THE MOVING PICTURE BOY ARCHIVE

LORD OF THE FLIES

Title: Lord of the Flies
Year of Release: 1990
Director: Harry Hook, who had also written and directed the 1987 film The Kitchen Toto
Country of Production: USA
Principal Boy Actors: Balthazar Getty plays Ralph, Chris Furrh (as Jack), Danuel Pipoly (Piggy), James Badge Dale (Simon), Gary Rule (Roger), and Andrew and Edward Taft (as Sam and Eric respectively).
Genre: Drama
Length: 1 hr 30 min
Availability: Released on blu-ray

Synopsis
A group of American boys stranded on a tropical island descend into savagery and violence, despite the efforts of Ralph to maintain some semblance of civilisation.

Based on William Golding's 1954 novel Lord of the Flies, the film is visually very pretty, and it is a reasonable version of the story in which the boys have been Americanised and their language updated to that of 1990. Seen in its own terms - that is, seen by a viewer who had not read the novel and who had not seen the great 1963 Peter Brook film - this is a decent movie. But the film definitely suffers when compared to the '63 film. The characters in the 1990 version are blander and less complex, and therefore both less realistic and less interesting: Ralph is a flawless hero; Jack is suggested as having a background which makes him a delinquent to begin with; Piggy is just annoying and hectoring, and lacks the vulnerabilities of character that made him likeable in the novel and in the earlier film; and Simon leaves little impression at all. Of course, another contrast to the Peter Brook film is that none of the boys completely shed their clothes, even when swimming. No doubt this accurately reflects the changes in how boys would behave in 1990 compared with how they behaved in the early 1960s; society has become more prudish in this regard, even as the American boys in this film lace a fair portion of their speech with obscenities. Still, the movie is something of a visual feast, and, given the flawed script, the young actors acquit themselves honourably.

Below: the 1990 film version of Lord of the Flies is mentioned under the entry for James Aubrey (who played Ralph in the '63 film) in John Holmstrom's The Moving Picture Boy (p. 267).

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