Watership Down (film)
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| Watership Down | |
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 Poster for Watership Down, depicting Bigwig in a snare |
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| Directed by | Martin Rosen |
| Produced by | Martin Rosen |
| Written by | Original novel: Richard Adams Screenplay: Martin Rosen |
| Starring | John Hurt (voice) Richard Briers (voice) Michael Graham Cox (voice) Simon Cadell (voice) Harry Andrews (voice) |
| Music by | Mike Batt (song "Bright Eyes") (sung by) Art Garfunkel Angela Morley Malcolm Williamson (incidental music) |
| Distributed by | AVCO Embassy Pictures |
| Country | U.K. |
| Language | English |
| Allmovie profile | |
| IMDb profile | |
Watership Down is an animated film directed by Martin Rosen and based on the book by Richard Adams. It was released in 1978 and was largely financed by Jake Eberts' company, Goldcrest Films. After a slow start upon release, it became the sixth most popular film of 1979 at the British box office.[1]
The film featured the voices of John Hurt, Richard Briers, Harry Andrews, Simon Cadell, Nigel Hawthorne and Roy Kinnear, among others, and was the last film appearance of Zero Mostel, as the voice of Kehaar the gull.
Art Garfunkel's British No. 1 hit, "Bright Eyes", was also featured, although in a different arrangement from the version released as a record. The musical score was by Angela Morley and Malcolm Williamson.
After the genesis story rendered in a narrated simplistic cartoon fashion, the animation style changes to a detailed, naturalist one, with concessions to render the animals anthropomorphic only to suggest they have human voices and minds, some facial expressions for emotion and paw gestures. The animation backgrounds are watercolors. Only one of the predators, the farm cat, is given a few lines, the rest remaining mute.
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[edit] Synopsis
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Set in the English countryside, Watership Down opens with a narrated prologue establishing the Lapine culture and mythology, describing the creation of the world by the sun god "Lord Frith" and El-ahrairah becoming the "father" and idol of the rabbit people. The film then switches from the cartoon narrative to a realistic-looking story for the remainder of the film.
Fiver, a young runt rabbit with prophetic abilities, foresees the end of his peaceful rabbit warren, Sandleford, and asks others to leave with him. Fiver and his older brother Hazel attempt to persuade their chief rabbit to have the warren evacuated and moved elsewhere, but they are dismissed, and attempt to recruit individuals instead. The group meets resistance from the warren's Owsla, but eight manage to fight and escape: Fiver, Hazel, a burly ex-Owsla officer Bigwig, the shy and cunning Blackberry, the smallest rabbit Pipkin, Dandelion, Silver, and the only female, Violet. Eventually, the rabbits stop to rest at a nearby field, where Violet is killed by a nearby hawk.
After crossing a road, evading a hunting dog, and escaping from a rat-infested cemetery, the band meet a rabbit named Cowslip, who comes from a warren of what appears to be friendly rabbits. The majority of the group is content and grateful for shelter, but Fiver senses something wrong and soon leaves. Bigwig follows him, taunting, but becomes caught in a snare. Fiver attempts to get help from Cowslip and the rest of his warren, but he is dismissed. The Sandleford rabbits discover that the warren is fed by a farmer, who occasionally snares rabbits in return for his food and care from predators. Bigwig passes out, still trapped, and after he is released the rabbits assume he is dead; however, he awakens moments later. On Fiver's advice, the band moves on with a profound new respect for the seer's wisdom.
The rabbits discover Nuthanger farm, which contains a hutch of does. Hazel realizes that females will be needed to begin a new warren, but the rabbits are forced to leave by the appearance of the farm's cat and dog. Hazel promises to return, and the rabbits set off again. They are unexpectedly found by the Sandleford's Owsla Captain, Holly, who is injured and in extremis. He recounts the destruction of the Sandleford warren, proving Fiver's visions to be true, and collapses after mentioning a warren called Efrafa. Shortly after, Fiver discovers the hill Watership Down, where the rabbits discover an empty space suitable to live in.
They settle in, developing their own warren, and Hazel is informally recognized as Chief Rabbit. They befriend an acerbic injured seagull, Kehaar, who offers to survey the local area for females. Meanwhile, the rabbits return to Nuthanger farm to free the does, but Hazel is shot and presumed dead. Fiver, following a vision telling him that his brother is alive, returns to the farm just in time to find and save Hazel.
