Lord of the Flies

A part of this view­ing list: Cri­te­ri­on Col­lec­tion Spine #43: Peter Brook’s Lord of the Flies.

It is tough get­ting chil­dren to act well; just ask any­one who’s ever had to get chil­dren to act well. A vast major­i­ty of the cast in Lord of the Flies could­n’t act their way out of a wet paper bag, but thanks to Peter Brook’s care­ful plan­ning and chore­o­graph­ing of key scenes, and relaxed impro­vi­sa­tion­al allowance in oth­ers, the awk­ward act­ing abil­i­ty morphs into an appro­pri­ate skit­tish­ness for ado­les­cent maroons. This adap­ta­tion is well on the mark of the book, with an added inten­si­ty of vis­cer­al imagery and psy­cho­log­i­cal war­fare that only film can pro­vide so effec­tive­ly. The main strength of the film is that it was shot entire­ly on loca­tion, apart from the open­ing mon­tage, and the real­i­ty of the island set­ting feeds into the real­i­ty of the char­ac­ters’ devel­op­ment. With­out the impos­ing hand of civ­i­liza­tion, regress­ing to a wild and sav­age state becomes easy.

Lord of the Flies is not only a tract about the impor­tance of civ­i­liza­tion, but also an inter­est­ing thought-exper­i­ment on the emer­gence of new cul­tur­al forms. In the film, this is notice­able fair­ly soon, as the polit­i­cal rifts between the two lead­ing boys, Jack and Ralph, are a micro­cosm of inter­na­tion­al polit­i­cal strife. Sim­i­lar­ly, the cre­ation of rit­u­al chants and activ­i­ties to ward off the beast­ie, and Jack­’s clever manip­u­la­tion of their fear to main­tain con­trol have con­tem­po­rary par­al­lels in our own coun­try. This is no new trick, but its effi­ca­cy ensures its con­tin­ued use. The cog­ni­tive dis­so­nance and lin­guis­tic lacu­nae in their vocab­u­lary after the first mur­der takes place is also telling in terms of their fear. Sim­i­lar­ly, the devel­op­ment of face-paint and lit­tle to no cloth­ing are marked changes from their ini­tial school-boy attire.

Still, there are sim­i­lar­i­ties between before and after. The choir­boys become the hunters and their dis­ci­pline, orga­ni­za­tion, and loy­al­ty as the lat­ter is due direct­ly to their train­ing in the for­mer. They are also the ones who cre­ate and enforce the cul­tur­al pro­gres­sion of the tribe of boys, while Ralph and Pig­gy, who’ve main­tained their rea­son to some extent, are increas­ing­ly ostra­cized. All of this ter­ror comes through strong­ly through the use of lib­er­al cut­ting and realign­ments in the edit­ing room, and the sheer amount of footage Brook had on hand to pick and choose from. The final scene is so abhor­rent , as Ralph flees the oth­er youths on all fours, much like the pig they are con­vinc­ing them­selves he is, that the appear­ance of white socks and match­ing deck shoes of adult pro­por­tions, and the adult that is wear­ing them is a great relief. The mon­ster we’ve only caught glimpses of, the mon­ster that was about to appear in full and ter­ri­ble force, espe­cial­ly because of its famil­iar­i­ty, is slain just like that.

• Cri­te­ri­on Essay by Peter Brook
• Site ded­i­cat­ed to the film
• Exhaus­tive Lord of the Flies site
• Cri­te­ri­on Con­trap­tion Review