BOOTLEG FILES 878: “The Selfish Giant” (1971 Oscar-nominated animated short based on the Oscar Wilde story).
LAST SEEN: On YouTube.
AMERICAN HOME VIDEO: None.
REASON FOR BOOTLEG STATUS: There might be a right issue that is unresolved.
CHANCES OF SEEING A COMMERCIAL DVD RELEASE: Not likely at this time.
One of the most poignant animated films ever made is the 1971 adaptation of Oscar Wilde’s story “The Selfish Giant.” Directed by Peter Sander and produced on behalf of Reader’s Digest, it is a truly wonderful production that received an Academy Award nomination. However, today the film is almost completely forgotten, which is a major shame.
“The Selfish Giant” takes place in a bucolic English village in the Victorian era. After receiving their school lessons, the children of the village run to play in a glorious garden on an estate that is the home of a giant. The oversized occupant has been absent from his XXL-sized home for seven years – he was visiting his friend the Cornish Ogre – but upon his return he was startled to find the children trespassing on his grounds. Although there was no damage to the garden, the giant viewed them as unwelcome and constructed a large stone wall around his property, along with a sign that read “Trespassers Will Be Prosecuted.”
Without the garden, the children had no place to play and became very sad. But without the children, the garden lost its beauty. However, in the absence of the children, two new visitors turned up: Snow, a chic female figure with a long flowing white cape that blanketed the grounds, and Frost, a Nosferatu lookalike who covered the garden within an icy covering. They are soon joined by two more visitors: The North Wind, who resembled a Viking warrior, and Hail, who wore a suit of armor and danced on the roof of the giant’s residence, causing its shingles to fall off.
The four interlopers created a permanent winter within the walled-in garden – the spring, summer and autumn occurred beyond its stone barrier, but not within. The giant, who never left his home, was trapped in a state of melancholy isolation as his wintry self-created imprisonment dragged on.
This torture was abruptly interrupted when one of the stones of the wall comes loose and the children from the village came back to the garden. As soon as the children arrived, the garden came to life and everything was in full blossom – except for a single tree where a tiny child futilely attempted to reach its branches. The giant, moved by the child’s plight, came to the garden and lifted the child into the tree’s branches. The child responded by kissing the giant, which melted away all traces of the selfishness that made him keep the children out. He broke down the wall to the garden – and with it, the unofficial wall that kept him separate from the wider village. The giant soon became a beloved figure in the land, although he was sad that the child he helped in the tree seemed to have disappeared without a trace.
The story ends with the giant in his twilight years, and at this point the plot summary ends because of a major spoiler that should not be revealed to anyone unfamiliar with the Oscar Wilde story or this adaptation (which, I can say, softens the tale’s conclusion while keeping the spirit of Wilde intact).
“The Selfish Giant” has a visual style similar with the pop art look used in “Yellow Submarine,” albeit without the excessive psychedelic flourishes. The four wintry spirits are especially striking in how they were personified. The gentle storytelling narration by British actor Paul Hecht (who also voiced all of the characters’ dialogue) and the old-school folk music interludes performed by the King Sisters adds to the film’s gentle charm.
“The Selfish Giant” won an award at the Berlin International Film Festival and, as mentioned earlier, was Oscar-nominated. However, it lost to “The Crunch Bird,” a two-minute film based on a hoary dirty joke. While “The Crunch Bird” was coarsely amusing, “The Selfish Giant” was far more deserving of the award.
CBS broadcast “The Selfish Giant” in primetime on March 28, 1973, as part of an hour-long animation set – it was paired with a rerun of “Dr. Seuss’ The Lorax.” And from there, the film seemed to have fallen through the proverbial cracks. I am unaware of any U.S.-based commercial home entertainment release – there is another animated version called “The Story of the Selfish Giant’ that was released on DVD in 2005, but that was inferior to this production.
I would urge you to put aside a half-hour and enjoy this invigorating and imaginative film, as seen in this unauthorized online posting. Yes, I know it’s a bootleg, but it would be truly selfish not to share “The Selfish Giant.”
IMPORTANT NOTICE: While this weekly column acknowledges the presence of rare film and television productions through the so-called collector-to-collector market, this should not be seen as encouraging or condoning the unauthorized duplication and distribution of copyright-protected material, either through DVDs or Blu-ray discs or through postings on Internet video sites.
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