Review of Animal Farm (1954) by Edith N — 09 Jan 2010

Clutching Forks and Knives to Eat Their Bacon.

Okay, hands up, everybody. Who read this in school? Indeed, who saw the movie in school? (I'm not sure I did.) Okay. Hands down. Now. How many of you remember all the symbolism? Uh huh. Some of it? Better. At very least, if you remember anything at all, you should remember the thinly-veiled satire of the Russian Revolution and the rise of the Soviet Union. For preference, you should also remember who the two main pigs are and the ending. There will be a test. And for those of you who haven't read it, you are missing Great Literature. Shame on you; shame on your school district. When I grew up and attended school in the Pasadena Unified School District, we read in according to the state requirements. Freshman year, I think, and I'm pretty sure first semester. I have a vague memory of the awful, incompetent Ms. Lauderdale trying to explain it to us. I like to hope it was Ms. Owen instead, who was a better teacher, but I honestly don't remember which one. I remember two books for certain from Lauderdale and three from Owen. Quick--whose class were you in?

The animals are suffering under the tyrannical rule of Mr. Jones (Maurice Denham, who does all the voices except the narration, done by Gordon Heath). Under the encouragement of Old Major, the oldest of the pigs, the animals rebel and overthrow their human oppressors, establishing Animal Farm. The pigs are the smartest animals and therefore quickly become in charge, but that's okay, because All Animals Are Equal. Only whether Napoleon is equal to Snowball eats at Napoleon, and he ends up driving Snowball away. (In this version, it is very strongly implied that the dogs kill him; in the book, he is just never heard from again.) Slowly, things change at Animal Farm. The animals undertake Snowball's new plan to build a windmill, which Napoleon has claimed for himself. This will provide them with the electricity to live in luxury. Only as things progress, it is Napoleon and the pigs who live in luxury. He takes a litter of puppies and trains them as guard dogs, exercising iron control over the other animals, including crushing the rebellion of the chickens, who resent the selling of their eggs after they've been told said eggs would no longer be taken from them.

The interesting thing about this, Britain's first animated mass-release movie, is that it's believed that the CIA funded it. After all, it is awfully anti-Communist. It was 1954. Even if there were no evidence whatsoever, somebody would be saying it was funded by the CIA. The only difference here is that it's believed by serious scholars to be true. I'm not entirely sure what the evidence is, though I do know that an FOIA request produces no information--they aren't talking. Of course, this is not a certainty that there's anything there, contrary to conspiracy theorist belief. For one, things have been known to remain classified for no good reason for a long time. Something along the lines of World War I requisitioning paperwork is still classified, and no one--including people who have seen the documents in question--seems entirely sure why. Honestly, this is the first movie I've ever heard to have real evidence of direct CIA influence. I've encountered several things which say that the CIA did this with other films, but no names are listed. Really, typical conspiracy theorist speaking. Still, someone American must have been involved--part of payment for the rights when sold by Orwell's widow included that she got to meet Clark Gable. So.

On the other hand, there are some obvious failings to the film itself which cannot be chalked up to its being a Tool of The Man. The animation is kind of so-so, and I do agree that having it almost entirely in voiceover is a little tedious. It's a short movie, perhaps a little too short. A lot of important detail goes missing. Of course, the whole thing got mistaken for a children's movie by the same sort of people who assume that any movie with superheroes is automatically a children's movie and therefore end up with their children weeping and/or having nightmares. On the other hand, it does seem rather animation for children. Hell, they even threw in a happy ending, which of course would have delighted George Orwell. (Ye Gods, and there was merchandising!) For what it is, the movie's pretty good. It's just that what it is may not be what it could have been. This is often the case when it comes to film adaptations, though as those who care about source material are quite aware.

Okay, pencils down. While it is true, as you have no doubt written, that the Stalinist Napoleon drives the Trotskyite Snowball from what becomes Manor Farm, symbolizing the pigs' descent into their crueler natures, with Orwell not actually liking Trotsky and perhaps not meaning Snowball to be him after all, we know that the original ending assumes a greater rule for Stalinism than history would actually reveal. Leaving aside entirely the fact that, on Stalin's death, the Soviet Union pretty much did whatever they could to pretend he'd never really existed in the first place, the making-of with Tony Robinson shows us footage of the movie's ending intercut with footage of people overthrowing their Communist oppressors. (Whether life is better for the animals even yet is an exercise I leave for the student.) However, it shows the strongest signs of meddling to make better propaganda of anything in the film. Which is kind of a shame, given how much impact the original ending had. We do still get "All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others." What we do not get, and what was the other major gut-punch of the book, is "Twelve voices were shouting in anger, and they were all alike. No question, now, what had happened to the faces of the pigs. The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.".