Appreciating Animal Farm in the New Millennium
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Appreciating Animal Farm
in the New Millennium
John Rodden
WITHTHE APPROACH of the centennial of The Wonders of Animatronics
George Orwell’sbirth in June 2003, much In October 1999, Turner Network Televi-
attention is already turning to reassess- sion broadcast its $24 million adaptation
ments of his life and to the ongoing rel- of Orwell’s Animal Farm, which was co-
evance in the new millennium of his mas- produced by Robert Halmi, Sr., and Hall-
terwork, Nineteen Eighty-Four(1 949) Eas-.‘ mark Entertainment. The film is partly
ily neglected amid the hoopla is the mag- animated,with great BritishShakespearean
nificent little beast fable of totalitarian- voice actors such as Patrick Stewart (Na-
ism which launched Orwell’s fame and poleon) and Peter Ustinov (Old Major)
which he often called his “favorite” book, providing the animal voices.2
Animal Farm (1945). This essay looks at A refugee from Soviet-occupied Hun-
how changing historical conditions have gary during the early postwar era-and a
altered the reception of Animal Farm in man who also spent World War I1 in
the last decade-since the collapse of the Budapest under Nazi ruleHalmi said that
U.S.S.R. in December 1991. My focus is on he intended to do Animal Farm for de-
how differently Orwell’s allegory is being cades, but that the technology was not
encountered by new generations in the available for a sophisticated animated
twenty-first century-who are not even version. Jim Henson’s Creature Shop, a
old enough to remember the existence of cutting-edge voice-tech firm, helped pro-
the Soviet Union. Extended consideration vide the combination live-action and ani-
is devoted to a representative example of mated effectsthat the movie incorporates?
these changes and their implications: the The new adaptation of Animal Farm-
remarkable film adaptation of Animal the first since the 1955 British version by
Farm and how its technological marvels the husband-wife team of John Halas and
are transforming young viewers’ experi- Joy Batcheler-occurred as the news
ence of Orwell’s allegory. media were commemorating the fiftieth
anniversary of Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-
Four,originally published in June 1949.As
a result, Orwell’s Aesopian fable was lost
JOHN RODDEN is the author most recently o f Re-
paintingthe Little Red Schoolhouse:AHistory in the long shadow of Nineteen Eighfy-
of Eastern German Education,1945-1995(Ox- Four.
fordUniversityhess,2002) andthe forthcoming It may take longer to watch Halmi’s
George Orwell: Scenes from an Afterlife (IS1 two-hour adaptation ofAnimalFarmthan
Books, 2003). t o read Orwell’s little allegory of revolu-
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tainment preferences in the age of the parable. Moviemakersfinallyhad the tech-
mass media, however, it is likelythat many nology t o bring a cinematicAnima1 Farm
people in the future-especially school- fully to life. Added to animatronics for
age youth-will encounter Animal Farm this production has been computer imag-
first or exclusively through this spectacu- ing-a technoiogy used not just in Eabe
lar new video version. The new adapta- but also in Dr. Doolittle (1997)-which
tion merges computer graphics, humans has allowed the animal images to appear
and animals, and what is now termed in utterly lifelike.The production shifts from
the animated film industry “animatronics” film shots of the actual barnyard animals
-animal robot “doubles” who possess to the computer-image replicas, but it is
human voices. Halmi used a dozen elec- practically impossible to tell the differ-
tronically controlled animal-like robots, ence. The adaptation involves more than
developed by the wondrous animated 100 real animals-pigs, donkeys, horses,
technology of Henson’s Creature Shop ducks-as well as 15 animatronic cre-
(the industry leader in “animatronics”). a t i o n ~Every
. ~ animal character in the film
While such high-tech puppetry and com- h a s t h r e e different versions: live,
puter effects had already been used to animatronic, and computer-generated.5
stunning effect in Babe: Pig in the Ciw As Halmi’slong-term desire to produce
(1998), the adventures of a civic-minded Animal Farm suggests, however, he also
pig, Henson takes them further inAnimal had compelling personal-and politi-
Farm. And it is these technological inno- cal-reasons for aiming to bring Orwell’s
vations that make the newAnimal Farm a allegoryto the big screen. Although Halmi
breakthrough film: the special effects are had previously adapted The Odyssey,
amazing. This is no simple “Mr. Ed” pro- Gulliver’s Travels, and Alice in Wonder-
duction: instead one would swear that land for television-he is quite experi- I
the animals are talking. enced in working on literary adapta-
Henson’s feat accounts for why this tions-he said in a 1999interview that the
new Animal Farm has recently appeared: work he has always most wanted to pro-
the technology has made it possible. Al- duce has been Animal Farm.
