INSTEAD of Wonderland, it’s Underland. In lieu of Alice as a bored but smart kid, they get Alice as a 19-year-old rebel & warrior, dispatching the monstrous Jabberwocky with a magic sword. Disney’s second rendering of Lewis Carroll’s fantasy, in other words, is a world apart from both its 1951 cartoon version & the original Victorian-era text.
Directed by Tim Burton, “Alice in Wonderland,” a 3-D blend of live action & animation that opens Friday, is meant as a contemporary, subversive take on a cherished story. With the 20-year-old Australian actress Mia Wasikowska, who had a breakout role in the first season of HBO’s “In Treatment,” as Alice, it begins with an unwanted marriage proposal before veering off in to Underland, where Johnny Depp as the Mad Hatter & Helena Bonham Carter as the Red Queen await.
“I’ve seen mostly everything, but there’s never been a version for me that works, that I like or that blows me away,” they said this month in a phone interview from Los Angeles. “It always ends up seeming like a clueless small girl wandering around with a bunch of weirdos. & the fact that there was no one definitive version was helpful. It’s not like the Disney cartoon was the greatest. So I didn’t feel that pressure to match or surpass.”
Since “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland” & its sequel, “Through the Looking-Glass,” were first published 150 years ago, Alice’s tale has been retold in lots of versions & lots of media, including as a musical, anime, video game & over a score of film & tv adaptations. But for Mr. Burton the abundance & familiarity of the material “in the subconscious & in the culture” was an incentive — not a deterrent — to take it on.
“I do feel it’s important to depict strong-willed, empowered women,” they added, “because women & girls require role models, which is what art & characters are. Girls who are empowered have a chance to make their own choices, difficult choices, & set out on their own road.”
Linda Woolverton, the film’s screenwriter, had a similar attitude. They said that when they began her script, they “did a lot of research on Victorian conventions, on how young girls were supposed to behave, & then did exactly the opposite.” As they put it, “I was thinking more in terms of an action-adventure film with a female protagonist” than a Victorian maiden.
That emphasis on self-esteem & moral uplift has long been characteristic of Ms. Woolverton’s work — & of Disney itself. Originally a writer for children’s tv programs like “Ewoks” & “Teen Wolf” & also the author of a
pair of novels for young adults, they wrote the screenplays of “Beauty & the Beast” & “The Lion King” & also contributed to “Mulan,” all for Disney.
Thus the river of tears that a confused Alice cries in Carroll’s original text on arrival in Wonderland has been written out of the story. “I couldn’t have her break down like that,” Ms. Woolverton said. Similarly, a drawing by John Tenniel, the illustrator who worked with Carroll, showing a boy fighting the dragonlike Jabberwock, as it was first called, was transformed in to an picture depicting Alice in action.
“We’re not that concerned about being historicallyin the past accurate in a film like this,” said Richard D. Zanuck, one of the movie’s producers. “It’s a piece of entertainment where you have a heroine off to another adventure at the finish, & unless I’m wrong, people of all nationalities will enjoy it as an entertainment & not try to interpret it.”
This “sisters are doin’ it for themselves” reading of Alice also comes with a coda, one that seems inspired more by Joseph Conrad than by Carroll. Refusing to marry, Alice in lieu decides to prove her mettle by shipping out to a trading post her father’s company designs to open in a China that, under force of British arms, has been compelled to legalize the opium trade, cede Hong Kong & permit its citizens to be sent abroad as indentured servants.
Disney’s “Alice” follows closely on the heels of a Pynchonesque Syfy channel version in which Alice is a martial arts instructor who comes to the rescue of her fella, who has been abducted by the White Rabbit conspiracy & taken to a Wonderland that has been turned in to a casino.
Carroll scholars say that new readings like that & Mr. Burton’s film are to be expected, given that Alice & her story are so pliable. “The books are a kind of Rorschach check, a screen onto which people project their own ideas,” said Jenny Woolf, author of “The Mystery of Lewis Carroll,” a biography published this month. “They are like a verbal cartoon, full of characters who are vivid but small over sketches.”
In the 1960s that led to psychedelic readings of Alice, exemplified by Jefferson Airplane’s hit song “White Rabbit” & by a much-praised 1966 BBC production, directed by Jonathan Miller & with music by Ravi Shankar, that has been released as a DVD. In the 1970s a pornographic “Alice” was also filmed, & more recently there was “American Magee’s Alice,” a video game set that features a revenge-minded Alice confined to an insane asylum, with a second installment possibly due in 2011.
“What is interesting about the recent versions is that they are all a small violent,” said Jan Susina, author of “The Place of Lewis Carroll in Children’s Literature” & a specialist in Victorian culture who teaches at California State University, noting that the goth-and-gore singer Marilyn Manson also has a film project in the works in which they designs to play Carroll. “Since each generation & culture puts its own gloss on the story, that suggests something about our culture.”
