User Reviews

William Golding's 1954 novel "Lord of the Flies" has gone down as one of the most widely-read and acclaimed books of the 20th Century and beyond thanks to the author's melding of solid, though deceptively straight- forward storytelling with allegory, making it an excellent tool to introduce various literary devices to students (hence why it is usually a staple of high school and college English curriculum). TIME Magazine even included it on their list of the 100 Best English-Language Novels written between 1923 and 2005. The novel itself can be enjoyed on many fronts. If nothing else, it's a fascinating premise: What WOULD a bunch of young boys do if stranded somewhere with no adults around, no rules, no laws, no structure or discipline and left to their own devices? The fact it also happens to rich as an allegory on human nature and societal structure is just the icing on top. Golding himself summed up his intent rather simply by stating it's "... about the problem of evil and the problem of how people are to live together in society." That basic concept is put front and center in director Peter Brook's film adaptation and relayed with power despite some obvious technical issues that arise.

An airplane full of young British schoolboys - ranging from about 6 years old to early teens - crashes somewhere on an uninhabited island. Ralph (James Aubrey), the son of a Navy commander who thinks the paternal figure he idolizes will soon come find them, stumbles upon the chubby, insecure, bespectacled, talkative Piggy (Hugh Edwards) first and the two make their way down the beach, discovering more of their schoolmates as they go. Along the beach come a second and smaller group of slightly older boys, led by Jack (Tom Chapin). Things begin harmlessly enough, with the kids essentially viewing the experience as some extended camping trip. They play games, laugh, play pranks, gather fruit, start a fire and build a shelter from branches as they await rescue. Using a majority rules vote to establish a new leader in Ralph, the group set down a few basic ground rules at the outset to maintain order, like using a conch shell as a platform to speak without interruption and keeping a fire going at the island's highest peak so a passing aircraft may see it, but things quickly go to hell.

Once one of the boys claims to see a "snake-like" shape-shifting beast stirring among the bushes at night (which later turns into a mythical sea beast), a seed of superstition and paranoia encroaches on the new society and things escalate from there. Jack and his group deem themselves "the hunters," sharpen spears, paint their faces, dress in animal rags, leave pig heads on stakes as an offering to their perceived new God and quickly descend into a life of violent tribal savagery, while Ralph loses his power and his numbers once his rival proves he can provide better and has no issue using deadly force as a means to silence those who oppose the new way. After having swayed the majority of others over to his side, Jack and his few remaining allies realize their own lives are in grave danger.

Filmed in 1961 in Puerto Rico, this low budget production had numerous technical issues that needed tended to before it could finally be released in 1963. The major problem was the audio, most of which was not actually recorded on location due to various natural noises the filmmakers really couldn't do anything about. As a result, most of the dialogue was dubbed in later and, sadly, they didn't do a very good job of it. Audio levels really seem off throughout. Many seem to have issues with the casting of inexperienced boys instead of trained child actors in all of the roles, which results in some wooden, amateurish and / or stilted dialogue readings. Personally it didn't bother me all that much, but it will some viewers. If you can ignore the above issues, this is a visually splendid film that's atmospherically photographed on beautiful locations and it manages to generate a great desolate feel apart from the 'civilized' world.

Most importantly of all, Brook actually does the source novel justice. Very little of importance was left out and the director conveys exactly what the book is trying to say. That's especially impressive considering he had to narrow down around 60 hours (!) of total filmed footage to just 90 minutes for the theatrical release. Supposedly a 100-minute version was initially released to Cannes, but I don't believe that cut has ever been made commercially available. A more polished and bigger- budgeted color remake was made in 1990 by director Harry Hook. Though it's not a terrible movie, it lacks the character and artistry of this original version.