though the 1955animatedversion ofAni- When Orwell published the British
mal Farm was followed by adaptations of edition of Animal Farm in August 1945,
the fable into a play (in 1964) and musical Halmi was a young anti-Communist resis-
(in 1984), it remained best known in its tance fighter, battling Stalinism in his
literary version. Even the Halas-Batcheler native Hungary.
film did not supplant the preference for ”I was hungry ...and surrounded by
the reading experience. Certainly this is a barbed wires and the so-called Iron Cur-
testimony to the beauty and power of tain,” he recalls, stressing how inspira-
Orwell’swriting. tional Animal Farm was to him growing
But another reason for the adjunct role up. “We were completely isolated. You
played by the 1955 film adaptation, says thought, ‘Nobody knows about us, no-
Halmi, is that the Halas-Batcheler film body knows what communism is,nobody
could not have an impact dramatic knows what terror is.’And all of asudden,
enough to compete with readers’ imagi- Animal Farm was published and was
nations of the fable. Beforeanimatronics, smuggled into Hungary. It became my
nothing substantially new on a technical bible.”
(and imaginative) level could be done When Halmi was able to flee Hungary,
with Animal Farm. Once animatronics he took Animal Farm with him. “I have
became highly sophisticated, it seemed lived with this book for more than 50
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he frequently thought about producing the humans but also by the pigs. For in-
AnimalFarm. But a live-action adaptation stance,the film highlights barbarous tor-
remained aseemingly impossible dream. ture scenes (including a grisly scene ofan
Finally, by the mid-l990s, the science of old hog being chopped up) and the cruel
movie-making caught up with Halmi’s indifference to animals’ fates after their
ambition to make pigs talk like com- productive years (especially the power-
missars! ful, tragic scene of aged Boxer, the noble
yet gullible cart horse, being sent to the
Updating Orwell for the Screen glue factory). The effect of these scenes is
Of course, one could argue that if Halmi to promote an anti-vivisectionist animal
felt so reverent about AnimalFar-m as his rights agenda-something approaching
“bible,” he would not have taken such PETA propaganda.
liberties in altering elements of charac- Janes and Burke have also added a
terization and plot. Working closely with narrator: the sheep dog Jessie, who is
Halmi, screenwriters Alan Janes and played by a beautiful border collie. Fol-
Martyn Burke made numerous changes to lowing Orwell’s plot and characteriza-
Orwell’s book.’ tion, the logical candidate for such a role
Some of the alterations are minor and would have been Benjamin the donkey,
add nothing to the plot. For instance, an intelligent skeptic and wry observer of
during Snowball and Napoleon’s argu- events on Animal Farm, the character
ment about building a windmill, Orwell often regarded as a stand-in for Orwell
does not include Napoleon urinating on himself. But the adapters obviously
the plans and Snowball saying, “Youpig.” sought an animal with whom viewers
Other changes may have unexpected would have a natural sympathy: a collie
implications for the viewing audience. was an unsurprising and reasonable
For example, Janes and Burke add a fleet- choice. Making Jessie the narrator gives
ing sexsceneof Farmer Jones and the wife the storyaconsistent,sympathetic voice.
