Production
The animation historian Brian Sibley doubts that the team responsible was aware of the source of the funding, initiating the project, which came from the Central Intelligence Agency to further the creation of anti-communist art.
The "financial backers" impacted on the development of the film - the altered ending, and that the message should be that, "Stalin's regime is not only as bad as Jones's, but worse and more cynical", and Napoleon "not only as bad as JONES but vastly worse ". And the "investors" were greatly concerned that Snowball (the Trotsky figure) was presented too sympathetically in early script treatments and that Batchelor's script implied Snowball was "intelligent,dynamic,courageous". This implication could not be permitted. A memo declared that Snowball must be presented as a "fanatic intellectual whose plans if carried through would have led to disaster no less complete than under Napoleon." de Rochemont accepted this suggestion.
Halas and Batchelor were awarded the contract to make the feature in November 1951 and it was completed in April 1954. The production employed about 80 animators.
Read more about this topic: Animal Farm (1954 Film)
Famous quotes containing the word production:
“The heart of man ever finds a constant succession of passions, so that the destroying and pulling down of one proves generally to be nothing else but the production and the setting up of another.”
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“The production of too many useful things results in too many useless people.”
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“The myth of unlimited production brings war in its train as inevitably as clouds announce a storm.”
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