Lord of the Flies (1963) directed by Peter Brook
Lord of the Flies was one of the rare books that I actually read from start to finish during school so it was fun to watch a film of an important book that I knew. One of the things I remember most from the book was the heavy use of symbolism, such as the conch representing civilization, Piggy's specs representing intellectualism, Jack representing the darkness of men and so forth and was pleased to recognize these symbols in the film. I don't want to rehash a high school essay so instead I will just focus on the movie itself.
For those who are not familiar with the story, Lord of the Flies is about a group of young boys that find themselves stranded on a deserted island. They attempt to govern themselves to disastrous results, indicating the evil of human nature as they revert to savages. The film is a faithful adaptation to the novel in plot and feel particularly the latter half when things on the island start to turn for the worst. One of my pet peeves is child acting in serious movies, but the boys here (who were all just ordinary school children on set during their summer break) are generally pretty good. Perhaps one of the differences between the book and the film is the downplaying of some of the side characters. Naturally it would be difficult to give extensive screen time to every character of a novel in a 90 minute film, but the film does just fine focusing most of the time on Ralph, Jack and Piggy (as it should). Also lost in translation is some of the significance of the symbolism which is practically spelled out in the book, though again, the film does just fine in saying what it has to. Overall it is a fine adaptation of a great book and manages to capture some of its more intense moments well.
Grade: B+
Lord of the Flies was one of the rare books that I actually read from start to finish during school so it was fun to watch a film of an important book that I knew. One of the things I remember most from the book was the heavy use of symbolism, such as the conch representing civilization, Piggy's specs representing intellectualism, Jack representing the darkness of men and so forth and was pleased to recognize these symbols in the film. I don't want to rehash a high school essay so instead I will just focus on the movie itself.
For those who are not familiar with the story, Lord of the Flies is about a group of young boys that find themselves stranded on a deserted island. They attempt to govern themselves to disastrous results, indicating the evil of human nature as they revert to savages. The film is a faithful adaptation to the novel in plot and feel particularly the latter half when things on the island start to turn for the worst. One of my pet peeves is child acting in serious movies, but the boys here (who were all just ordinary school children on set during their summer break) are generally pretty good. Perhaps one of the differences between the book and the film is the downplaying of some of the side characters. Naturally it would be difficult to give extensive screen time to every character of a novel in a 90 minute film, but the film does just fine focusing most of the time on Ralph, Jack and Piggy (as it should). Also lost in translation is some of the significance of the symbolism which is practically spelled out in the book, though again, the film does just fine in saying what it has to. Overall it is a fine adaptation of a great book and manages to capture some of its more intense moments well.
Grade: B+
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