#43: Lord of the Flies
Good morning buddies!
How are you? How ARE you!
I’m fine. I would only like to share that I watched the entirety of The Wilds the other day and I know I’m late to the party, but I’d like to make a toast to it. SO GOOD. And it is a great alternative to this week’s teens-stranded-on-an-island theme!
XOXO,
Steph
#43: Lord of the Flies
Director: Peter Brook
Country: United Kingdom
Year: 1963
Runtime: 90 minutes
Language: English
**As always, this post contains spoilers**
CW: murder, hunting
It is very fun to go into an iconic movie based on an iconic book that you SHOULD know about but don’t. Expectations are high and knowledge is low, which makes room for a ton of different possible experiences!
The movie begins with a montage of pictures set to music. A group of boys at school, photos of a war, an airplane, and finally, an airplane crash on an island. BASIC premise for the three of you who have never encountered this book or movie before: A group of White British schoolboys has been evacuated because of a war. After their plane crash-lands on a tropical island, they’re left to fend for themselves.
Two of the survivors, Ralph (James Aubrey) and Piggy (Hugh Edwards) meet up. I would say they’re about 13? They don’t know each other and I think are from different schools. One of the first things we learn is that Piggy doesn’t want to be called Piggy and tells Ralph not to tell anyone that Piggy is the nickname his old schoolmates called him. And yet . . . here we are. That is his name.
Piggy and Ralph are honestly pretty chill for two children who just survived a plane crash? They go swimming, where Ralph finds a conch shell and blows it.
A bunch more boys, ranging in age from 6–14, show up from the same crash.
A group of ten choir boys dressed in black coats and hats arrive, too, chanting and marching in formation. They are led by a very confident (read: scary?) boy named Jack (Tom Chapin).
They realize none of the adults have survived the crash and they are all alone. And then they go around and say their names, zero percent of which I retained because there are dozens of them. Also, there was such a weird lag between each of them saying their name that it seems like the director just told them to make one up on the spot.
The boys quickly realize they need to appoint a leader, which they call a “chief.” They vote Ralph over Jack, probably because Jack’s vibe is WEIRD. But then again, Ralph did tell everyone that Piggy’s nickname was Piggy, which was ruuuude.
Jack, Ralph, and a blonde kid named Simon (Tom Gaman) decide to explore to determine if they’re really on an island. Before they go, Piggy confronts Ralph about telling everyone his nickname. Ralph gives a very sincere, very mature apology and I totally understand why he’s the leader now. On their excursion, they discover they are definitely on an island, there are wild pigs, fruit, and that Jack, apparently, has a knife that he’s dying to use.
When they return, Ralph holds a meeting for all the boys and tells them it’s all gonna be okay. There’s water, fruit, and no dangerous animals. Jack and Ralph agree that the group needs rules. Jack says, “After all, we’re English, not savages, and the English are better at everything.” I mean, I don’t even need to touch that, right? Haha!
One of the main rules is that whoever is talking must hold the conch shell. If you’re not holding it, shhhhhhut itttt.
One of the younger boys says he saw a snakelike beast, but Ralph assures the boys it’s not true. Jack asserts that even if there was one, they’d just kill it! NBD! They’re ENGLISH, remember.
Ralph tells them to build a fire on top of the mountain so that passing ships and planes will see the smoke and know they’re there. They use Piggy’s glasses (against his will) to start the fire. And thus begins the relentless bullying of Piggy, who is a very sweet and smart boy.
The choir boys appoint themselves the “warriors” of the group and craft spears. They are also in charge of the very important task of keeping the fire lit. The rest of the boys build shelters out of tree limbs and palm branches. There’s a 90s summer camp movie montage of them playing in the water and having hermit crab races and it seems like maybe everything’s going to be okay.
Jack and the rest of the choir boys hunt a wild pig and it’s so, so chaotic. I do not know why it takes 10 boys to hunt a pig but I also could not be less qualified to say.
Overhead, a plane passes by but doesn’t stop because the choir boys have neglected the fire and it's gone out while they were (again, ALL of them) pig hunting. They arrive, very proud of their dead pig, but the group is less than thrilled to see them.
Piggy and Ralph chastise them for letting the fire go out (a you had one job moment). Jack smacks Piggy’s glasses off his face, breaking one of the lenses.
Ralph, a veritable ADULT, calls Jack out for being a dick and Jack reluctantly apologizes, but ONLY for the extinguished fire, NOT for the glasses. Jack starts the fire again and they cook and eat the pig. If you have misophonia, this scene is a 0/10. Soooo much slurping and chomping and lip smacking.
The boys have another meeting where Ralph insists they have to stay kind to each other.
And that little weird kid from earlier again insists there’s a beast that comes out of the sea at night. Listen, I think little kids are great and their imaginations immaculate, but this one is so fucking annoying. Why are you starting so much shit?!?
Ralph and Jack get in a little tiff when Jack tells Ralph he’s not the boss because he can’t even hunt. “But I’m the chief” is not a convincing counterpoint, it turns out. The rest of the boys follow Jack, leaving Ralph, Piggy, Simon, and a few other younger boys, behind.
Piggy asks Ralph, “What if there are beasts and ghosts?”
Ralph replies, “There aren’t. Because things wouldn’t make sense. Houses and streets. And TV. They wouldn’t work.” I just love this line because it makes no sense and all of the sense at the same time. It’s perfect.
