Disclaimer: This blog post contains (minor) spoilers about Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland.
Over break, my fifteen year old sister and I went to see Tim Burton's latest theatrical production. It was incredible. Done in the brightly colored, incredibly detailed, and wonderfully elaborate signature style of Burton, Alice is not only visually appealing, but also tells a story in a satisfying manner.
What makes this film unique is that it corrects a lot of the criticisms we have made towards traditional Disney movies in class, yet it is clearly a fairy tale. By featuring a pretty blonde heroine, a magical land with talking animals, and royalty, Burton makes it obvious to his audience that he is telling a fairy tale. However, Burton expands on the traditional fairy tale by creating characters with depth and insight. Alice is not simply a curious young woman. She has recently lost her father, who was brilliant and adventurous, and is proposed to by a rich, noble man who she despises. Alice suddenly finds herself in a bizarre world (created by Burton, so I'm sure you can imagine how bizarre it really is) where she can grow and shrink and is met by talking animals. Alice breaks through the "stock-character" barrier as the audience watches her grapple with her own sanity and self-doubt. Eventually, Alice finds inner strength, probably inherited from her father, and becomes the out-right hero of this fairy tale.
In addition to creating a believable heroine, Burton surrounds her with equally deep friends. The Mad Hatter, for example, acts insane to mask his cunning and intelligence. Without his scheming and guidance, Alice would be unable to complete her task in Wonderland. Another way Burton avoids fairy tale stereotypes, is by surrounding Alice with sort of ugly talking animals. Alice befriends these creatures despite their looks (and her previous encounters with them), and again, their help is later required by Alice.
I do not think I would have appreciated this movie as much if I was not in this class, because by having my attention drawn to flat characters in previous Disney productions has lead me to truly appreciate the Burton's characters in Alice in Wonderland.
I also saw Alice in Wonderland over break and agree that it was a good movie that I definitely appreciated more because of this class. It is really interesting to me that we are seeing these more “adult” versions of fairy tales (Alice, Avatar, etc.). I think that a defining characteristic of these more mature retellings is the added complexity of the characters. Even the villains in Alice had some depth and were not flat (the Red Queen, especially).
ReplyDeleteBut that isn’t what I wanted to write about. When I watched the movie, I noticed an ad for the CD, “Almost Alice,” that came out around the same time as the movie. There were many popular bands that created songs specifically for this movie, and I wondered what some would sound like … especially the song from Shinedown. Shinedown is a band that I would definitely not expect to sing a song for a fairy tale movie, so I was expecting an interesting listen (you can listen below…it’s a YouTube link, but will play the song).
The song is called “Her Name is Alice” and I still can’t really figure what it’s about. I’ve listened to it countless times and read over the lyrics even more. It seems like they are playing off of Alice’s belief that she is in a dream while in Wonderland and how it must feel as she begins to realize it isn’t. Lyrics like “and even though she’s dreaming, she knows” and “but now off with her head I fear is everyone’s concern” gave me this impression. But then the song talks about how this may have helped her with the line: “this kingdom, good riddance, her freedom and innocence has brought this whole thing down.” This suggests that Alice’s naivety and fearlessness benefited her greatly in her adventure. She did what she thought was right, narrowly escaping death several times, and was fearless about it because she thought she was in a dream. I think this is actually a good moral to take out of the story – that you should do what you feel is right, no matter what may be weighing you down.
(link to song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VOdTbzgf0yM )
Katie you know I love you, but I must disagree with almost everything you say. I thought this movie was incredibly shallow. The Disney cartoon version, made in 1951, is a colorful fantastical film. There's a dumb blonde girl wandering around while everyone else figures things out for her. Jump ahead 60 years and Tim Burton did the same thing but with actual people and 3D technology.
ReplyDeleteI have to disagree that Alice is any sort of hero at all. She is flighty and living in a fantasy world. Sure, she "fights the system" in the end, but I don't sense strength or maturity from her. She wants to be a little girl and just have fun, and at no point do you sense that this girl could possibly live life on her own and sustain herself. For crying out loud the girl followed a rabbit into a hole. I don't know whether it was the character or the actress, but my biggest criticism coming out of the movie was the lack of a strong Alice. I agree that it did seem that this is what Burton was going for, but failed miserably.
I've never read the book (though I own it and plan on reading it soon), but I thought Burton was completely unimaginative. He tried to cover the flaws with funny and admittedly well cast actors, Depp and Bonham-Carter specifically. But at the end of the day, he stuck to the Disney script for the most part (except he took out my favorite scene with the walrus) and thus these actors didn't get to play as substantial a role as their talents warranted.
As I've said before I am drawn to characters more than a fascinating plot in general. And to me the characters are what let this movie down. The Mad Hatter and Red Queen were well acted but stock. And they didn't appear enough anyways. Alice is immature and doesn't transform at all throughout the film.
