from England, the rest being cast from English families in America.

Soon after filming started Brook decided to dispense with the script, instead allowing the children to improvise a lot on set which resulted in over 60 hours of footage that needed to ... more

Lord of the Flies – 1963

Today, this story is probably not as powerful as it was back in 1963 when it was filmed or in 1954 when William Golding’s book was published. These days we have all become desensitised to the violence and random, meaningless killings that seem to happen on a daily basis, especially in this day and age when children whom are only three or four years older than those depicted in the film do far worse things than was ever shown within the running time of this feature. It could be said however that the film was a premonition of how lousy things were to become in the early 21st century.

The film is set during an unspecified period of time where tensions about Nuclear holocaust are running high. Children are being evacuated, although they are being evacuated from the country rather than out to the country side. An interesting point to note here is that the evacuations seem to be taking children from England to America, which to me seems to be the wrong thing to do when thinking about the best ways of avoiding anything Nuclear. However all of this is a moot point as their plane crashes near a small tropical island (In the book they escape from a sinking boat) and about 30 children manage to get out of the wreckage and onto the island. None of this is seen as film footage, but more as a storyboard when the beginning credits are being shown.

The actual story begins with Piggy (Hugh Edwards) meeting up with Ralph (James Aubrey) and them finding a conch shell which they blow in order to attract the other survivors. As soon as most of the kids are together we are then introduced to Jack (Tom Chapin) and this is where the real meat of the story comes into being. The kids are stranded on this island and they have no adult supervision and so they need to learn to govern and look after themselves. They start off well enough by creating a society for themselves in which rules are used to keep everybody within an accepted framework, taken from their time at home and at school, then as time goes on this society shows signs of strain before it breaks down to the point where it cannot be retrieved and the children are forced to choose sides, to either go with Jack and his hunters or to stay with Ralph. For me it shows the very thin veil of so called civilised behaviour that covers what is essentially a savage and brutal side to humanity and how quickly that civilised mask can be discarded.

The book itself of course is much better than the film. They always are in my opinion as so much more can be put into the book but since reading it I have always been curious as to how the film would interpret the book. From what I read Peter Brook, The Director, is a well respected theatre director with Lord of the Flies being one of his first film productions. The film itself had very little budget with only Hugh Edwards (Piggy) being flown out from England, the rest being cast from English families in America.

Soon after filming started Brook decided to dispense with the script, instead allowing the children to improvise a lot on set which resulted in over 60 hours of footage that needed to be trimmed down for the 90 minute running time. This is where some of the shortcomings of the film come to the fore. As you watch the film scenes come and go and you wonder why they are there as they are never explained, or they just seem to be placed randomly to fill up a bit of time. This can feel you leaving a little confused and results in you being taken out of the story. Even my 11 year old son who watched the film with me (as I’ve loaned him the book to read) pointed out scenes that were not explained properly. Add to this that none of the kids had had any formal acting we see a lot of stiff acting which I suppose can sometimes be explained away as them being public school children but combined with the flaky editing gives the film an unpolished feel.

The comments above may seem to indicate that I did not enjoy the film. This is not the case. Given the low budget and the limited movie film experience of the director I think that he did a sterling job. With some tighter editing he may have just made that much more flowing.

Bonus Features

Not much in the way of extras on this review disk, only a Trailer and a Commentary. From what I read the Criterion release is the one to go with for extras.

Overall

A good story told relatively well; only let down a little by poor editing and some questionable acting in places. The hard hitting message that it portrayed back in 1963 is mainly lost amongst the violence shown by today’s youth but it shows a scary premonition of what we have come to expect as the norm today. 

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