A landmark in British animation, this adaptation of Richard Adams’ novel makes a welcome return to our screens. A building project threatens the tranquil lives of the wildlife residing in a British woodland area, including rabbits occupying a local warren. Fiver has distressing visions of impending destruction and persuades a small group to join him on a challenging journey to a safe utopia known as Watership Down. This glorious adaptation of Adams’ novel is no less hard hitting in its depiction of survival and conflict than it is a work of great beauty. An impressive voice cast elevates it further.
This remaster, carried out by the BFI, brings this marvellous film to new generations in pristine condition. As the director Guillermo del Toro said of it, ‘Watership Down stands alone as a horizon never reached – a portal into what animation can be, could be: an art form. It fuels the hope for that future. A delicate, violent, savage confection – perfect and sharp, like a diamond knife.’
Justin Johnson, Lead Programmer
In a barren period for animated features, producer Martin Rosen saw the opportunity to translate the success of Richard Adams’ bestselling fantasy to the big screen. After original director John Hubley was fired for favouring experimentation over productivity, Rosen took over the directorial reins himself, guiding a team of young British animators afforded relative creative autonomy thanks to unique funding from commercial banks.
In keeping with Adams’ often harsh vision, the rabbits are notably less anthropomorphised than most animated animals, with Rosen’s team taking a naturalistic approach to their physical attributes and wilder instincts. However, these furry creatures are still a cultured group, and the film faithfully sets out the rabbits’ own folklore, religion, poetry and their own language, Lapine.
Despite some very violent scenes, the film was awarded a ‘U’ certificate, while the oft-repeated contention that it is too dark for children, not least with its religious and political subtext, has led to comparisons with pioneering British animation Animal Farm (d. John Halas & Joy Batchelor, 1954). Whereas Orwell’s famous four-legged fable was an attack on Stalinism, Watership Down can be read as a political allegory attacking fascism and appeasement. Nevertheless, editor Terry Rawlings manages to maintain the energy of what remains a vivid adventure narrative when it could have been mired in subtext.
The film embraces the natural, rendering the rich hues of the English countryside onto canvas, while the sound effects were sourced from the actual locations in Hampshire that inspired Adams’ original tale. Despite a pastoral score from Angela Morley and Malcolm Williamson, the film’s soundtrack was popularised by the song ‘Bright Eyes’, composed by Mike Batt and sung by Art Garfunkel. With a video using scenes from the film, ‘Bright Eyes’ scored a UK number one some six months after Watership Down’s release and secured the film’s place in British popular culture.
Attracting the cream of British voice talent, led by John Hurt and Richard Briers, Watership Down is an admirable example of an uncompromising British animation that initially struggled to find distribution before box office returns confounded expectations. Rosen’s attempt to repeat the formula with another Adams novel, The Plague Dogs (1982), was less successful, however, as was a return to Watership Down some 20 years later for a children’s series (ITV, 1999), which suffered from the dilution of adult themes for a younger audience.
Stephen Collings, BFI Screenonline
Making ‘Watership Down’
Producer/director Martin Rosen was introduced to the book Watership Down on location in Kashmir when, after being rejected by 17 publishers as unpublishable, it had finally found a home as a Puffin. Rosen recalls: ‘A production manager was reading a book which everybody else was making fun of, but when he thrust it into my hands I read it and was quickly convinced. As soon as I got back to England, I called Richard Adams and bought the rights to a film version.’
Adams privately believed his book to be unfilmable, but nonetheless gave Rosen a guided tour of the real Watership Down, on the Berkshire-Hampshire border, and of some of the locations described in the book – Nuthanger Farm and the River Test. Along the way, they discussed the themes the author saw as most important. However, Rosen did not seek Adams’ approval for the screenplay, because the two men agreed that a book is a book and a film is a film. Adams reiterated this point in the book-of-the-film. In his introduction he wrote: ‘People who want to read the story should read my Watership Down, and people who want to know more about the drawings in this book should go and see the film.’
When Rosen first bought the rights, it was not certain in his mind that there were even going to be drawings, since he is not himself an animator. In fact, he went through every other possibility first: ‘I thought about stop-motion photography [as used in King Kong], puppets, live rabbits – even humans dressed up as rabbits! But I always suspected that in the end I would choose drawn animation.’
Once that medium had been fixed on, Rosen laid down two ground rules for the hundreds of artists he assembled in London to produce the necessary 200,000 drawings. In essence, he said: ‘This film is going to be above all about adventure, courage, aggression, heroism and loyalty. The fact that the characters are rabbits is secondary to the story. But – and this is important – it is central to the animation. No rabbit in this film must do anything that a real rabbit, in purely physical terms, could not do. For example, no rabbit can put a paw round another rabbit’s shoulder, or dress up in white tie and tails. Furthermore, real rabbits do not have whites in their eyes; so, though whites are very useful to animators for conveying expression, there will be none in this film.’
There is still one vital difference between Rosen’s rabbits and real rabbits – Rosen’s can talk. Mostly, the language they speak is standard English, but a few words may sound strange to anyone who has not read the book, so here is a short glossary of the rabbit vocabulary devised by Adams:
ELIL. Collective term for all the rabbits’ enemies – fox, stoat, cat, man, dog, owl, etc.
FLAYRAH. Particularly good food, such as lettuce.
FRITH. The sun, regarded by rabbits as a god.
HLESSI. A wandering rabbit, without a regular warren, who lives above ground.
HRUDUDU. Any motor vehicle.
