TALES OF BEATRIX POTTER

UK, 1971, 90 minutes, Colour.
Carole Ainsworth, Sally Ashby. Frederick Ashton. Avril Bergen, Michael Coleman.
Directed by Reginald Mills.

Tales of Beatrix Potter is ballet-souffle, the Royal Ballet taking time off to don wonderful animal costumes and show their paces (and many other steps and dances) in the beautiful green settings of England's Lake District. They put some of Beatrix Potter's children's stories to music and pigs do a pas-de-deux, a frog leaps and mice pirouette. I suspect that the ballet-goer rather than children (except for girls who like and/or study dancing and music) will enjoy the film, which is quite charming and delightful, but may pall for those who do not appreciate the skills of the dancers within their costumes or who prefer sterner stuff.

1. Was this an enjoyable film? Why?

2. How good a ballet film was it? How clever and attractive was the dancing? How did the film use colour and costumes, settings and decor? Why were these so attractive? Did they correspond well to the original books?

3. How attractive was the music? The themes?

4. The film presented the Victorian world of Beatrix Potter. How interesting was this for the film? Did it explain why Beatrix wrote her stories? What kind of a world did she live in? How isolated was she? Her relationship with the servants? Her reading? The dark and silent house? Her piano playing? Her running out into the fields? Her observation, so close, of the mice and other animals? Mrs. Tiggywinkle - what did she represent? The motherly character? Doing the washing, etc?

5. Peter Rabbit and the lettuces and his continual looking around and searching. Why was Peter Rabbit so attractive?

6. Why did the mice get so much attention in the film? What was so pleasant about the mice in the hallway with the half-opened door? What about the bad mice who smashed everything? What of the mice at the picnic? The tidy mice and the intruding mice? And all the mess?

7. Why did the pigs get so much attention in the story - the story of the pigs leaving home, the pigs going to market, the pig finding the attractive girl pig and their dancing together?

8. How comical was the story of Jemima and the fox - her trying to lay the egg? The fox's reading the menus? The fox trying to get Jemima? The laying of so many eggs? The fox having to run away from the hunt?

9. Why was Jeremy Fisher a likeable character? A comic character?


10. Did you enjoy the squirrels and their dancing? Why did the squirrel taunt the owl? What lesson did the owl teach the squirrel?

13. Was the cat very frightening? Did the cat frighten the mice? Why did the cat join in with everyone else?

14. Were you glad to see all the main characters gather together at the end? How enjoyable was this? What was the point of telling these stories?