of another farmer in bed together. The Another successful decision was to
change is minor-presumably, it is meant move the story’s time line into the mid-
to suggest Jones’s moral corruption. But 1950s (Orwell ends the allegory with the
unfortunately, as the TVcritic for theLos 1943Teheran Conference), which makes
Angeles Times lamented, it might deter it possible to put a television in the barn,
parents from watching the adaptation where it becomes a powerful propaganda
with their ten-year-old child. device. Used by the pigs t o distract the
Still other revisions seek to update other animals, who instantly become
Animal Farm by cleverly linking it to top- mesmerized by its black-and-white im-
ics such as animal rights and vivisection. ages of pretty actresses and modern ap-
For instance, Stalin’s purges and show pliances, television is a more powerful
trialsduring 19361938arejustified bythe opiate of the people than Marx ever
pigs as a violation of the “Crimes Against dreamed of. Director John Stephenson
Animalism” code, an obvious allusion to uses vintage black-and-white newsreel
the “crimes against the People” statutes footage as an example of the pigs’ propa-
of Stalin-era Communist regimes. Unlike gandafilms. Drugged by TV, the rank-and-
Babe, the charming fable about a gallant file animals are content to follow the
piglet that herds sheep and helps a kindly Seven Commandments of Animalism
farmer-or its darker sequel,Ba6e:Pigin painted on the barn by Squealer (the pig
the City-the Animal Farm adaptation who symbolizes Pravda and the Soviet
features numerous scenes of animal abuse news agency TASS).
I
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smiled with satisfaction at most of these nocent than the Communist sort, but it is
changes. But it is also likelythat he would nonetheless worrisome. By altering
have taken issue with the altered ending, Orwell’s allegory into a general diatribe
asort of epilogue that is meant to be more against “repression,” the adapters rob
hopeiui than his bitter final scerie. (The Orweii’s iabie of its historical moorings
1955 Halas-Batcheler adaptation tried and riskmisleadingthem about theevents
something similar: a barnyard rebellion that it satirizes, especially since younger
to overthrow the tyranny of pig-rule, pos- viewers (and even younger teachers) may
sibly inspired bythe failed uprising against beshaky on (or quite ignorant of) histori-
the Communist dictatorship in East Ger- cal events of the first half of the twentieth
many in June 1953.) century.
As Jessie remarks in avoice-over at the Moreover, younger viewers may ap-
end of the film: “Thewalls have now fallen, proach Animal Farm as if it were just a
the scars have now healed, and life goes dress rehearsal for Orwell’s themes in
on.” These words give way to the strains Nineteen Eighty-Four. But the fact is that,
of “BlueberryHill,” sung by Fats Domino. despite their similarity as “didactic fanta-
The farm’s new owners are arriving: aman sies,” in the phrase of Alex Zwerdling,
and woman, and theirchildren. Not drunk- Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty-Fourare
ards like Jones, they look reassuringly notably different in their satirical tech-
bourgeois, upscale, and suburban. Halmi’s niques and targets.8Nineteen Eighty-Four
revisionist postscript is evidently in- satirizes not only the Soviet Union and
tended as an allusion to the fall of the Stalinism but also elements of Nazi Ger-
Berlin Wall and the dissolution of the many, American capitalism, and the Brit-
Soviet Union. But it undercuts the seri- ish welfare state. Animal Farm, on the
ousness of the film and bleaches it of its other hand, is an allegory ofthe history of
historical relevance to the early Cold War the Bolshevik Revolution and its after-
era and the specter of Stalinism crushing math, with numerous one-to-one corre-
democracy throughout East Europe- spondenceswith key events in the U.S.S.R.
thereby making it seem as if the recent But that totalitarian system collapsed
passage from Communist tyranny to lib- almost a decade ago, making its history
eral democracy was as easy as walking up even more distant to a potential interna-
the driveway of the family farm. tional viewing audience numbering in
AnimalFarm is “more about repression the hundreds of millions, including ado-
than Stalinism,”director John Stephenson lescents now encountering Animal Farm
has remarked in defense of his Animal who were not even of school age when the
Farm ending. “Youcan see the characters Soviet Union dissolved in December 1991.