Kehaar returns, having found Efrafa as a main warren which may have females. Holly, who knows of Efrafa, begs them not to go there, describing it as a highly militarized and totalitarian state. Hazel, however, feels they have no choice but to seek does, and when a number of the rabbits visit Efrafa, Bigwig stays to infiltrate the colony. He meets the Chief Rabbit, the powerful General Woundwort, who makes him an officer of the warren. Bigwig easily recruits several would-be escapees to his cause, and they soon flee Efrafa.
However, Efrafa's trackers find their trail several days later, following them to Watership Down, and the General himself comes to recapture the escapees. Hazel attempts to reason and offers an alliance, but when he is dismissed, he decides to fight. The Watership rabbits dig themselves into their own warren to be safe and are besieged and in all the commotion, Fiver becomes scared and slips into a trance, in which he envisions "a dog loose in the woods." His moans scare the Efrafans, but he inspires Hazel to free the dog from Nuthanger and lead him to the warren to attack the Efrafans. Several of the rabbits taunt the dog into following them uphill, but Hazel is caught by the farm cat—only to be saved by the farmer's daughter.
When the Efrafans finally break into Watership Down, Woundwort jumps in first and quickly kills Blackavar. He is soon ambushed by Bigwig, and the two fight to near exhaustion. Woundwort tries to persuade Bigwig to surrender, but the dog suddenly arrives and rapidly kills most of the Efrafan rabbits. The General emerges and leaps to attack the dog; later, no trace of him is found, and his memory becomes a ghost story used by rabbit parents to frighten their children into obedience. All of the rabbits of Watership Down are safe at last.
The epilogue shows the warren some years later. Hazel is old and tired, but his warren is thriving. As stories of the warren's early exploits—distorted and mythologized—are retold in the background by new rabbits, he is visited by a shadowy shape he cannot make out. The rabbit reveals himself to be El-ahrairah, the mythological rabbit trickster, inviting Hazel to join his Owsla. In a reprise of other mystical scenes in the film, Hazel discards his body and follows him towards the sun—which metamorphoses into Frith—and into the afterlife.
[edit] Comparison to the novel
[edit] Similarities
Unlike many animated features, the film faithfully emulated the dark and violent sophistication of the book. As a result, many reviewers took to warning parents that children might find the content highly disturbing. This attitude extended to when the animated TV series was marketed with the producers making an effort to reassure parents that the violence was softened and that the main characters would not be permanently harmed in their adventures.
Despite the aforementioned violence, the film currently retains a British "U" certificate for all home video releases. The film is a U-rated film but does include the phrase "piss off" (spoken by Kehaar to Hazel, as in the book). In the United States, the film is rated "PG" by the Motion Picture Association of America.
Some marketers in the U.S. were also worried that the main promotional poster (see above) appeared too dark and may scare some children. The poster is actually showing Bigwig in a snare (his distinctive hair is clearly visible), and the image on the poster did not appear in the film, which has a far bloodier depiction of Bigwig in the snare.
[edit] Differences
Although the film was fairly faithful to the novel, several changes were made to the storyline:
- The Watership Down warren is significantly smaller in the movie at the time of their expedition to Efrafa. By that point in the book it had grown to seventeen rabbits: the original eleven plus Strawberry (who joined them from Cowslip's warren), two other Sandleford survivors (Holly and Bluebell), and three hutch rabbits liberated from the farm (Clover, Boxwood, and Haystack). In the movie they are still only a band of eight—the original seven plus Holly.
- In the novel, Hazel and his companions dig Watership Down Warren themselves, under the direction of Strawberry. In the film, Blackberry finds an empty warren already dug that they move into.
- In the film, Blackavar is killed; in the novel this does not happen.
- In the novel, when Holly finds the group he says he was attacked by Cowslip. However, in the film, it was the Efrafans who attacked Holly.
- In the novel, after the Sandleford escapees spend the night in a beanfield, Pipkin is attacked by a crow. This incident is replaced with a scene in which a rabbit called Violet, who never existed in the novel, is killed by a hawk.
These changes were most likely made to make the film easier to understand. Several characters were also taken away from the film (probably so there would be fewer characters to keep track of). In the book, eleven rabbits go on the trek to Watership Down; in the film, eight leave (but seven survive).
