Lord of the Flies (1963)

Editor's Note Director Peter Brook's faithful adaptation of William Golding's 1954 novel stars James Aubrey and Tom Chapin as antagonists Ralph and Jack, respectively. When a plane carrying 30-odd British schoolboys out of a war zone crashes on an island, all the adults are killed. The boys organize for survival, naming Ralph as their chief, in charge of providing fire and shelter. Jack is designated to lead a group of boys to hunt the wild pigs that roam the island. Almost inevitably, as time passes, the two boys, representatives of civilization and savagery, begin a deadly struggle for dominance. The frequently invoked image of life as a "war of all against all," in which civility is merely another weapon in the battle to gain one's ends, is given a particularly disturbing twist because it is enacted by children. Brooks shot an enormous amount of footage, a documentary style ratio of 60:1, and used nonprofessional actors to achieve a raw, visceral realism. With a jauntily ironic score by Raymond Leppard, the film succeeds completely in suggesting the chilling malignity that can lurk beneath a bland exterior.

	Roger Elwin
	James Aubrey
	Tom Chapin
	Peter Davy
	Hugh Edwards
	Tom Gaman
	Peter Brook - Editor
	Gerald Feil - Editor
	Lewis Allen - Producer
	Jean-Claude Lubtchansky - Editor
	Tom Hollyman - Director of Photography
	Gerald Feil - Associate Producer
	Raymond Leppard - Composer
	Peter Brook - Screenwriter
	Peter Brook - Director

Sight and Sound
"...Brook's vérité approach allows the full force of Golding's allegory to assert itself..." 12/01/2002 p.64

Uncut
4 stars out of 5 -- "[R]endered oddly, devastatingly convincing here....This looks starker, stranger and better than ever." 09/01/2007 p.123

Ultimate DVD
5 stars out of 5 -- "Superb....A role model for successful novel adaptations." 08/01/2007 p.124

Sight and Sound
"[T]he film had a roughness and authenticity that a polished Hollywood version would surely have lacked." 03/01/2008 p.94