Piggy responds, “I wish my aunt were here. Adults know things. They’re not afraid of the dark.”
The next day, a pair of twins named Sam (David Surtees) and Eric (Simon Surtees) who are still hanging with Ralph’s group, find the body of a dead adult. They come back to the group and claim they saw a beast with the body, saying it must be the beast’s nest.
A group of boys led by Ralph go to check out the supposed nest. Simon volunteers to go back and tell Piggy and the rest of the boys that they won’t be back until after dark.
Meanwhile, sweet Piggy gathers a small group of boys to tell them an ABSURDLY boring story about the history of his hometown’s name. I love him.
That night, the boys find the body of a pilot hanging from a parachute from a tree.
Weirdly, the boys come back to the group and report they’ve seen a beast AGAIN. Which I don’t totally get? The body was clearly a pilot with a helmet on, so I’m not sure if they’re lying or they’re confused or what. They argue about something or other and Jack and a bunch more boys leave Ralph’s group.
Jack’s group hunts a pig again. This time, they impale its head on a stake as a gift to the Beast.
On his way back to the group, Simon stumbles upon the head covered in flies. He sits down and is seemingly hypnotized by the flies.
Jack’s group, who now wear body and face paint, grass skirts, leaves in their hair, and bang on rocks with sticks and howl (more on this later), feast on the pig that night. Jack recruits more of the boys for his “tribe” by simply yelling, “Who’ll join my tribe??”
Simon, able to pull himself away from the fly trap, finds the body of the pilot in what was supposed to be the Beast’s nest. Simon returns to the group after dark, presumably to tell them that the Beast was just a dead pilot. But when Jack sees Simon, he yells out, “Look! The Beast!” The group attacks and kills Simon with spears. It’s an awful scene.
No one else except Piggy, the twins Sam and Eric, and some 6-year-olds are in Ralph's group anymore. Ralph tells Piggy that what happened to Simon was murder. Piggy, who I guess was there that night, rationalizes it by saying it was an accident and that it was dark and rainy, but Ralph isn’t buying it.
That night, Jack's group raids Ralph's area and steals Piggy’s glasses.
The next morning, sweet, sweet Ralph calls a meeting of all the boys (to get Piggy’s glasses back because he's literally blind) by blowing the conch shell outside Jack's new cliffside lair. Instead of respecting the conch like they should, Jack's boys yell and jeer at them. Jack orders his boys to capture and tie up Sam and Eric. Jack and Ralph fight because Ralph calls him a bloody, bloody thief. Piggy, holding the conch, tries to speak, but they mock and talk over him.
Piggy yells, “A pack of savages like you are or sensible like Ralph is? Which is better?” One of Jack's boys pushes a giant boulder off the cliff, crushing and killing Piggy. His body washes out into the water.
Ralph is now all alone: Piggy and Simon are dead and Eric and Sam (covered in body paint and wearing only loin cloths) are firmly in Jack’s group now. Sam and Eric give Ralph some food, but encourage him to keep hiding because Jack will probably try to kill him next.
Soon, Jack’s group finds Ralph and lights fires around him to smoke him out of the jungle. As Ralph crawls away from the group, he arrives at the feet of a naval officer wearing white socks, white shorts, and a white shirt. One of the little boys tries to speak to him but can’t.
Ralph looks on at the group of naval officers on the shore and cries as the jungle burns behind him.
The End.
I knew that Lord of the Flies was a staple in high school English classrooms, but I didn’t know why. I somehow avoided it entirely. From what I gather from talking to Josh and reading some bits and bobs online, the major theme of the book and its literary discussions is the exploration of the “true” human condition: when stripped of the civilization that we know, humans turn violent and greedy and afraid.
I understand the interest in this discussion and why this specific plotline would inspire it, but it is not what was at the forefront of my mind as I was watching. I couldn’t stop thinking about the insinuation that when you remove people from “civilization,” most of them will turn “wild.” And that wild = violent, irrational, fearful, power-hungry, etc. Because I don’t know about you, but when I think about the history of the British empire, from where these children hail, I don’t see their “civilization” to be anathema to violence, savagery, fear, etc. In fact, their history, especially when this book was written, was full of violence driven by the will to power driven by fear, yeah? So aren’t these kids just acting British?
What these kids (their characters written by a White Englishman in the 1950s, when decolonization was happening) saw as “tribal” was body paint, loin cloths, and chanting, not because this is what naturally happens a week after you remove people from civilization, but because that’s what they saw on TV and read in books. They were kids playing out the White British fantasy of tribalism. It felt like the message was damn, look what happens when you remove the watchful eye of the British empire: utter savagery! As though body paint and loincloths is anti-English and therefore savage and therefore violent and therefore bad?
This is all super driven home when the British naval officers arrive in their pristine white uniforms, there to save the children from themselves. Well, the selves that exist without the constant sanitizing light of British culture and all its ethics and morals shining upon them 🙃. #colonialpropaganda
I will say, as a film-watching experience, it wasn’t terrible! It’s short, the pacing felt exactly right, and because most of the kids were not pro actors, there is a very natural vibe to the dialogue. The kids have absolutely no charisma, though.
Up next is The Red Shoes, a movie I have never heard of! It is, apparently, a 1948 British psychological drama about ballet? Oh!!! Will you join me?
XOXO,
Steph