Also, the order in which some events occur is re-arranged, and the length of time spent in different places is changed. For example: in the movie, Pipkin and Hazel make their first visit to Nuthanger farm during the journey to Watership Down. In the book, they make their first visit much later, after the journey is over and they've been settled on Watership Down for a while. Additionally, in the movie the rabbits find Holly before finding the down, whereas in the novel they find him later.
And some characterizations are changed. For instance, the character of Silver takes on some of the attributes and actions of the absent Hawkbit, and Dandelion's primary roles in the book as the group's best scout and storyteller are almost entirely absent; his storytelling ability is alluded to a couple of times, but he never actually tells a story or does any scouting in the movie.
[edit] Critical acclaim
The movie was nominated for Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation in 1979. In 2004, the magazine Total Film named Watership Down the 47th greatest British film of all time. In 2006 Channel 4 UK's "The 100 Greatest Cartoons" named "Watership Down" the 86th greatest Cartoon, and it was also ranked 15th in the "100 Greatest Tearjerkers".
[edit] Picture book
A picture book of the animated film was also produced, titled The Watership Down Film Picture Book. Two editions of the book were published, one a hard-cover, the other a reinforced cloth-bound edition. The contents include multiple stills from the film linked with a combination of narration and extracts from the script, as well as a preface written by Richard Adams and a foreword written by Martin Rosen.
[edit] DVD releases
- Watership Down Deluxe Edition (Region 2, UK) (2005)
- Watership Down 25th Anniversary Edition (Region 4, Australia) (2003)
- Watership Down (Region 1, USA, currently out of print) (2002)
[edit] Major cast
[edit] Miscellanea
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This article does not cite any references or sources. (April 2007) Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unverifiable material may be challenged and removed. |
- Quite a few of the actors who provided voices for Watership Down also starred in the BBC adaptation of J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings: Michael Hordern (Gandalf/Frith); Simon Cadell (Celeborn/Blackberry); Richard O'Callaghan (Merry/Dandelion); and Michael Graham Cox (Boromir/Bigwig).
- John Hurt, who voiced Hazel in the film, returned to voice General Woundwort in the later Watership Down animated TV series.
- John Hurt and Nigel Hawthorne also starred in the animated film of another novel by Richard Adams, The Plague Dogs, as Snitter and Dr. Robert Boycott respectively.
- Mike Batt, who wrote "Bright Eyes", also wrote another song for the film which was not used. The song, "Losing Your Way in the Rain", has a very similar feeling and arrangement, and was recorded by ex-Zombies vocalist Colin Blunstone in 1979. It was later re-recorded by Art Garfunkel and used in the animated TV series.
[edit] In popular culture
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Trivia sections are discouraged under Wikipedia guidelines. The article could be improved by integrating relevant items and removing inappropriate ones. |
- In a scene from Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit, Gromit turns on a radio which then starts playing "Bright Eyes".
- The musical group Gravenhurst have a song called 'Flowers In Her Hair' on their mini album "Black Holes In The Sand". The song contains the line "there's a dog loose in the wood", a line spoken by Bigwig in the film, and Fiver said this later in his vision near the end.
- In an Easter episode of British sitcom The Vicar of Dibley, most of the main characters in the village dress up as Easter bunnies (unbeknownst to each other), in accordance with the final wish of Letitia Cropley, who died earlier that episode. and plan to place eggs in each garden. When Geraldine Granger and David Horton run into each other, assuming that Letitia had forgotten asking David before Geraldine, they walk to the centre of the village and find several other villagers in Easter rabbit costume, to which Owen Newitt says "Any more and we'll be able to stage a production of bloody Watership Down!".
- In a scene that was cut from the theatrical version of Donnie Darko but included on the DVD, Donnie's class watches the Watership Down movie.
- Gerry Beckley of the 1970s supergroup America penned a theme song for the Watership Down animated film. The song was not used for the film, but the group included it on their 1976 album Hideaway.
- According to Beckley, singer/songwriter Harry Nilsson, who loved the book, helped Beckley with the song, offering critiques and suggestions.
- The song was also featured in an episode of The Goodies in which they dressed as rabbits and parodied the film.
[edit] Notes
- ^ Watership Down. Toonhound. Retrieved on 2006-12-18.
[edit] External links
- Watership Down at the Internet Movie Database
- Watership Down (film) at the British Film Institute's Screenonline
- Watership Down at Rotten Tomatoes
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