Terry Staples
WATERSHIP DOWN
Directed by: Martin Rosen
©/Production Company: Watership Productions Ltd
Presented by: Nepenthe Productions Ltd
Produced by: Martin Rosen
Production Manager: Dennis Gardiner
Production Co-ordinator: Philip Alton
Production Accountants: Ron Garrett, Jo Gregory, Linda Gregory
Production Secretaries: Judy Hayward, Marilyn Barham
Written for the screen by: Martin Rosen
From the novel by: Richard Adams
Camera: Tony Haines, Bob Mintern, Les Green, Ron Boston, Moses Agyemang, Julian Holdaway, Denis Hall, Barry Orsborn, Alan Buchan, Chris Williams, David Smith, Christopher Morgan
Animation Supervisor: Philip Duncan
Animation Director: Tony Guy
Senior Animators: Arthur Humberstone, George Jackson, Tony Guy, Philip Duncan
Animators: Edric Radage, Bill Littlejohn, Ruth Kissane, John Perkins, Ralph Ayres, Brian Foster, Chris Evans, Marie Szmichowska, Alan Simpson, Colin White, Doug Jensen, Bill Geach, Spud Houston, Barrie Nelson
Assistant Animators: Ray Kelly, Alistair Byrt, Malcolm Bourne, April Spencer, Sarah Vincent, Bobby Clennell, Chris Caunter, Steve Woods, Carol Slade, Rosemary Welch
Checking: Miles Foster, Steve Colwell, Marie Turner
Layout Artists: Gordon Harrison, Peter See, Ted Pettengell
Senior Background Artists: Ian Henderson, Gary Sycamore, Sue Branch
Background Artists: Errol Bryant, Paul Shardlow, Rodolfo Azaro, Brian Melling, Dennis Ryan
Assistant Background Artists: Vanessa Clegg, Richard Bell
Trace and Paint Supervisors: Donna Baker, Peter Turner
Colour Co-ordination: Alma Sachs
Trace and Paint: Sandy Houston, Karen Webb, Jose Sanz, Lynn Anderson, Elaine Mills, Maggie Brown, Olive Scott, Barbara Todeschini, Alan Andrews, Ann Kennedy, Margot Allen, Dennis Sutton, Briony Catling, Roby Hamilton-Garrett, Helga Egilson, Wendi Ellis, Roger Way, Josephine Poole, David Mcfall, Joan Bradshaw, Dot Morse, Sheila Thompson, Priscilla Rhodes, Maria Hemmleb, Rosemary Morgan
Edited by: Terry Rawlings
Assembly Editor: Roy Piper
Assistant Editors: Leslie Healey, William Webb
Optical Editor: Philip Campbell
Special Sequence Design: Luciana Arrighi
Titles: Brian Terry
Music Composed and Arranged by: Angela Morley
Incidental Music by: Malcolm Williamson
Musical Director: Marcus Dods
Music Editor: Brian Lintern
Music Mixer: John Richards
Dubbing Mixer: Bill Rowe
Re-recorded at: EMI Studios Borehamwood
Effects Mixer: Ray Merrin
Voice Cast
John Hurt (Hazel)
Richard Briers (Fiver)
Michael Graham Cox (Bigwig)
John Bennett (Captain Holly)
Ralph Richardson (chief rabbit)
Simon Cadell (Blackberry)
Terence Rigby (Silver)
Roy Kinnear (Pipkin)
Richard O’Callaghan (Dandelion)
Denholm Elliott (Cowslip)
Lyn Farleigh (Cat)
Mary Maddox (Clover)
Zero Mostel (Kehaar)
Harry Andrews (General Woundwort)
Hannah Gordon (Hyzenthlay)
Nigel Hawthorne (Captain Campion)
Clifton Jones (Blackavar)
Derek Griffiths (Vervain)
Michael Hordern (Frith)
Joss Ackland (Black Rabbit)
Michelle Price (Lucy)
UK 1978©
92 mins
Digital 4K
A BFI release
Watership Down has been restored in 4K high dynamic range from the original 35mm negative and magnetic stereo audio tracks by BFI Distribution and Silver Salt Restoration
NEW RELEASES
Timestalker
From Mon 21 Oct
The Apprentice
From Mon 21 Oct
The Room Next Door
From Fri 25 Oct
Layla
From Fri 25 Oct
Anora
From Fri 1 Nov
Bird
From Fri 15 Nov
All We Imagine as Light
From Fri 29 Nov
RE-RELEASES
Watership Down
From Fri 25 Oct
Point Break
From Fri 8 Nov
SIGHT AND SOUND
Never miss an issue with Sight and Sound, the BFI’s internationally renowned film magazine. Subscribe from just £25*
*Price based on a 6-month print subscription (UK only). More info: sightandsoundsubs.bfi.org.uk
BFI SOUTHBANK
Welcome to the home of great film and TV, with three cinemas and a studio, a world-class library, regular exhibitions and a pioneering Mediatheque with 1000s of free titles for you to explore. Browse special-edition merchandise in the BFI Shop.We're also pleased to offer you a unique new space, the BFI Riverfront – with unrivalled riverside views of Waterloo Bridge and beyond, a delicious seasonal menu, plus a stylish balcony bar for cocktails or special events. Come and enjoy a pre-cinema dinner or a drink on the balcony as the sun goes down.
BECOME A BFI MEMBER
Enjoy a great package of film benefits including priority booking at BFI Southbank and BFI Festivals. Join today at bfi.org.uk/join
BFI PLAYER
We are always open online on BFI Player where you can watch the best new, cult & classic cinema on demand. Showcasing hand-picked landmark British and independent titles, films are available to watch in three distinct ways: Subscription, Rentals & Free to view.
See something different today on player.bfi.org.uk
Join the BFI mailing list for regular programme updates. Not yet registered? Create a new account at www.bfi.org.uk/signup
Programme notes and credits compiled by Sight and Sound and the BFI Documentation Unit
Notes may be edited or abridged
Questions/comments? Contact the Programme Notes team by email