in any organization, in any human group. In light of these facts, a closer look at the
They’re typical of the human race.” fable’smultivalent meaning, political sig-
Stephenson added that Animal Farm has nificance, and historical context is war-
“become an anti-dictatorship book. It ranted in this essay.
applies to Kosovo today as much as it The misunderstandings of the new
applied to Hungary then.” Animal Farm film are not so different from
Certainly the satiric scope of Orwell’s the misunderstandings that have haunted
fable is universal, but it needs remember- young readers’ experience of the book,
ing that Animal Farm is also an allegory, and a detailed examination of the latter
whose plot and characters have a specific may assist the millions of young viewers
correspondence t o events in the U.S.S.R. who will soon encounter Animal Farm on
from 1917to 1943.Theadapters’commer- the screen (and perhaps never read the
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the late 1970s both to high school and to level. We think: How could editors and
university students, I have noticed how publishers misjudge asophisticated clas-
Orwell’s fable engages and (inadvert- sic for a children’s tale? How could they
ently) misleads present-day readers. Thus confuse an ingenious attack targeting
the remainder of this essay explores the the betrayal of revolution in general and
causes and consequences of the frequent the Soviet Union in particular for asimple
misunderstandings that younger (or his- animal story?
torically uninformed) readers of Animal 1find that today’s college students are
Farm suffer. It is crucial not t o approach liable to make the same error, and the key
Animal Farm merely as “great literature” to understanding their confusions has to
that “transcends” its time and place, as d o with the language and form of Animal
one might do, say, withsomeof the poetry Farm. In a certain sense,AnimalFarm has
of the great modernist writers. Instead we been victimized by its astonishing suc-
need also to appreciate the specific his- cess as a political satire. Orwell’s“simple”
torical and ideological conditions of little book is quite “sophisticated”-and
World War II and theearly postwar era, for liable to deceive readers into taking it
both shaped Orwell’s conception of Ani- too lightly if they are inattentive to the
mal Farm and how its original audience parallels between the story and Soviet
received it. history. And these historical issues are
themselves anything but “simple.”
Orwell’s “Animallegory”: The fact is that Animal Farm works so
Genre, Context, Controversy beautifully on its literal, surface level as
When George Orwell submitted Animal an animal story that it may lull the un-
Farm in 1945to Dial Press in New York, it wary reader into staying on the surface,
was rejected with the explanation that “it thereby misleading him or her into miss-
was impossible to sell animal stories in ing its underlying political and historical
the USA.”g The anecdote is comical in references. Ironically, then, it is a mea-
hindsight, but the editors at Dial Press sure of AnimalFarm’s artistic excellence
were not the only readers of Animal Farm that it “foo1s”somereaders into taking it
to make this mistake. British readers did for an animal story. The plain language,
so, too. Indeed, some British booksellers straightforward plot, and one-dimen-
erroneously placed it in the “Children’s sional characters mask the complexsub-
Section” of their shops. (Orwell himself ject matter and context. Animal Farm is
had to scurry around London to switch it simple on the surface and quite subtle
to the “adult fiction” shelves). Indeed, beneath it. All readers-like the publish-
many earlyreaders of Orwell’s little mas- ers of the 1940s who rejected the book-
terpiece apparently did not realize that it think in terms of book categories when
was a brilliant work of political satire. they read. We classify books as fiction or
Theyread the bookmuch as did the young nonfiction, biographies or autobiogra-
son of the art critic Herbert Read, one of phies-r, to refer to the present example:
Orwell’sfriends at the BBC, who reported adult novels or children’s tales, serious
that his boy “insisted on my reading it, fiction or animal stories. Thus, the essen-
chapter by chapter...and he enjoys it in- tial error of some readers “fooled” by
nocently as much as I enjoy it mali- Animal Farm has been what Gilbert Ryle
ciously.”’o termed a “category mistake”: they mis-
I t does seem absurd t o the knowledge- take its genre. They see only its surface
able present-day reader that the literary message, misreading it as nothing more
public of the 1940s could have read Ani- than a children’s tale or animal story.