Peter Brook's rich film of Golding's "Lord of the Flies" is a stunning compilation of classic film imagery. Scenes surrealistic, beautiful and disturbing create a haunting atmosphere and a world of sights, sounds and ideas unlike any other

film. The choir marching on the beach in full dress singing that catchy "Kyrie Eleison", the first sight of Jack in his almost shocking warpaint, Piggy's comic- pathetic persona, the floating body of Simon in the ocean drifting off the screen as the sun-dappled water glistens, the look on Ralph's face at the very end of the film, his countenance stamped with fear, horror, relief and profound

sadness--all combine to form a mosaic of a classic contemporary fable. As the war in Vietnam was raging in the 60s and 70s, this film provided a distinct

commentary on the times. Seeing the film recently again, with its disturbing picture of irrational fear culminating in spectacular tragedy, "Lord of the Flies" seems almost more relevant today--and almost more tragic than before.

When William Golding's classic parable was originally published in 1954, critics gave outstanding reviews for a debut novel. The book was not only a first-rate adventure story, but a parable of our times. While back in 1954 kids killing each other took some strong believing, today you can see Golding's prediction being chillingly accurate. Nine years later, stage director Peter Brook would direct the film version that generated many mixed reviews. Some called it unprofessional and rushed, while others praised it as a classic. When the terrible American remake was released in 1990, many looked back at this version as a classic, and rightly so.

Brook's film opens with a very creepy montage consisting of pictures of a British boarding school intercut with planes flying over London with a haunting school chorus playing in the background. We learn that the world has been caught in a nuclear war and all the kids in the school were evacuated on planes. One plane crashes into the sea during a thunderstorm. The only survivors are kids ranging from six to twelve years old. Knowing they are trapped on a deserted island, they decide to re-start civilization.

The leader is Ralph (James Aubrey), one of the oldest kids who calls on assemblies with a conch. His buddy is Piggy (Hugh Edwards), a fat nerdy kid with glasses who is ignored by the other children even knowing he is the most mature. The bully is Jack (Tom Chaplin), a trouble chorus leader who quickly evolves to a Nero-like totalitarian leader and begins to lead the boys into savagery. The neutreal Christ-like figure is quiet Simon (Tom Gaman) who fails to fit in with others. The kids eventually split up to two tribes after many disagreements, one tribe consists of savage hunters led by Jack, while the other tribe led by Ralph is worried about being rescued.

Like the book, Peter Brook's THE LORD OF THE FLIES is a parable of the world under different political views. Piggy and the conch represent order and are both eventually ignored. Ralph represents a democracy while Jack represents a totalitarian form of leadership. Simon represents Christianity, although he is also ignored for most of the time. The kids undergo many conflicts, most ending in tragic results.

Today, Golding's novel is a subject in many school discussions, and some people today criticize it for being unrealistic and irrational. But after all, it is a parable. In real life, it is obvious the kids wouldn't last for very long.

Not believing professional child actors would deliver acting strong enough to portray such characters, Brook decided to cast non-actors that lived close to the island of shooting. This benefits the film greatly since Brook coaches great performances out of the kids (were some of them really acting?) and the fact that the actors are all unknown adds to the realism (This technique could be compared to the recent CITY OF GOD.) But the film's secondary performances are not as good. The kids usually take long pauses in between their lines, and for most of the time they seem to be reading them. Poorly reading them, in fact. To make things worse, the movie was dubbed on post-production due to the low-budget. This makes some of the scenes awkward, mute, and out of synch. May I also add the scenes are edited abruptly, making the whole thing seem rushed. It's sad that the film had to be cut to 90 minutes, considering an extra 30 minutes of footage would improve it. This process slows down the film, making it sometimes boring and tiresome.

This, by no means, is a bad movie. Brooks direction and Tom Hallimans cinematography put the 1990 remake to shame. The island locations (Puerto Rico) look dark and menacing in B&W, the kind of atmosphere the remake lacked. Brook is able to compose beautiful sad visuals. ***SPOILERS*** These include the kinetic editing during the hunt for Ralph, Simon's dead body floating in the water arranged by the sad school chorus (depressing moment), Piggy's tragic demise that puts the 1990s remake laughable mirrored scene to shame, and the very scary feast that occurs at night followed by the dance. That scene, consisting of quick images, scary close-ups on the savages painted faces, and disturbing screaming is very strong even for today's standards. Brook is also wise on deciding to omit the Lord of the Flies scene and only suggesting it. He does a batter job at it than Harry Hook did in the remake. Imagine the pain of actually filming that scene. ***END OF SPOILERS***

While the out-of-synch audio, some poor acting, and slow pacing might keep this movie away from the recent generation, it is still an underrated classic on its own right. It is disturbing, haunting, and visually wonderful. It really deserves to be seen twice to be really appreciated. Strongly recommended for those that never read the book and an essential preference over the remake.

