Information
- BFI identifier58211
- Date1954 (Release)
- Production countryUnited Kingdom
- Production company
- SynopsisAnimation. Oppressed by cruel, drunken Farmer Jones, the animals of Manor Farm, led by the pigs Napoleon and Snowball, evict him and set up a republic. Soon Napoleon ousts Snowball and savagely crushes a revolt against his leadership using dogs. Conditions steadily decline for all the animals other than the pigs, who increasingly resemble humans, until the animals, with help from the other farms, drive out Napoleon and his cronies. (Synopsis)
- Genre
- Subject
- CreditsDirection: John Halas
Direction: Joy Batchelor
A Halas and Batchelor Production: Halas & Batchelor
view all - Cast
Title
Animal Farm (Original)
EIDR identifier
10.5240/619A-C6B8-8ED7-4067-C73E-6Category
FictionThis work is included in the BFI Filmography.
- Collections
- Film / Video
35mm Colour Positive - Polyester - Combined - Viewing
16mm Colour Positive - Safety - Combined - Viewing
16mm Colour Positive - Safety - Combined - Viewing
35mm Colour Positive - Polyester - Combined - Viewing
VHS cassette - Video - Viewing
view all - Scripts / DocumentsScript - Original story: Novel, "Animal Farm", by George Orwell - SCR-3639
Document: production - Papers related to Halas and Batchelor's first feature length animation based on the novel 'Animal Farm' by George Orwell. First published at the end of the Second World War, George Orwell's savage satire expressed his profound disillusionment with Soviet Communism, whose principles he had spent much of his career defending. It's an allegorical tale of the animals overthrowing their hated oppressor Farmer Jones and forming a socialist utopia - only to discover the hard way that, as Orwell so memorably put it, "some animals are more equal than others". The film's credited producer is Louis de Rochemont, whose major achievement up to then was the creation of the March of Time newsreel format in the US, though he had also produced feature films dealing with sensitive political issues such as The House on 92nd Street (US, d. Henry Hathaway, 1945) and 13 Rue Madeleine (US, d. Hathaway, 1947). There are suggestions that funding was provided by the CIA, who at the height of the McCarthy witch-hunts were keen to back a popular film with an explicitly anti-Communist message. To emphasise this, Orwell's profoundly pessimistic ending was softened, though it's still left ambiguous as to whether the rule of the hated pigs truly is coming to an end. Halas and Batchelor were hired to direct what would turn out to be Britain's first animated feature film, with Maurice Denham supplying all the voices (with a narration by Gordon Heath). The visual style recalls the great Disney features of the 1930s and 1940s, though the content is far more adult and notably unsentimental: the animals more likely to react to major tragedies (most notably the horrific fate of their beloved companion Boxer) with resigned stoicism than righteous anger. According to press reports over 250,000 preliminary drawings were made by a team of 60 - 80 animators under the supervision of John Reed. Halas & Batchelor devoted four years exclusively to the project. [Please note: storyboarding/ sketch drawings and cels are held seperately by BFI Posters & Design] Papers include scripts, correspondence, contracts, and files relating to design, press and publicity, distribution and exhibition, also publicity photographs of the team at work on the film - HAB-1-35
Script - Papers relating to the development of the script and storyboard, including character breakdowns, treatment and synopses, early draft scripts, research on animal shape and movement [Muybridge illustrations], correspondence c.1952 - 1954 - HAB-1-35-1
Document: pre-production - File containing: - 'Analysis of characters', Joy Batchelor's handwritten [pencil] breakdown of each of the novel's characters, or groups of characters, identifying their social status, function within the story and necessity to retain. For example the cat is described as an 'outsider' whose function is to provide 'comic relief and superficial comment on human nature' and is therefore 'expendable'. The 'sheep' are 'not defined, except as stupid', their social status is as 'active, stupid followers of revolution and dictatorship'. Their function within the story is to actively assist dicatatorship by demonstrations of mass hysteria' and are therefore 'essential'; - 'Animal Farm characters summary of analyses' - handwritten notes in pencil no date c. 1951 - HAB-1-35-1-1
Script - Typescript draft 'Comment and dialogue', heavily annotated in ink and pencil, 5 pages, 8 October 1951 [Note. Post-it note indicates page 6 was lent for exhibition and was not present when script was donated to BFI] - HAB-1-35-1-2
See Brunel collection, Box 4/2 item 13.
view all - Posters / DesignsDesign: animation - Drawing of Mr Jones with a lamp, swinging a bottle. Marked 12.3 - 3 - PD-12752
Design: animation - Drawing of Mr Jones with a lamp, leaning against a door. Marked 9 - 5 - PD-12753
Design: production - Storyboard for Animal Farm. Three small sketches set alongside typescript descriptions, numbered 19, 20 and 21. Part of a sequence of over 350 drawings intended to give an overall view of the film, including important plot points, characters and events. The drawings were the first visual impression of the film. - PD-12749
Design: production - Storyboard for Animal Farm. Three small sketches set alongside typescript descriptions, numbered 22, 23 and 24. Part of a sequence of over 350 drawings intended to give an overall view of the film, including important plot points, characters and events. The drawings were the first visual impression of the film. - PD-12750
Design: production - Storyboard for Animal Farm. Three small sketches set alongside typescript descriptions, numbered 34, 35 and 36. Part of a sequence of over 350 drawings intended to give an overall view of the film, including important plot points, characters and events. The drawings were the first visual impression of the film. - PD-12751
view all - StillsPhotograph: print - Landscape - Black and White - bfi-00m-owh
Photograph: print - Landscape - Black and White - bfi-00m-owg
Photograph: print - Landscape - Black and White - bfi-00m-owf
Photograph: publicity - Portrait - Colour - bfi-00o-2eh
Photograph: transparency - Landscape - Colour - bfi-00n-8jq
view all - ArticlesHistorical Journal of Film, Radio and Television v25 n2 June 2005 - Article, BibliographyEmpire n172 October 2003 - DVD Reviewview all
- Books
- Digital documentsBFI Southbank Programme Notes November 2012
BFI Southbank Programme Notes June 2015
BFI Southbank Programme Notes February 2018
available to view in BFI Reuben Library
- +Animal Farm
Work - 58211 - 1954 (Release)
United Kingdom - Film - Fiction
Hierarchy Display