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these-onthesurface. But that is not, first readers who know the “code.”Inthis case,
and foremost, what it is. As historically the key code is the history of Soviet Com-
informed and artistically alert readers munism. Orwell subtitled Animal Farm as
have longappreciated,AnimalFarmis far “a fairy story,” but the subtitle was an
more than an uncontroversial little ironic joke. He meant that his beast fable
children’s book. was no mere “fairy story,” but that it was
First, it is a political allegory of the happening in Stalin’s Russia, and that it
history of the U.S.S.R.-sometimes jok- could happen anywhere.
ingly referred t o as an “animallegory.” Parts of Orwell’s “code” are easy to
Traditionally, an allegory is a symbolic “crack.” For instance, the pigs represent
tale that treats a spiritual subject under the Communist Party. The pig leader Na-
the guise of a worldly one, such as poleon and his rival Snowball symbolize
Langland’s Piers Plowman and Bunyan’s the dictator Stalin and the Communist
Pilgrim’sProgress. leader Leon Trotsky. Old Major is a com-
Secondly, Animal Farm is an allegory posite of Karl Marx and Vladimir Ilyich
written in the form of a beast fable, in Lenin, the major theorist and the key
which the misadventures of animals ex- revolutionary leader of Communism, re-
pose human follies. Orwell draws on our spectively. “Beasts of England”is aparody
culturalstereotypes of animals: Pigs have of thelnternationale, the Communist Party
a bad name for selfishness and gluttony. hymn. The animals’ rebellion in Chapter 2
Horses are slow-witted, strong, gentle, represents the Russian Revolution of
and loyal. Sheep are brainless and behave October 1917.The battle of the Cowshed
as a flock without individual initiative. in Chapter 4 depicts the subsequent civil
Orwell’s point of departure for the fable war. Mr. Jones and the farmers are the
was a statement from Karl Marx’s Eco- loyalist Russians and foreign forces who
nomic and Philosophical Manuscripts of tried but failed to dislodge the Bolshe-
1844:“Theworker in his human functions viks, the revolutionaries led by Lenin. The
no longer feels himself to be anything but animals’ false confessions in Chapter 7
animal. What is animal becomes human represent the purge trials of the late 1930s.
and what is human becomes animal.” Frederick’s stratagem t o exchange
Orwell adapts the literary forms of the banknotes for corn recalls Hitler’s be-
allegory and beast fable for his own pur- trayal of the 1939Nazi-Sovietpact in June
poses. “The business of making people 1941.The first demolition of thewindmill,
conscious of what is happening outside which Napoleon blames on his pig rival,
their own small circle,”he once wrote, “is Snowball, symbolizes the failure of the
one of the major problems of our time, first Five-Year Plan, an industrial plan to
and a new literary technique will have t o coordinate the Soviet economy in the
be evolved to meet it.”” Orwell’s sym- 1920s that did not bring prosperity. The
bolic tale takes a political subject and second destruction of the windmill by
treats it under the guise of an innocent Frederick’s men corresponds to the Nazi
animal story. But Animal Farm also has a invasionof Russiain 1941.Themeetingof
stinging moral warning against the abuse pigs and humans at the end of the story
of power. represents the November 1943 wartime
Like most allegories, Animal Farm op- conference in Teheran, which Stalin,
erates by framing one-to-one correspon- Roosevelt and Churchill attended.
dences between the literal and symbolic If a reader misses such allegorical cor-
levels. Its events and characters function respondences, he or she may completely
as a simple story on the literal level. But misread the book. Moreover, an allegory
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difficultiesaccount for much of the con- power, tyranny, and revolution in gen-
fusion and controversy about Animal eral. On this level, Orwell’s book has a
Farm. Readers who naively take it as much broader historical and political
merely an “animalstory” miss the allegori- message, one that is not limited to criti-
cal correspondences altogether. Readers cism of the Soviet Union.
