SYNOPSICS
Animal Farm (1999) is a English movie. John Stephenson has directed this movie. Kelsey Grammer,Ian Holm,Julia Louis-Dreyfus,Julia Ormond are the starring of this movie. It was released in 1999. Animal Farm (1999) is considered one of the best Comedy,Drama,Family movie in India and around the world.
A satire of Stalinist Russia, this story tells of the revolt of the animals of Manor Farm against their human masters. Led by the pigs Snowball (Trotsky) and Napoleon (Stalin), the animals attempt to create a utopian society. Soon, however, Napoleon gets a taste for power, drives out Snowball, and establishes a totalitarian regime as brutal and corrupt as any human society. Manor Farm becomes a world where all animals are equal, but some are more equal than others.
Animal Farm (1999) Reviews
Misses the point of Animal Farm
I was disappointed to find that this version of Animal Farm completely fails to convey the fundamental message of Animal Farm. George Orwell's novel is about the deception, the cruelty, and the hypocrisy of the pigs' control of the farm. The reason it is such a good book is that it shows the reader how the situations slides from a seemingly democratic revolution to a bloody tyranny. The 1954 animation of Animal Farm portrays this excellently; the scene where Boxer is carried away is often mentioned as being absolutely heart-wrenching. However, in the new edition, I remember trying to feel the same abhorrent turmoil but finding that it just wasn't there. The story seems to be told as if it were from a children's adventure book. It most certainly is not. Admirable filming with real animals counts for nothing when the whole reason for being of the story is not expressed. If you want to experience the sheer force of the story of Animal Farm, watch the old version.
it was very bad
Well,to start things off, I'm a 13 year old and I read the book in class. After reading the book, our teacher showed us this movie and we watched it. The movie was very false to the book and the book was perfect the way it was written. The movie was often out of sequence with the book and many things that were in the book, such as the portrayal of Clover as Jessie, were taken way out of context.All in all, I think the movie is a disgrace and is not fit to be called "Animal Farm".The portrayal of Whymper as Mr.Pinchfield also threw my whole class off.I recommend that if you read the book and are unsure of whether or not to see this movie, you should definitely not see it.
American rock-n-roll: The answer to totalitarianism
The ending in Animal Farm was not only a travesty to Orwell's original work, but made no logical sense. Certain animals supposedly had the sense and wherewithal to go into hiding on the farm until Napoleon's reign came crashing. Where did they hide? How did they survive? Most of all, why weren't they hunted down as traitors by Napoleon's dogs? But the real incongruity comes after Napoleon's fall. "The walls have now fallen," (a post-Reaganistic interpretation of the Berlin Wall) and now there is hope in the future. "There are new owners. We will not allow them to make the same mistakes." What new power and insights do the animals now have to prevent the same mistakes? And just who are these new owners, anyway? Why do the animals (who have proven themselves capable of running a farm, if they are not mismanaged) have to revert to human owners to be their masters again? And why are we to believe these new human owners are better than Jones or Pilkington? Is it because they look more "American," drive a sleeker, newer car, and play rock-n-roll? Orwell wrote this classic tale as an allegory of modern totalitarianism in general, and Stalinism in particular. TNT's production reeks of a post-modern, imperialistic, corporate-American view of Russia and Eastern Europe today, whose troubles would be over if they would just fully embrace their new owners, American multi-national corporations, with their hip technology and rock-n-roll culture.
Orwell is spinning in his grave.
If I had looked at the back of the video box, and seen that it was from Hallmark, I would have put it back on the fence. Thankfully, I checked it out from the library, so I didn't pay to watch this. The grievances of the animals were valid. Orwell never repudiates Old Major's message, as does this movie. In the book, no animal wants the humans back. The movie shows that all the animals need is the right master, and everything will be happy. This ain't Animal Farm. Read the book instead.
Hamfisted delivery, lack of focus on the animals, sloppy ending destroy some good effects
This is the second film adaptation of George Orwell's classic satire on the Russian Revolution. For those of you who slept through grade school, the story tells how the animals of the Manor Farm throw out their human oppressors, rename their home Animal Farm, and try to create a new society where they will live equally and prosperously without exploitation. Instead, everything rapidly goes wrong. Unfortunately, this film does not adequately convey the warning message of Orwell's superb novel. In the book, the corruption of the animals' revolution is subtle. Until the very end, they do not understand what is happening to them, so they are powerless to resist. In the movie, the pigs are far more open about their power seizure, and the other animals far more aware of what is happening, and thus the lack of resistance to the pigs is hard to excuse. The movie says from the start exactly who the villains are going to be, so the viewer is not allowed to share the animals' initial view of Napoleon and Snowball as heroes, or their reluctance to believe that their heroes are betraying them. The most startling departure from the book is Jessie the dog's new role as narrator. Orwell views much of his story through the eyes of Clover the mare, and he clearly sympathizes most with the pessimism of Benjamin the donkey. In this movie, Benjamin's role is greatly diminished and Clover is nearly eliminated to clear the set for Jessie. Jessie is a triumph of Jim Henson's Creature Shop, a beautiful, lifelike creation, superbly voiced by Julia Ormond, and she could have become the basis for a bold new interpretation of Orwell's story. Unfortunately, Jessie's narration is confusing; she delivers it entirely in retrospective, and it is hard to tell what she knew at the time and what she realized later. She ends up giving the impression that she saw the revolution being betrayed from the outset, and leaves us wondering why she didn't do anything about it. The dramatic potential of Jessie's feelings toward her puppies as they are corrupted into NKVD-like bully boys is unmined; after Napoleon denies her the right to see her offspring, she never mentions them again. Director Stephenson often forgets that this is the animals' story. He gives the humans much more camera time than they deserve. Orwell's first chapter, a masterpiece of economy, is bloated into about fifteen minutes of screen time by the irrelevant doings of the humans. Stephenson also wastes precious time on Farmer Frederick, who should have been written out of the script the minute the decision was made to exclude Frederick's attack on Animal Farm. Aside from the endearing Jessie, the film gets its greatest boost from Ian Holm's rendition of Squealer. Squealer here is so sinister that he often eclipses Napoleon. The creature design is good, but it is Holm's silky, menacing voice that really makes the character. The ending of the movie ultimately sinks it. Neither this film, nor its 1950s predecessor, has the courage to stick with Orwell's spiritually crushing conclusion. The earlier animated version merely repeated the revolution, with no explanation of how the same fatal course will be avoided. This version is even worse, simply destroying Napoleon's reign by a deus ex machina device. Orwell's supreme contribution to the world was his power to face unpleasant facts - a power that this movie lacks. Rating: ** out of ****. Recommendation: Don't hesitate to miss it.