Watership Down

Catherine Lester is Lecturer in Film and Television at the University of Birmingham, UK. Her research centres on the intersections between the horror genre and children’s culture. She is the author of the monograph Horror Films for Children: Fear and Pleasure in American Cinema (Bloomsbury, 2021), as well as chapters and articles on Disney Princess films, animated horror and children’s horror television.

Strange, controversial, beguiling: Watership Down is an uncommon film that cries out for this excellent collection of essays, providing much needed context and thoughtful analysis of unforgettable animation. Whether readers are rediscovering the film for the first time since childhood or hoping to gain new insight into a lingering obsession, they will find new information and understanding of what makes this film unique. This book offers fresh research into the troubled production and adaptation process, wide-ranging readings of the film’s story and aesthetics, and consideration of its reception and long influence. Essential reading for anyone interested in animation, horror, children’s cinema, environmentalism, or British film.

• List of IllustrationsList of TablesNotes on ContributorsAcknowledgementsIntroduction: Watership Down in contextCatherine Lester (University of Birmingham, UK)Part I: Bringing the Warren to Life 1. 'We consider the conduct of this film highly unsatisfactory and unprofessional': Film finances and Watership DownLlewella Chapman (University of East Anglia, UK) and James Chapman (University of Leicester, UK) 2. Revisiting the production of Watership Down through the Arthur Humberstone Animation ArchiveKlive Humberstone (Independent Researcher, UK), Nigel Humberstone (Independent Researcher, UK) and Chris Pallant (Canterbury Christ Church, UK) 3. 'Trying to Eat Grass that isn't There': Unearthing A lapine corpus in Richard Adams' Watership Down and its film adaptationR. Grider (Independent Scholar, USA)Part II: Animal Stories 4. Animating utopia: Aesthetic instability and the revolutionary gaze in the film adaptation of Watership DownLisa Mullen (University of Cambridge, UK)5. 'Whenever They Catch You, They Will Kill You': Human-animal conflict in 1970s British children’s cinemaNoel Brown (Liverpool Hope University, UK)6. They watered ship down: Eco-doom and ecopedagogy in adaptations of Watership Down and The Animals of Farthing WoodHollie Adams (Independent researcher, UK)7. Watership Down under: When rabbits came to Australia Dan Torre (RMIT University, Australia) and Lienors Torre (Deakin University, Australia)Part III: Aesthetics of Sound and Image8. 'English pastoral melodies': the traditions and connotations of Angela Morley’s musical score for Watership DownPaul Mazey (Independent Scholar, UK)9. 'I know now. A terrible thing is coming': Watership Down, music and/as horrorLeanne Weston (University of Warwick, UK)10. Pastel dreams and crimson nightmares: Colour, aesthetics and Watership DownCarolyn Rickards (Independent Scholar, UK)11. Prince with a thousand faces: Shifting art-styles and the depiction of violence in Watership DownSam Summers (Middlesex University, UK)Part IV: Affective Encounters with the Rabbit 12. Drawing blood: The forms and ethics of animated violence in Watership DownJosh Schulze (University of Michigan, USA)13. 'Won’t somebody please think of the bunnies?': Watership Down, rabbit horror and 'suitability' for childrenCatherine Lester (University of Birmingham, UK)14. Mourning Hazel-rahCatherine Sadler (Independent Scholar, UK)Guide to Further Research Index