who take Animal Farm merely as crude Third,AnimalFarm is afable, ora “fairy
propaganda-as avulgar diatribe against tale,” as Orwell termed it. It carries auni-
communism (or socialism)-fail to grasp versa1 moral about the “animality” of
the various levels on which Orwell’s alle- human nature. For instance, by the con-
gory is working. clusion of Animal Farm, some of the pigs
The fact is that Animal Farm functions are walking upright and wearing human
as an allegoryon four levels. On the imme- clothes: they are little different from cor-
diate verbal level, it is a children’s story rupt human beings.Anima1Farm mirrors
about an animal rebellion on a farm. As an our human world, which is sometimes
animal story, the work invites the reader referred to as “thehuman circus” because
to respond compassionately to the suffer- the various types of human personality
ings of vulnerable beasts. We readers iden- can be compared to the character types
tify with the suffering and oppression of of animals. Some humans are like pigs,
the poor animals. others resemblesheep, still others can be
Indeed, Orwell once explained that a compared to dogs, and so forth. On this
scene of a suffering horse (who later be- level, Orwell’s “fable” about human na-
came the model for Boxer) inspired him to ture transcends both history and particu-
conceive Animal Farm: lar political events. We see how the funda-
The actual details of the story did not come mental characters of animals do not
tome for some timeuntil one day (Iwas then change. The animals behave consistently,
living in a small village) I saw a little boy, whether in anoble or selfish spirit,through
perhaps ten years old, driving a huge cart- all the changes in the story from the feu-
horsealong anarrow path whippingitwhen- dal, aristocratic, conservative farm run
ever it tried to turn. It struckme that if only by Mr. Jones to the modern, progressive,
such animals became awareof theirstrength, radical “animal farm” ruled by Napoleon.
we should have no power over them, and If the young son of Herbert Read
that men exploit animals in much the same thought that Animal Farm was just an
way as the rich exploit the proletariat. I animal story, the reaction of the son of
proceeded to analyze Marx’s theory from
the poet William Empson also suggests
the animals’ point of view.I2
the opposite tendency. Empson reported
Orwell’slast line makes clear the larger that his boy, asupporter of Britain’s Con-
purpose of his story. And it suggests the servative Party, was “delighted” with
other levels on which the fable functions. Animal Farm and considered it “very
Beyond an explicit, literal level, then, strong Tory [Conservative] propaganda.”
are three symbolic levels on which Ani- Empson concluded his letter about Ani-
mal Farm operates. First, it is a historical mal Farm:
satire of the Russian Revolution and the I read it with great excitement. And then,
subsequent Soviet dictatorship, in which thinking it over, and especiallyon showing
the precision of Orwell’s allegory covers it to other people, one realizes that the
exact historical correspondences be- danger of this kind of perfection is that it
tween the events of Animal Farm and means very different things to different
Soviet history up to 1943. readers....Icertainlydon’tmean thatthat is
Second,AnimalFarmis apolitical trea- a fault in the allegory.... But I thought it
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very heartily) that you must expect to be to be a prophetic book, ahead of its time.
“misunderstood”onalargesca1eaboutthis Orwell seemed to have predicted the
book; it is a form that inherently means collapse of the Allied alliance and un-
more than the author means, when it is veiled the Soviet dictatorship as the new
handled s~fficientlywell.’~
enerny of Western bernoci-acy.h i m d
Thus, the allegorical form, as well as Farm seemed to forecast the upcoming
the complexities of international poli- international face-off: the Cold War be-
tics, contributed to misunderstandings tween the democratic West and the Com-
about Animal Farm. Then and later, munist nations led by the U.S.S.R.
