Cinema: Rabbit Run

A sound Ph.D. dissertation could be written on the curious phenomenon of children’s literature written by childless authors. From Edward Lear and Lewis Carroll to Dr. Seuss and Maurice Sendak, the phenomenon persists. The incidence is too high to be coincidental. Perhaps the writers substitute audience for family. Perhaps, like Beatrix Potter, they seem more comfortable in the domain of childhood, where fantasy is the norm and reality the intruder.

Born into the stifling world of Victoriana, little Beatrix lived in a universe of iron stricture. There were bars on her bedroom windows; a grim governess ordered her life. She was denied dolls—but she was allowed to have a pet rabbit. It was that little rodent that formed the foundation for her career. Little Beatrix observed him well and immortalized him as Peter Rabbit. Her fresh pastel drawings and brief, energetic tales—of birds, foxes, fish and mice—caught the fancy of children throughout the Western world. By her death in 1943, Beatrix Potter was second to only one lady author of children’s literature: Mother Goose.

In another era, her stories would have been filmed as animated cartoons. That would have been an error. The pale palette, the twinkling brevity could never have been duplicated, even by Disney. Fortunately a British gentleman of Potterian sympathy has found an ideal method of adaptation—the dance. Using members of the Royal Ballet, Choreographer Frederick Ashton has literally given Peter Rabbit and Tales of Beatrix Potter a new dimension. Jeremy Fisher the Frog, Peter Rabbit, Jemima Puddle-Duck, Mr. Fox and Co. spring and caper like Steiff toys given the spark of life. Around them spreads England’s green and pleasant Lake District from which Beatrix drew her inspiration.

No dialogue is heard in the film; ballet, as always, speaks for itself. From time to time the camera leaves the animals to visit their creator, a young and pretty child who rebels against her antifeminist era with quill pen and paintbox. Here, too, all is pantomime; the ticking of the clock, the stern, wordless parents, the rustle of mice in a cage all express volumes.

Filmed with refined and delicious whimsy by Reginald Mills, given a merrily eclectic score by John Lanchberry, Peter Rabbit never turns cute or saccharine. Instead it echoes the peak of the Victorian spirit: in all the tales, as in Beatrix Potter’s life, vicissitudes are there to make the journey interesting. But in the end, in this best of all possible whirls, things come frightfully, delightfully right.