Posted on 08/30/2017 5:47:11 PM PDT by SMGFan
The William Golding novel is being adapted once again, this time by a male writing-directing duo. Warner Bros. is planning a gender-bent adaptation of the iconic William Golding novel Lord of the Flies.
Scott McGehee and David Siegel will write and direct the new take on the story, which follows a group of young boarding school students that end up stranded on an island and devolve into pre-pubescent savages over the course of the novel. Harry Hook directed a 1990 version of the story, while a 1963 feature was helmed by Peter Brook.
(Excerpt) Read more at hollywoodreporter.com ...
I bought this book and read a few chapters, but I was disappointed. Most of the boys seemed to be quite stupid. Only some of them were somewhat bright. One would think that there should be some really bright boys (IQ 130+) there and the average IQ should be higher if they were from a highly selective private school.
It also surprised me that no boys tried to act like Christians (They didn’t pray, etc.). If this is a realistic portrait, does it mean that even in 1940s or 1950s almost all English choirboys were atheists?
Not all of the boys were students and choristers at a cathedral choir school; only some were and they were being led by the "head boy".
There were NO adults present, and though it is true that many Brits said prayers prior to partaking a meal back then ( far less so now do that ), having the boys pray, in the story line, does less than nothing at all re the story!
Also, I doubt that you are personally familiar with such Brit schools. OTOH, I am and they were extremely strict, rigid, and harsh; ergo, it is really not all that "strange" that once set "free" of adult control, that those boys, in particular, went wild.
In other words, are you saying that even in the 1950s there were no real Christians among cathedral choristers in the UK and when they acted like Christians (in the presence of adults), it was only make-believe? Not even one boy on the island (chorister or non-chorister) said: “What you are trying to do is sinful and you may go to hell because of this.”
I must compare this with tragic circumstances in the Middle East where a few years ago a Christian boy was captured by ISIS. They wanted him to convert to Islam, but he chose martyrdom.
If this book is an accurate portrait of British private schools and society in the 1950s, it means that Western civilization was dying much earlier than we usually tend to think (and gay “marriage” and LGBT+ problems are just late symptoms of this dying process).
And writing praying before meals, doesn't do a anything at all for the plot; especially since all of the other prayers ( at bed time, etc., weren't included in the story either.
What's a "real Christian" anyway? Are people who don't pray before every meal, but who follow the tennents of Christianity NOT "real" Christians? SAYS WHO ?
I doubt that you know anything at all about what any Brit PUBLIC ( what they call private schools there ) school was like in the 1950s or earlier, let alone what the general public was like back then, either.
And no, "WESTERN CIVILIZATION" wasn't "dying" in the '50s.
The UK still had laws on the books that criminalized homosexuals acts, cross dressing, and even homosexual men wearing eye makeup. So forget about your same sex marriage ( an oxymoronic term ) worries.
* Almost every single private boarding school, in the UK, in the 195s had extremely rigid rules and schedules, back then, with cathedral choir ones having even more stringent ones!
At the beginning of the book, you see that, as the boys still keep to the behavior they were used to and act as one cohesive group ( almost like a military platoon! ), unlike the other boys, who were not a part of that group. Still and all, all of the boys are very "civilized" and organized. It is the descent, throughout the book, of almost all of the boys ( except for Ralph and Piggy ), who become wild, unthinking savages. And THAT is the whole theme of the book!
Well, if your idea is that bullying and buggering in England in the 50s signalled the end of civilization, what do you make of the 19th century novel “Tom Brown’s Schooldays” which also presented evil running amok in public schools. The character of Flashman is the evil bully in that one. Interestingly, that character became the hero in a series of 20th century novels written by...someone named MacDonald, I think. No Pardons may remember. Cruelty in English public schools is a stable of both literature and films and says very little about end times, I’m afraid.
I imagine the all-female Lord of the Flies is going to bomb like the female Ghostbusters.
Staple not stable. Duh!
Easy to make typos when it’s another word and not caught by spell check. In fact, when I type posts on my iPad, my typing often gets auto-completed to the wrong word.
I wish I could blame auto-correct!
Fraser was a young soldier in Burma during WWII. His Quartered Safe Out Here is one of the best war memoirs I've ever read.
Back around 1973, when I was just a short-pants schoolboy, my mother had me watch Tom Brown Schooldays on the television. I think it was a PBS mini-series. She evidently thought it was some kind of heartwarming story about boys in school and I think the subject matter caught her by surprise. She evidently never read the book!
I saw that series too. Public schools are notoriously brutal - Prince Charles barely survived one. My husband and I binged watched “Rumpole of the Bailey” on vacation last month and we are amazed at how many shots Rumpole takes at the entire public school system.
That’s right! He was always a cad. That series was always being praised by Christopher Hitchens. I think I read the one about the Little Bighorn years ago.
Predating "TOM BROWN'S SCHOOL DAYS" ( which I still adore and have a first edition of, as well as the disc of the movie ), is Dickens' descriptions of a truly wretched public school, in "DAVID COPPERFIELD".
And then, moving a bit forward, are Churchill's writings about his schools days; though NONE of these books are about a Cathedral Choir School.
Yes, this all girl cast remake ( if it EVER does get made ), will not only be absolutely terrible, beyond measure, it WILL be a FLOP!
Oh? Thanks for that info...didn’t know that he had written other books.
Yes, it was on PBS and very well done; though I still like the black & white movie, that was made in 1940 and used to be shown on early T.V., quite a lot, when I was little.
Yep, David Copperfield. I was surprised to see Tom Brown was written in 1857 - that early.
Just as Dickens used his own childhood, as a basis of sorts, for DAVID COPPERFIELD, Hughs used his and his brother's school days ( but more so! ), for his book on his Public school.
There were also books, for girls ( though not many and completely prettied up ), about a private school in Switzerland, written in the 1930s, maybe early '40s, but glamorized and silly fiction.
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