(4/5)

...not because the book is so much better, but rather because one always gets more out of a book than out of any movie rendition of it. (The exception that proves the rule being "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest"--not better than the book, but definitively it's equal.) So, I just watched the movie, and cannot recommend it highly enough. Go into it with the question of what makes us human, what civilization is, and how we deal with our need for social living, and then consider ALL sides of the matter before making a judgment.

The movie making itself isn't all that perfect. But the way in which Brook present's the story--as a tableaux without a message, leaving it for us to decide--more than redeems any inconsistencies in film technique or the acting.

Someone above mentioned that it is hard to talk about the movie without talking about the story itself. And that is true. So, that said, I just wanted to comment that I'm disappointed in what seems to me to be a rather facile interpretation of Golding's work that seems prevalent amongst the comments--the easy assignment of virtue to Ralph and Piggy and savagery to Jack and his followers. Commenters keep noting a "reversion". The conch represents civilization and democracy, Jack (or, more properly, the boar's head) totalitarianism and barbarism.

But the question goes a bit deeper than that. Ralph starts off with the power and the trust. But his response to the situation the kids find themselves in is a passive one--he wants to build a fire and wait to be rescued. Jack is described as power hungry a number of times in comments, but the readers fail to note that if not by show of hands the first time, by show of feet the second time the kids withdraw the power from Ralph--i.e., the scene in which he says "what if I blow it and they don't come" when Piggy tells him to summon the kids with the conch. And the ultimate question is not about whether Jack is power hungry and Ralph virtuous, but rather why the children chose to follow Jack and not Ralph.

THe answer is very clear. Jack was a stronger leader than Ralph. Ralph wanted to be rescued--Jack sought to deal with the situation as it was. Materially, Jack was able to provide meat to the kids because he was able to arm and discipline his choir boys. Socially, Jack was able to forge a bond with his followers, his "tribe", that gave them a reason to accept his leadership, while Ralph could only offer leadership based on a momentary common consensus. And in the end, Jack could protect his followers, Ralph could not. It is significant that the two boys with Ralph in the scene mentioned above are Simon and Piggy--in the end, in allying themselves with him, they end up dying, while Roger, the first to desert to Jack, survives.

To see Golding's story as a reversion to savagery misses, I think, the whole point. It was not a reversion the boys underwent, but, rather, an adaptation to the circumstances in which they found themselves. They didn't go naked because they were suddenly nothing but monkeys, they went naked because it was the better adaptation to the environment in which they found themselves. They didn't accept Jack because they had become uncivilized, they accepted Jack because under the circumstances, he offered more in terms of social utility than Ralph could.

It is understanding this that we understand how totalitarian regimes do take power--that people don't adopt them because they've reverted to savagery, but rather that an extremity of circumstances compels certain behaviors in order to survive. Jack's power wouldn't have been possible without his choirboys armed with spears, but neither would the meat he brought his tribe.

The respective prime followers of Ralph and Jack, Piggy and Roger, are very interesting in that they represent the conflicting elements in human civilization, that to protect the weak and that to hurt it. Intelligence is perceived as weak in a society on the edge because its rewards are not reaped immediately, Raplh's glasses can start a fire, but the kids are still at the mercy of someone seeing it; while brute strength and violence does, as in the killing of the pig, reap immediate rewards.

It concerns me that this novel is being taught improperly in schools, as an allegory for good vs. evil rather than as testamentary to the human condition and the choices we make in order to survive. Golding's work is a brilliant examination not of human morality, but of human society and its many layers, and it is a shame to reduce to "Ralph good, Jack bad" Manichean dichotomy.

