Tag: HAR: Farming

Of Mice And Men. Dir. Gary Sinise. MGM. 1992.

‘Of Mice and Men’ (1992) is a film adaptation of the novel by John Steinbeck, which is set in 1930s America during the Great Depression. The film follows the lives of George and Lennie, two ranch workers who struggle to fulfil their ideal of the American dream, which is to acquire their own land.

15th January 2019
The Wizard of Oz. Dir. Victor Fleming, King Vidor, George Cukor, Richard Thorpe, Norman Taurog. MGM. 1939.

The Wizard of Oz is about a small-town girl in the big city–the Emerald City. Dorothy lives on a farm in Kansas with her dog Toto. When she is knocked unconscious during a hurricane, she wakes up to find herself in the magical world of Oz, filled with a myriad of unusual creatures. She must travel…

14th January 2019
La Haine. Dir. Mathieu Kassovitz. Canal+. 1995.

One of the most enigmatic scenes in Mathieu Kassovitz’s La Haine, an exploration of social tensions and police brutality in the banlieues (council estates) of Paris in the 1990s, occurs the afternoon after a riot breaks out in the suburb the previous night. The sound of a hip-hop remix reverberates around the buildings, as a…

14th December 2018
Barnyard. Dir. Steve Oedekerk. Paramount Pictures, Nickelodeon Movies. 2006.

Steve Oedekerk’s Barnyard uses witty puns and gags in order to satirise the idea of the animal as a fixed definition, in that an animal can never truly be anything more than a representation of the attributes that humanity typically associates with its species.

14th December 2018
Wuthering Heights. Dir. Andrea Arnold. Curzon Artificial Eye. 2011.

Andrea Arnold’s 2011 adaptation of Emily Brontë’s classic 1847 romance/tragedy novel Wuthering Heights highlights the desolate and savage nature of the moors in which the love story takes place, and the violent nature of those who live within them (notably Heathcliff). This wildness is conveyed to the audience through the use of animals, particularly violence against…

14th December 2018
The Wizard of Oz. Dir. Victor Fleming, King Vidor, George Cukor, Richard Thorpe, Norman Taurog. MGM. 1939.

The Wizard of Oz showcases, through its many varying forms of animal representation, the ways in which filmmakers deal with the challenge of creating animal characters, and how these different methods are used to craft personality traits such as the moral essence of the character. We can see this with regards to the flying monkeys, particularly…

12th December 2018
Cinderella. Dir. Sir Kenneth Branagh . Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures. 2015.

During Ella’s journey from a happy, sweet child, to the mourning servant of her stepfamily, to cherished wife of the King, her fundamental characteristics are consistent. Her mother tells her to ‘have courage and be kind’. The message is not subtle: this exact phrase is repeated another 9 times in the film. For the sceptics…

12th December 2018
Hannah Montana: The Movie. Dir. Peter Chelsom. Walt Disney Pictures. 2009.

Hannah Montana: The Movie is about Miley Stewart, a secret pop sensation known as Hannah Montana, getting caught up in the perks of her famous life. Her fed-up father, Robby Ray, forces Miley to visit her family on her hometown farm in Crowley Corners, Tennessee. Robby Ray threatens to take away Hannah Montana forever if Miley…

2nd June 2018
Animal Farm. Dir. John Halas, Joy Batchelor. Pathe, Universal, RKO . 1954.

Halas and Batchelor’s 1954 Animal Farm holds a firm place in cinematic history as Britain’s second animated feature. The film is based on the 1945 novella by George Orwell and is often read as an allegory for communism and Stalinism. The unrest of the animals and desire for revolution also has echoes of Marxist ideas about the…

18th January 2017
Racing Stripes. Dir. Frederik Du Chau. Warner Bros. 2005.

Racing stripes (Frederik Du Chau 2005) is an American sports comedy which centres on the glamourous and wealthy sport of horseracing in Kentucky. However the film does this through a comedic twist. The film has a bildungsroman performance narrative and follows the journey of a young girl and her unconventional mount Stripes, a zebra. After a…

18th January 2017