Orwell’s book came to mean many differ- Another twist of ironic fate was at hand
ent things to different people. for Animal Farm. A book that had, just
But some other editors of the 1940s, months earlier, been rejected by publish-
who saw quite clearly the political di- ers as either an unmarketable “animal
mension of Animal Farm, also rejected it story” or a dangerous political book, be-
precisely for that reason. Indeed that was came a runaway best-seller.
the major reason why Animal Farm was
turned down by two dozen British and At the Millennium:
American publishers before gaining ac- New Readers, New Misunderstandings
ceptance for publication. (The scarcity This short overview of the historical and
of newsprint during wartime was another literary issues pertinent t o the composi-
reason for its rejection by publishers.). tion and early reception of Animal Farm
Given the wartime alliance among the has contemporaryrelevance. N o less than
Allies, some publishers deemed Animal the early readers of Orwell’s book, we
Farm far too controversial t o be pub- today-film viewers as well as readers-
lished. Loyal to theunited war effort, four are prone t o make similar errors about
British editors rejectedAnima1 Farm be- Animal Farm. Indeed we are probably far
cause they did not want to risk offending more likely to miss the political dimen-
the Soviet Union by publishing such a sion of Animal Farm or, at minimum, to
harsh assault on its history. In the U. S., misunderstand the complex political situ-
numerous editors turned it down be- ation of the 1940s that it directly ad-
cause they were Soviet sympathizers who dresses. For the historical context of
considered Orwell’sattack on the U.S.S.R. Animal Farm, which covers a quarter-
unbalanced and exaggerated. centuryranging from the Russian Revolu-
And yet, public opinion in Britain and tion (1917) to the Allies’ wartime confer-
America changed toward the U.S.S.R. in ence in Teheran (1943), is far removed
1945-1946. As the need for wartime soli- from current issues in American interna-
darity with the U.S.S.R. ended with the tional relations. Lenin and Stalin are little
defeat of Germany and Japan, and as more than names to many young Ameri-
Stalin’s armies aggressively occupied cans today. Even World War I1 feels like a
much of Eastern Europe, the West’s cor- vague and distant episode to many Ameri-
dial attitude toward the U.S.S.R. cooled. cans, a storybook event that American
Publishers became more and more will- high school students study about in their
ingtocriticizestalin, who had been affec- text books.
tionately dubbed “Uncle Joe” during My experience is that many young
World War 11. Now, with the war over, Americans do not even know that the
British and American policymakers U.S.S.R. ever existed or that it was dis-
judged the U.S.S.R. to be their greatest solved a decade ago. Nor are they aware
threat. that the former republics of the Soviet
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nations, with Russia constituting just one discussion of distant historical events,
of 15 states of a loose confederation of and help explain (albeit in greatlysimpli-
nations known as the Commonwealth of fied terms) the causes of the rise and fall
Independent States. When I have taught of the Soviet Union. Viewers, as well as
Animal Farm to high school students and readers, will find that Animal Farm cap-
college undergraduates, my challenge tures both the hope and the tragedy of
has been to bridge the historical gulf the Russian Revolution, and that it pro-
between the current American scene and vides an introduction to a few of the
those events in the first half of the twen- major figures in the history of Commu-
tieth century that constitute the politi- nism. Animal Farm is a fable that offers
cal background of Animal Farm. simple,valuable political lessons. Among
Probablymore so than with most twen- them are the following: power corrupts;
tiethcenturyworks, it isvital to approach revolutions tend to come full circle and
Animal Farm with an awareness of this devour their peoples; and even good,
context. As we have seen, the meaning decent people not only hunger for power,
and even the genre of the book are easily but also worship powerful leaders.
misunderstood without a rich apprecia- Animal Farm will continue, therefore,
tion of this context. And that context is to serve as an aid to grasping twentieth-
rapidly receding now that the twentieth century history, both Russian and West-
century has passed and we live in the ern, and for understanding biographical
post-Communist era of the so-called New and political issues related to the nature
World Order. So anti-Communism as a of socialism,the RussianRevolution,Marx-
major political issue in the Western na- ist theory, and the abuse of language.
tions is virtually dead.