Trash the rules and grab what you want, and if someone gets hurt, well, boo-hoo. Indeed, "might makes right" is the ethos of the dominant tribe in this terrifying film, while principled folk cite the rules and scan the skies for rescue.

"If we don't lose our head, we'll be all right...We've got to have rules and obey them. We're...not savages," proclaim Ralph (James Aubrey) and Piggy (Hugh Edwards). Snarling in opposition is the ruffian Jack (Tom Chapin), a hunter unafraid to aim his spear at reasonable or weaker boys.

I saw this film as part of a psychoanalytic group discission in which a participant cited the "Pogo" creator's quote that "we have met the enemy, and he is us."

This chilling thought resonates throughout "Lord," although the deus ex machina ending confers a bit of comfort. We cannot give up on civilization!

WARNING: THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS

"Lord of the Flies" (1963) is a film based on William Golding's 1954 novel, which went by the same name. This film, like its written counterpart, can be taken two different ways. In one aspect, Lord of the Flies is an enjoyable adventure story, with several elements of horror, as well. From another point-of-view, the position William Golding obviously took when he wrote his novel, Lord of the Flies is an paradigm of human nature. The film does its novel justice in discussing both literally and figuratively the primordial nature of man and how the superego plays a major role.

Symbolism is abundant in this film. Ralph, the protagonist, represents democracy and rightness, while Jack, the antagonist, represents totalitarianism and wrongness. Furthermore, the conch Ralph uses to attempt to establish rules represents governmental order and decorum. While Ralph struggles with a small amount of boys to build huts (representing safety and man's dependence on nature), Jack is out with his hunters killing pigs, signifying their fall into savagery.

Piggy, Ralph's "sidekick" of sorts, is asthmatic and unwilling to help with chores, but nonetheless represents intelligence and clearsightedness. The fact that Piggy is mocked, ignored and the object of derision exemplifies the real life fact that true intelligence is usually not paid any attention. When Piggy is killed the conch is shattered into thousands of little fragments. This represents the complete termination of any sense of intelligence, rationality or order the island may have at once had.

Simon, the most introspective of the characters and a true loner, represents Jesus Christ. He faints when the choir boys first meet Ralph and he offers some of his meat to Piggy when no one else would share with the corpulent young boy. Early in the novel a young boy with a mulberry birthmark raises the question of a beast, which he says he saw moving through the foliage one night. Simon says it was him going to meditate but the littlun's (the small children) are still nervous. When Simon finds a dead parachutist atop the island (which Sam and Eric saw and mistakenly believed was the beast) he staggers down the island's mountain to tell the boys that the "beast" is not real. This is reminiscent of Christ staggering under the weight of his own cross.

However, Jack, his men, and even Ralph and Piggy, are caught up in a festive tribal dance. When Simon appears he is mistaken for a beast and beaten to death. When this occurs, wind causes the parachute atop the island to detach from the twigs which snagged it and the dead parachutist's body flies out to sea as Simon is dragged out to sea, as well. This shows that Simon was and forever will be the only one of the boys to truly know where the beast was the entire time: in their hearts.

Roger, an inimical character representing the embodiment of pure evil and sadism, is the one who kills Piggy. He gets sadistic pleasure from torturing pigs, and he enjoyably kicks down sand castles the littlun's build and throws stones at Henry. Roger is the personification of the base stage of the human psyche: evil.

Sam and Eric, twins collectively known as Samneric, represent society. They are naturally good and assist Ralph with collecting fruit and building huts. However, Jack eventually captures them and they are forced to join his tribe. When Jack and his men hunt Ralph near the end of the film, Samneric reluctantly give in and inform Jack of Ralph's hiding place, showing that anarchy caused them to lose all sense of loyalty to others.

Lord of the Flies is truly a masterpiece. It exemplifies Freudian thought, observable human behavioral characteristics, and the incontrovertible reality of the human psyche. The superego, the part of our brain concerned only with our own survival, can take over if rules are not existent. Society keeps humans sane, and lack of civility will inevitably lead to savagery.

