Frequently Bought Together
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Product details
|
Reviews
United Kingdom released, PAL/Region 0 DVD: LANGUAGES: English ( Dolby Digital 2.0 ), SPECIAL FEATURES: Interactive Menu, Scene Access, SYNOPSIS: George Orwell's political fable about corruption and betrayal in post-revolutionary Russia gets a new look in this version that employs a cast of real animals alongside digitally manipulated critters and lifelike beasts crafted by Jim Henson's Creature Shop. At the Manor Farm, the alcoholic master Mr. Jones (Pete Postlethwaite) is cruel to his animals and has horribly mismanaged the property. One night, the wise but elderly pig Old Major (voice of Peter Ustinov) gathers the animals and speaks of a remarkable dream, in which the animals throw off their tyrannical human masters and learn to reap the fruits of their own labors. After Old Major's death, two other pigs, Snowball (voice of Kelsey Grammer) and Napoleon (voice of Patrick Stewart) lead a revolution that drives Jones from his land and leaves the animals in charge of their own destiny. After their revolt, Snowball and Napoleon rule side by side, but Napoleon soon becomes drunk with power and squeezes Snowball out of authority, eventually turning the other animals against him. With Boxer (voice of Paul Scofield), a simple-minded but loyal and physically powerful horse, as a role model, Napoleon leads the animals on a campaign of self-denial and hard work that will bring them security and freedom; however, it soon becomes obvious that Napoleon is growing fat while the other animals are starving, and he is quickly becoming the sort of creature he once waged war against. Animal Farm received its American premiere on the TNT cable TV network in October 1999; it opened as a theatrical release in several other countries shortly afterward. SCREENED/AWARDED AT: Emmy Awards, Fantasporto Awards, ...Animal Farm
Tags Customers Associate with This Product(What's this?)Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.
|
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
8 of 8 people found the following review helpful
Format:DVD
George Orwell's 1945 novella, Animal Farm, quickly became a classic. An allegorical attack on Stalinism, it is also a widely applicable satire on dictatorship in general, and the gullibility of people. It is clearly an important work.
This film version, however, leaves me unsatisfied. Turning an edgy fable that focuses on animal characters into a film is challenging, and the technical wizardry here is clear: real animals are seamlessly linked with amnitronics, courtesy of the Jim Henson Creature Shop. Unfortunately, the visuals give a sense of reality that then makes suspension of disbelief difficult: the Boxer in the text, for example, can more easily be believed in as we know it is an allegory than the sight of a carthorse listening to Snowball. It is not the same (in my opinion) as watching, say, The Sheep Pig, where we know it's just a story: here, the political message is lost.
I also felt that the decision to have Jessie, a border collie, as narrator was a bit of a cop-out. It is always difficult to compensate for the lack of authorial viewpoint when transferring a novel o a visual medium, but this entailed substantial changes to the text without adding much of worth. And the ending! The powerful end of the novel, with the pigs and men indistinguishable, was lost completely, and instead Snowballs Empire literally collapses. This seems a clumsy attempt to extend Orwell's metaphor to the breakup of the Soviet Block, but misses the point of his savage diatribe that communists and capitalists are both alike in the way they treat ordinary people as commodities to be exploited
This also means that as a study aid for students the film is not helpful. This is not, of course, the purpose of a film; but I am sure that is how it has been used by many!
Bottom line: for me, political satires such as this are not transferrable to film. The three stars are for Jim Henson Creature Shop's work, which needs acknowledgement. Read the novella instead: it's not long, and is a much better experience!
This film version, however, leaves me unsatisfied. Turning an edgy fable that focuses on animal characters into a film is challenging, and the technical wizardry here is clear: real animals are seamlessly linked with amnitronics, courtesy of the Jim Henson Creature Shop. Unfortunately, the visuals give a sense of reality that then makes suspension of disbelief difficult: the Boxer in the text, for example, can more easily be believed in as we know it is an allegory than the sight of a carthorse listening to Snowball. It is not the same (in my opinion) as watching, say, The Sheep Pig, where we know it's just a story: here, the political message is lost.
I also felt that the decision to have Jessie, a border collie, as narrator was a bit of a cop-out. It is always difficult to compensate for the lack of authorial viewpoint when transferring a novel o a visual medium, but this entailed substantial changes to the text without adding much of worth. And the ending! The powerful end of the novel, with the pigs and men indistinguishable, was lost completely, and instead Snowballs Empire literally collapses. This seems a clumsy attempt to extend Orwell's metaphor to the breakup of the Soviet Block, but misses the point of his savage diatribe that communists and capitalists are both alike in the way they treat ordinary people as commodities to be exploited
This also means that as a study aid for students the film is not helpful. This is not, of course, the purpose of a film; but I am sure that is how it has been used by many!
Bottom line: for me, political satires such as this are not transferrable to film. The three stars are for Jim Henson Creature Shop's work, which needs acknowledgement. Read the novella instead: it's not long, and is a much better experience!
6 of 7 people found the following review helpful
Format:DVD
Good version to watch when having to write an Assignment for GCSE English. Intreasting film and fascinating way to be introduced to the Russian Revolution.
6 of 8 people found the following review helpful
Format:DVD
This is an excellent version of the story of Animal farm with the animal roles played by animals. The only problem is the changes from the book as it is narrated in flashback by the sheepdog Jessie. This leads to serveral changes in narrative which could mislead those wishing to study the book as a commentary on Stalinism or as a vital example of distopian literature.
Most Recent Customer Reviews
completely ruins,distorts, and changes orwell's masterpiece
I am a GCSE student who studied animal farm as part of english lit, with a very good teacher who depicted and took apart George Orwell's brilliant book animal farm, which is a... Read more
Published 7 months ago by DomHuxley
...Terrible.
I am doing GCSE English, and I have been studying Animal Farm by George Orwell. I read the book, and I understood the links to the Russian revolution and the true meaning beneath... Read more
Published 7 months ago by Mrs. M. P. Smith
This is a timeless classic...
A friend lent me a copy of his video entitled 'Animal Farm' but it was certainly not this story... God Almighty, I thought I'd seen some things in my time, but... Read more
Published 17 months ago by Mr. S. Finlayson
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
Listmania!
Look for similar items by category
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
|