To appreciate Animal Farm today we Conclusion
need to understand how in the first half of Animal Farm emerged from and has gen-
the century Communism and anti-Com- erated political controversy, but it has
munism were among the most significant also sometimes been nayvely misjudged
issues in American and British political as unpolitical. Why has it been mired in
affairs. And t o do this, we need to under- historical controversy? Why has it been
stand the original political background judged to be completely innocent politi-
of that period, against which Orwellwrote cally? By examining in detail the histori-
his book. Although our increasing his- cal and political context of Orwell’sfable,
torical distance makes all that ever more students will better comprehend how
difficult, we also possess the advantage and why such extremely opposed views
of observing this period from a broader of the book have arisen and will continue
temporal perspective. Now that the So- to arise (or even increase) with the new
viet Union has receded into history, the film adaptation.
beginning decades of its development But let us also not forget that George
are easier to examine in light of new archi- Orwell was asupremelygifted writer who
val materials and apart from the political judged Animal Farm as his literary mas-
controversies that earlier generations had terpiece. As Orwell declared in his essay,
to confront. “Why1Write”: “AnimalFarmwas the first
Orwell’sfable is even morevaluable for book in which I tried, with full conscious-
young readers than ever before. Animal ness of what I was doing, to fuse political
Farm may promote understanding of the purpose and artistic purpose into one
history and international politics of the o hole."'^
I Modern Age 75
LICENSED TO UNZ.ORG
ELECTRONIC REPRODUCTION PROHIBITED1. For instance, the recent Orwell biography by the movie,” Halrni said in one interview. “I went
Jeffrey Meyers, Orwell: Conscience o f a Generation fromfarm to farm lookingat pigs and horses to cast
(New York, 2000), has received wide notice. So the characters. And then I had t o use their
too has the recent essay collection, Orwell and babies-I had to mate them to have three or four
Politics, edited and introduced by Timothy Carton piglets of the same kind to make the movie.” For
Ash (London, 2000). 2. The star cast of actors example, Halmi decided to use boars-uglier and
furnishing the animz! vnlces inc!udes: Julia Louis- nastier versions of their pig coilsins-to portray
Dreyfus (Mollie the mare), Julia Ormond (Jesse Napoleon (Stalin), Squealer (the propagandist),
the sheepdog), and Kelsey Grammer (Snowball). and other members of the porcine leadership. He
Peter Postlethwaite is featured as Farmer Jones. selected a dignified older workhorse to play
3. As Halmi explained in a post-production inter- Boxer, the dray-horse who represents the work-
view: Another animated version, before the ad- ing class. 6. “Everything came together a couple
vent of animatronics, “just wouldn’t have had the of years ago, when the technology was not quite
proper impact. Animation was done because live there,” Halmi has stated. He notes that he and
action could not produce the reality. 1 could not Henson’s Creature Shop took advantage of exist-
do it the way Iwanted to do it, to be honest to the ing technology to introduce new technical innova-
book, until I had the technology.” 4. These and tions in their AnimalFarmadaptation, including an
other technical details of the production are incredible animatronic hog for the starring role of
explained in “Secrets and Mysteries of Animal Napoleon. 7. Nor has Halmi been reluctant to
Farm,” a half-hour documentary produced by rewrite the Bible itself, as he showed in his version
Turner Network Television on the Henson Crea- of Noah‘s Ark, which includes a band of pirates on
ture Shop and its animatronic livestock. Like the the high seas who raid Noah’s ship. 8. Alex
Animal Farm adaptation, the documentary also Zwerdling, Orwell and the Left (Berkeley, 1974). 9.
had its premiere in October 1999.5. Halmi was not George Orwell, The Collected Essays, Journals, and
only meticulous about the special effects. He and Letters, ed. Sonia Orwell and Ian Angus (London,
his crew also created a magnificent backdrop for 1968), Vol. 4, 122. Hereafter referred to as CEJL.
the movie by building an entire farm in the 10. Quoted in Bernard Crick, George Orwell:A Life
Wicklow Mountains of Ireland, where the animals (London, 1980). 344. 11. CEJL, Vol. 3, 222. 12.
for the production were housed. He exercised Preface to the Ukrainian edition of Animal Farm,
particular care in his choice of the animals for the quoted in CEJL, Vol. 4,111.13. Quoted in Crick,444.
leading roles. “The most difficult part was casting 14. CEJL, Vol. 4, 56.
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