Category: Year: 1993
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The Secret Garden. Dir. Agnieszka Holland. Warner Bros. California. 1993
The Secret Garden creates a form of social equality between its animal and human characters. Social equality is defined as someone not being discriminated against based on their class, gender, race etc and in this case species. The film is interesting because of the way the outdoors are depicted as a space where the differences…
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Hocus Pocus. Dir Kenny Ortega. Walt Disney Pictures. 1993
Thackery Binx is one of the central figures of Hocus Pocus, and in doing this the film considers the status of domesticated animals within society and cinema. Hocus Pocus acknowledges cats’ role as a domestic sphere defenders. Binx is specifically transformed into a cat because of the meanings we associate with them in our society,…
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Mrs. Doubtfire. Dir. Chris Columbus. 20th Century Fox. 1993.
In this family comedy directed by Chris Columbus, Mrs. Doubtfire (1993) uses cartoon animals to reflect Daniel’s anarchic behaviour, letting the audience stipulate as to whether he is the antagonist or protagonist in this story of conflicting parenting styles. From the film’s opening scene, Daniel’s conscientious nature is divulged in an over the top performance…
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Jurassic Park . Dir. Steven Spielberg. Universal Studios. 1993.
Stephen Spielberg’s 1993 blockbuster adaptation of Jurassic Park is most well-known for its strikingly realistic puppet and CGI representations of the most fascinating of the prehistoric animals: the dinosaurs. Though the dinosaurs are impressive, it is the other, less unusual animals which appear in the film who are often overlooked, which provide an interesting point of analysis.
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The Wrong Trousers. Dir. Nick Pick. BBC. 1993.
Hapless Wallace and his faithful dog Gromit appear again on screen for a dramatic adventure in The Wrong Trousers (1993). The inventors’ worldsget thrown upside down by Gromit’s birthday present: a pair of mechanical trousers. These were intended to self-walk Gromit, but when Wallace’s debts lead him to letting out a room to a penguin, the trousers…
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Free Willy. Dir. Simon Wincer. Warner Bros. Family Entertainment. 1993.
Famed for its CGI clip of a killer whale jumping over a wall into freedom, family film Free Willy follows a young boy’s transformation from “street kid” to animal activist after forming a bond with hostile orca Willy. 12 year old Jesse’s bond enables him to train and care for the three ton orca, which several trainers…
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Homeward Bound . Dir. Duwayne Dunham. Disney. 1993.
In our society and culture, there are many things that affect the relationships and views we have between ourselves and non-human animals; one major aspect being films that focus on animals. Particularly, in Homeward Bound, an adventure film, the fact that the animals were at the center of the film, that they were given human voices…
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Jurassic Park. Dir. Steven Spielberg. Universal. 1993.
Revisiting ‘Jurassic Park’ in light of ‘Blackfish’. With next summer’s release of ‘Jurassic World,’ recently teased with a trailer starring Chris Pratt, I think it’s worthwhile to revisit the original film in the paleontological franchise in light of the 2013 SeaWorld-documentary ‘Blackfish,’ with a focus on the inherent abuse captivity represents for wild animals and…