Lord of the flies written by William Golding is the narrative of a company of young boys that are being evacuated from England during World War 2. Although it is a fictional tale, it can be interpreted as proceedings that could have taken place. Currently there are two movies based on this award-winning novel. One directed by peter Brook and the other by Harry hook. Although they are based on the novel Harry Hooks interpretation is only loosely based and Peter brooks Movie quotes Williams Golding’s work almost work for word in some areas and the interpretation you get from reading lord of the flies is a mirror image of what you witness on the screen.
The introduction of the novel was easily the most important part of the book. As it introduces you to all of the characters and gives you an understanding of how they will interact on the island. Each movie had a different introduction, and even though Hooks movie is more pleasing to the eye as it is more modern and is in colour, Brooks introduction is clearly they best of the two. It is almost paraphrasing the book and gives a clear picture of what is happening. In the opening scene, you see still shots showing that there is a war going on and that England is rather unprepared.
Therefore, it is shipping its children to neighbouring countries. It also shows you the plane and that there was a crash onto the island. However, Hook opening scene only shows children drowning in the water and gives no understanding of how they arrived there. Showing the children in water in the opening scenes would also be cheaper to do and it is my belief that budgetary constraints took priority over artist integrity. Subtle differences from the novel such as the fact the children were military boys and where being trained to become solders really detracted from Goldings purpose. His aim was to show that even choir boys with voices of angles and innocent children can turn wild and savage however buy making them military it was not as far from the kind of things that they were expected to do.
Such as hunting and combat. One also wonders what Hook hopes to achieve by having an adult on the island as the man objective of the novel as previously mentioned- is to show them turn primitive and wild without the presences of adults or authority. Having no power struggle for chef and having jack the mean boy who is mean to be ugly without silliness looking soft and fair and Ralph who is said to have a mildness around his mouth and eyes that proclaimed no devil looking rugged and strong was really a error on the part of casting. However, if the two boys swapped roles it would have been perfect.
Nonetheless the major error in hooks production was the conch. It was mean to be a thing of beauty and grace. Something that keeps them together and brings them together. However, a glow stick is the first thing that brings them together as a group and the finding of the conch was nothing to be proud of. Piggy merely stumbles across it in shallow water however in Goldings novel it was quite a three-page production to retrieve it. Golding represents the conch by saying it was ever so expensive, valuable and delicate in spite of this, the conch in Hooks movie is grey, small, and ugly.
It does not symbolise power at all and looks rather worthless. The conch is meant to represent civilisation and is it loses power they lose more of there compassion and humanity but by having it appear as such a insignificant part of the introduction it has already lost its power. It was the only thing that could bring them together in the book however in the movie it will push them apart.
