Martin Rosen

Watership Down

Watership Down

With this passion project, screenwriter-producer-director Martin Rosen brilliantly achieved what had been thought nearly impossible: a faithful big-screen adaptation of Richard Adams’s classic British dystopian novel about a community of rabbits under terrible threat from modern forces. With its naturalistic hand-drawn animation, dreamily expressionistic touches, gorgeously bucolic background design, and elegant voice work from such superb English actors as John Hurt, Ralph Richardson, Richard Briers, and Denholm Elliott, Watership Down is an emotionally arresting, dark-toned allegory about freedom amid political turmoil.

Film Info

  • United Kingdom
  • 1978
  • 92 minutes
  • Color
  • 1.85:1
  • English
  • Spine #748

BLU-RAY SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES

  • New high-definition digital restoration, with uncompressed stereo soundtrack
  • New interview with director Martin Rosen
  • New interview with filmmaker Guillermo del Toro about the film’s importance in animation history
  • Picture-in-picture storyboards for the entire film
  • Defining a Style, a 2005 featurette about the film’s aesthetic
  • Trailer
  • English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
  • PLUS: An essay by comic book writer Gerard Jones

    New cover by F. Ron Miller

Purchase Options

BLU-RAY SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES

  • New high-definition digital restoration, with uncompressed stereo soundtrack
  • New interview with director Martin Rosen
  • New interview with filmmaker Guillermo del Toro about the film’s importance in animation history
  • Picture-in-picture storyboards for the entire film
  • Defining a Style, a 2005 featurette about the film’s aesthetic
  • Trailer
  • English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
  • PLUS: An essay by comic book writer Gerard Jones

    New cover by F. Ron Miller
Watership Down
Cast
John Hurt
Hazel
Richard Briers
Fiver
Michael Graham-Cox
Bigwig
John Bennett
Captain Holly
Ralph Richardson
Chief Rabbit
Simon Cadell
Blackberry
Terence Rigby
Silver
Roy Kinnear
Pipkin
Richard O’Callaghan
Dandelion
Denholm Elliott
Cowslip
Lyn Farleigh
Cat
Mary Maddox
Clover
Zero Mostel
Kehaar
Harry Andrews
General Woundwort
Hannah Gordon
Hyzenthlay
Nigel Hawthorne
Captain Campion
Clifton Jones
Blackavar
Derek Griffiths
Vervain
Michael Hordern
Frith
Joss Ackland
Black Rabbit
Michelle Price
Lucy
Credits
Director
Martin Rosen
Written for the screen by
Martin Rosen
Produced by
Martin Rosen
Animation director
Tony Guy
Animation supervisor
Philip Duncan
Edited by
Terry Rawlings
“Bright Eyes” composed by
Mike Batt
Sung by
Art Garfunkel
Incidental music
Malcolm Williamson
Musical director
Marcus Dods
Music composed and arranged by
Angela Morley
Production manager
Dennis Gardiner
Production coordinator
Philip Alton
Layout artists
Gordon Harrison
Layout artists
Peter See
Layout artists
Ted Pettengell
Senior animators
Arthur Humberstone
Senior animators
George Jackson
Senior animators
Tony Guy
Senior animators
Philip Duncan
Special sequence design
Luciana Arrighi

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