Directed by Tim Burton, “Alice in Wonderland,” a 3-D blend of live action & animation that opens Friday, is meant as a contemporary, subversive take on a cherished story. With the 20-year-old Australian actress Mia Wasikowska, who had a breakout role in the first season of HBO’s “In Treatment,” as Alice, it begins with an unwanted marriage proposal before veering off in to Underland, where Johnny Depp as the Mad Hatter & Helena Bonham Carter as the Red Queen await.
“I’ve seen mostly everything, but there’s never been a version for me that works, that I like or that blows me away,” they said this month in a phone interview from Los Angeles. “It always ends up seeming like a clueless small girl wandering around with a bunch of weirdos. & the fact that there was no one definitive version was helpful. It’s not like the Disney cartoon was the greatest. So I didn’t feel that pressure to match or surpass.”
Since “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland” & its sequel, “Through the Looking-Glass,” were first published 150 years ago, Alice’s tale has been retold in lots of versions & lots of media, including as a musical, anime, video game & over a score of film & tv adaptations. But for Mr. Burton the abundance & familiarity of the material “in the subconscious & in the culture” was an incentive — not a deterrent — to take it on.
“I do feel it’s important to depict strong-willed, empowered women,” they added, “because women & girls require role models, which is what art & characters are. Girls who are empowered have a chance to make their own choices, difficult choices, & set out on their own road.”
Linda Woolverton, the film’s screenwriter, had a similar attitude. They said that when they began her script, they “did a lot of research on Victorian conventions, on how young girls were supposed to behave, & then did exactly the opposite.” As they put it, “I was thinking more in terms of an action-adventure film with a female protagonist” than a Victorian maiden.
That emphasis on self-esteem & moral uplift has long been characteristic of Ms. Woolverton’s work — & of Disney itself. Originally a writer for children’s tv programs like “Ewoks” & “Teen Wolf” & also the author of a
pair of novels for young adults, they wrote the screenplays of “Beauty & the Beast” & “The Lion King” & also contributed to “Mulan,” all for Disney.Thus the river of tears that a confused Alice cries in Carroll’s original text on arrival in Wonderland has been written out of the story. “I couldn’t have her break down like that,” Ms. Woolverton said. Similarly, a drawing by John Tenniel, the illustrator who worked with Carroll, showing a boy fighting the dragonlike Jabberwock, as it was first called, was transformed in to an picture depicting Alice in action.
“We’re not that concerned about being historicallyin the past accurate in a film like this,” said Richard D. Zanuck, one of the movie’s producers. “It’s a piece of entertainment where you have a heroine off to another adventure at the finish, & unless I’m wrong, people of all nationalities will enjoy it as an entertainment & not try to interpret it.”
This “sisters are doin’ it for themselves” reading of Alice also comes with a coda, one that seems inspired more by Joseph Conrad than by Carroll. Refusing to marry, Alice in lieu decides to prove her mettle by shipping out to a trading post her father’s company designs to open in a China that, under force of British arms, has been compelled to legalize the opium trade, cede Hong Kong & permit its citizens to be sent abroad as indentured servants.
Disney’s “Alice” follows closely on the heels of a Pynchonesque Syfy channel version in which Alice is a martial arts instructor who comes to the rescue of her fella, who has been abducted by the White Rabbit conspiracy & taken to a Wonderland that has been turned in to a casino.
Carroll scholars say that new readings like that & Mr. Burton’s film are to be expected, given that Alice & her story are so pliable. “The books are a kind of Rorschach check, a screen onto which people project their own ideas,” said Jenny Woolf, author of “The Mystery of Lewis Carroll,” a biography published this month. “They are like a verbal cartoon, full of characters who are vivid but small over sketches.”
In the 1960s that led to psychedelic readings of Alice, exemplified by Jefferson Airplane’s hit song “White Rabbit” & by a much-praised 1966 BBC production, directed by Jonathan Miller & with music by Ravi Shankar, that has been released as a DVD. In the 1970s a pornographic “Alice” was also filmed, & more recently there was “American Magee’s Alice,” a video game set that features a revenge-minded Alice confined to an insane asylum, with a second installment possibly due in 2011.
“What is interesting about the recent versions is that they are all a small violent,” said Jan Susina, author of “The Place of Lewis Carroll in Children’s Literature” & a specialist in Victorian culture who teaches at California State University, noting that the goth-and-gore singer Marilyn Manson also has a film project in the works in which they designs to play Carroll. “Since each generation & culture puts its own gloss on the story, that suggests something about our culture.”
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