Yes, Lord of the Flies is a great adventure story, but it is also the greatest representation of the human spirit ever created. Praise Golding for the invention, and praise Brooks for his wonderful interpretation.

Seeing Lord of the Flies on film, I am struck by how unfaithful these screen counterparts are compared to the imaginary characters built up in my head from reading Golding's novel. They are tiny little things, barely even pubescent, and thoughts of savagery and bloodlust seem so far away. The novel's message is even more piercing when considered in this way; how easy it is to forget that these are the same little boys that descend into animalistic urge and desire later. Golding's words might have lulled some into complacency over the course of the chapters, but here there is a constant reminder through their pudgy limbs and wide eyes (and, to some extent, their English accents, which they recognise themselves as being the hallmark of civility and order).

This low-budget feature version was shot by Peter Brook entirely on location, utilising all the harsh wilderness of the beach territories of Puerto Rico. The cast were all amateur actors, boys freed from authority and let loose to play on a deserted island. The style, a jagged combination of harsh natural lighting, sudden cuts and black and white images, saps the beauty from what should look like a holiday destination. The most frightening scene of the movie signifies the complete and utter abandonment of reason for savagery - when the boys gut Simon by the fireplace during nighttime. The cinematography continually throws the shots in and out of focus, one moment the white flames in sharp contrast, the next dancing chaotically in the background. And the hand-held camera bobs in motion as if it was one of the frenzied boys itself, chanting and getting right up into the painted faces of these savages. There are no light sources other than the fire and the bright spots of their torches, and in the darkness they become a trembling, murderous mass, more inhuman than human.

Brook's rudimentary approach comes alive in some instances, and yet in others grounds the story. Most of Golding's figurative language is marred here; the painting of the island as firstly a wondrous paradise and then a nightmarish backdrop for ghouls and beasts, the forest as a teeming, dense thicket hiding the horrors of their imagination, even the palpable heat and scent of the island that the boys begin to be imbued with. The images wield darkness and shadow well, but the tribe become decidedly less menacing when they have to chant in open daylight.

Golding's central allegory, of the beast and innate evil inside us all, also somewhat fades. Yes, there are grisly closeups of the rotting pig's head anointed with flies, but Brook ditches Simon's stumbling into surreal realisation, the horror of discovering something more terrible than any corporeal beast could ever be (unusual considering Brook's prior work in experimental theatre and Dali). The overall result is something like a strained documentary, trading periodical rawness and cynicism with stilted action, delivery and accents. It doesn't grip you like it should because there is still an undercurrent of rehearsal and civility under it, like a performance of a primary school play. Now, the 8mm murder mystery film that the boys shot themselves as they were acting out actual savagery? That I would like to see, because it would come from their own unplanned urges. And I wonder, of course, what quarrels might have occurred on that set, and who wrested directorial control from whom.

This version of the Lord of the Flies is decent. Some good qualities are the closeness to the storyline and setting, but the film was poorly acted and produced. Peter Brook did a good job bringing the book to the screen, but I think he left out some important parts. This may have been done because some scenes were risqué at that time. Some scenes not present are the disappearance of the never-named boy with the birthmark and Ralph's encounter with the pig head, or Lord of the Flies. These two scenes are important in the story, but the movie manages without them quite well.

The film was shot in the Caribbean using English schoolboys that had no experience in acting. The location and nationally worked excellently in this film, but the lack of experience shows when you can't hear the dialogue too well. Some scenes, mainly the hunting scenes, were poorly choreographed. This version is still better than the remake I believe. The remake has the children use profanity and makes references to television shows from its time period (1990).

In the DVD version there are several extras which are interesting to watch. My favorites are the theatrical trailer with and without audio commentary about a major problem that almost happened at the film's premiere, deleted scene with and without commentary and a reading by author, William Golding, screen tests and outtakes, and the scenes from a documentary about director Peter Brook's theatrical techniques.

You should read William Golding's book before watching this movie, and definitely watch this version before the remake.