Animal Farm, originally a 1945 novella by George Orwell, was adapted into an animated movie in 1954. The film follows animals rebelling against a cruel, drunken farmers, Mr. Jones. Their revolt was led by two pigs, Snowball and Napoleon. After the animals successfully overthrew Mr Jones, they tried to form a better system for living. However, Napoleon had snowball killed and took full control over the farm, slowly turning into what Mr. Jones once was. 

I think this film was pretty good and did some justice to the book, I just have conflicting feelings on the ending. The book ends with the animals looking through the farmhouse window not being able to tell apart pigs from humans. However, the movie ends with the pigs throwing a party and once the other animals see them, they start another rebellion against the pigs, which was successful. The ending of the movie was changed from the book’s ending because at the time the Cold War was going on, and the CIA bought the rights to the film to promote anti-communism. I like the ending of the movie mainly because it’s an interesting piece of history, but also because it shows the community needed to fight corruption. On the other hand, I dislike the ending because it goes against Orwell’s vision for the book. The ending of the novel was intended to show how no matter what side you were on, communist or capitalist, powerful people are cruel and selfish. Therefore, by having the animals overthrow the pigs at the end of the film, it frames communist as manipulative and cruel, while any person in power has those traits. 

Overall, I enjoyed watching this film and think it’s an interesting piece to look back at when studying propaganda or the Cold War era. If you’re interested in more ways films were used as propaganda, check out this article.