Lord of the Flies is famed theater director Peter Brook’s daring translation of William Golding’s brilliant novel. The story of thirty English schoolboys stranded on an uncharted island at the start of the “next” war, Lord of the Flies is a seminal film of the New American Cinema and a fascinating anti-Hollywood experiment in location filmmaking. As the cast relived Golding’s frightening fable, Brook found the cinematic “evidence” of the author’s terrifying thesis: there is a beast in us all. —The Criterion Collection
Aside from the grisly sound design and some lofty compositions, there is nothing inventive about this adaptation. Peter Brook's approach of amateur actors and raw locations is the perfect incentive to capture the tone, but the film is nonetheless plagued with dryness and rigidity.
Nick Hasted opens the Italian Cinema Special in the May issue of Sight & Sound: "When Paolo Sorrentino's Il Divo and Matteo Garrone
I’m sorry i’m just not a fan. This is the reason why i never read the book then watch the movie (it is always opposite whenever i muster up the attention span to read a book that i know the ending… read review
The closest adaptation of William Golding’s literary masterpiece.
Peter Brook was mainly a theater director, perhaps that is why his cinematic skills may appear flat, and his handle of kid actors… read review