Like Justin, I couldn't disagree more about the value of Alice in Wonderland. While Tim Burton undoubtedly crafted a beautiful piece of cinema (the effects of 3D are particularly astonishing), this movie sucks more than the average Hoover vacuum. Style on the part of Burton in no way covers up a lack of substance. The only truly appealing characters are Tweedledee and Tweedledum who while hilarious are also clearly mentally deficient (I'd use the r word but I know how frowned upon that is by the ND community at this point and time). The real problem is a lack of character development. While Johnny Depp initially seems inspired as the Mad Hatter, the lack of depth offered to Burton's characters does not allow Depp to flex his considerable acting muscle. I would characterize Carter in a similar vein. Within her role she is absolutely incredible. However, said role could have been written by a 5 year old with only the basest of understandings of good and evil or right and wrong. The worst character of all is unquestionably Alice herself. Her life is one accident after another. We are led to believe Alice has been to Wonderland before but we don't really know what happened on the previous occasion or why it was in any way remarkable. Furthermore, her character is just incredibly maddening. While it's great that she is a fully independent transformed woman at the end of the movie, the justification behind this transformation is nonexistent. She is essentially forced to fight the evil creature whatever the hell it was called and this transforms her. That makes sense. She is the stockest of the stock characters except she's given an independent streak by Burton la ti freaking da. I found myself not caring about Alice or any single other character. For hilarity sake watch the white queen as performed by Anne Hathaway. Hint: she's not supposed to be a less than serious role. While Burton presents a modern fairy tale in over 90 minutes, he suffers from the same problem as the average fairy tale ergo no character development. However unlike traditional fairy tales he is unencumbered by the length of his medium. The only character I truly cared about was the caterpillar played by the magnificent Alan Rickman who presents a both wise and hilarious figure. Alice fell down the hole and then nothing interesting happened again. I wish I had been high but that would not have saved this dreadful movie. Next time use your ten bucks to see she's outta my league a much more satisfying piece of fare.
ReplyDeleteI think that some are missing a very important point that surfaces from this movie. I watched it over the weekend and found some aspects of the film to be very encouraging. While I agree that the character development was not outstanding, Alice was in no way intended to be static. Her understanding of her identity, her abilities, and her sense of self worth are not the same in the end of the movie as they were in the beginning. She is not forced into the battle, but chooses to go on her own (although not without pressure).
ReplyDeleteI think the most important thing I got out of this film in the development of the fairy tale is the role of women. The characters with the most power in the film are all women - the Red Queen, the White Queen, and Alice. What is more, we have a heroine who is faced with the task of saving an entire group of people from oppression, and she manages to do so on her own. One of the identifying factors of a fairy tale with a male hero is that he must save someone by performing a series of tasks to prove his worth. Alice takes on this role in the film, giving her a predominantly male role. What is encouraged in her case is not passivity or beauty, but bravery and strength. She also obtains the gumption to tell off those in her own society and to choose a different path for herself other than marriage...no small feat for someone today, must less of her own time. The movie does not contain a love story for our heroine, and she leaves the audience after following in her father's footsteps and entering into business and trade. The reversal of gender stereotypes in this film were particularly interesting to me, because while this story has the elements of a fairy tale, it presents a strong and brave heroine and it does not culminate in marriage or a relationship of any kind. These aspects were promising developments in my mind.
In my Disney in Film and Culture class (FTT dept, and yes it is a legit class) we discussed the two Alice's before I saw the film. As such I went into seeing it with somewhat preconceived notions (thanks to class comments) that the film was awful, Johnny Depp was Johnny Depp and not the Mad Hatter, feminist views against the conformity of marriage and gender roles are shoved down the audience's throat, Alice added nothing to the film, Anne Hathaway was creepy, and the plot was essentially the same as that of the Disney version of the Chonicles of Narnia (definitely true in my opinion). I was pleasantly surprised that I didn't come out of the film hating it, but I did find it extremely interesting which characters kept my attention and which ones I was emotionally invested in. For me, the cheshire cat was the most exciting character and I even realized that I cared more about the family of dogs being reunited than necessarily Alice beating that jaber-thing (I mean come on, we all know she wins and lives in the end anyway).
ReplyDeleteI agree that Burton's Alice seems to have more of a fairytale structure than the 1951 Disney version, however the Disney Alice was not necessarily meant to do that. It is much more episodic in its attempt to accommodate as many original Carroll characters as possible. It is also meant to be a dream, unlike Burton's version.
I think it is possible for viewers to lack engagement with Alice the character for the simple fact that she is played by an unknown actress. While Lindsey Lohan and Amanda Seyfreid (sp?) were both considered for the part they were not selected because they did not have the paleness casting agents were looking for. In almost all the trailers (possible all of them in fact) Alice is either completely absent or does not say anything. In contrast the audience is bombarded with images and dialogue from Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham-Carter,and Anne Hathaway. The official poster for the film is also of Depp as the Mad Hatter- not of Alice, the title character. I think it's safe to say that a huge amount of people went to see the film because of the big name actors, actresses, and director. While this may seem to be a bit of a shallow response, I don't think it's too far fetched to say that Alice is overpowered in the film and all the potential she had for serving as a gender-barrier-defying character is overlooked by visual distractions and highly anticipated big-name performances.
BOOM ROASTED
ReplyDeletei also have to agree that, visual effects aside, the movie was a bit of a disappointment. johnny depp is by the far the best actor/actress in the film, and his role is reduced to hardly anything more than short witty quips and silly antics. he definitely needed a bigger role. without potentially incriminating myself, lets just say that when i saw it, only the first 45 minutes were particularly entertaining. certain substances must have worn off after that...
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