Walt Disney had always
been interested in Lewis Carroll’s
Alice books. The animated feature Alice in
Wonderland (1951) is his chef-d’œuvre in
this respect, but he had been making Alice-entitled silent short
films already in the 1920s in which live action is combined with
black-and-white animation; this shows how eagerly he always wanted to
transcend the inexorable border between reality and fantasy. There is also
a Mickey Mouse cartoon from 1936, Thru the Mirror, in
which some Carrollian motives appear. These short films show that Disney
was not so interested in replicating “exactically”
Carroll’s story line but in examining if and how some of his ideas
could be applied to animation.From the early 1930s on, the Disney cartoons developed a distinct and marked animation style, partly dictated by the demands of the animation medium: clear-cut, caricature-like characters, evenly coloured areas and black contours. When one has to draw and colour manually 24 images for a second of film, this is the easiest way to do it; and Walt Disney refined the drawing process to an industry, even planning his studio buildings in Burbank so that the movie in preparation could proceed as if on a conveyor belt. He was the Henry Ford of animated films. Of course, one might suspect that industrial processing is prone to killing creativity, but in the case of the Disney studio, the rationalized and effortless production process left room for story-development and experimentation. During the heyday of hand-drawn animation, the Disney studio produced over forty full-length animated features — from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937) to Home on the Range (2004). Alice in Wonderland was the thirteenth of them.
The demands of the animated
film itself might be an appropriate view-point from which one should
approach his feature-length adaptation of the Alice books.
Although entitled Alice in Wonderland, the movie combines
elements from both of the books. It is probably not among the very best of
the animated Disney films, but surely belongs to the best known, and
represents the first florescence of the Disney studio, the time before its
drawing quality started to deteriorate in the 1960s. Disney’s
Alice shows all the strengths of this era: images are vivid and
colourful (Disney preferred to use Technicolor film from the early 1930s),
animation is effortless and proportional and image compositions balanced.
Also the dialogue and music score are polished. This doesn’t
however lead to kitsch but grotesque and even scary scenes are
encountered as well in dream sequences. (The dance of the Pink Elephants
from Dumbo is an unsurpassable example, and something
similar can be seen in Alice, too, because it is a dream.) These
techniques are used in the service of story-telling and Walt Disney and his
collaborators were aiming at stories that would intrinsically be fit for the
animated medium. Therefore all his stories — and the use of music,
as in Fantasia — are adapted very thoroughly for this
new art form and this goes for Alice in Wonderland as well. It
was in production almost twenty years, the episodic nature of the books
was considered problematic and many solutions were tried.
The
opening credits define
Alice in Wonderland to be “an adaptation of Lewis
Carrol’s [!] The Adventures of Alice in Wonderland and Through
the Looking Glass”. This choice of words already makes it
apparent that one should not expect a literal or faithful version of the
books. Disney’s version could rather be described in musical terms
as “a fantasy upon themes of Lewis Carroll”. It is difficult
to conceive an adaptation of Alice that would not presuppose
any previous knowledge of the story. For instance Percy Stowe’s
film version from 1903 does not represent such independence: it merely
illustrates the story which is supposed to be familiar to everybody (like
movies on Biblical subjects). Disney’s Alice functions
better in this respect. The story team took ideas from the Alice
books, moulded and combined them in a new way, and added some
similar inventions of their own. Only in a very broad scope does the
movie follow the basic story: a small girl falls asleep on an English
river-bank and dreams of Wonderland where curious incidents take place.
Only selected sequences from the book are used, such that are suitable for
animated feature. The final product is a work of art that is best judged on
its own terms.Characters from both of the books appear but several others were drafted and later left out as the picture galleries prove. Along with them also many songs were deleted but a few of them are published in this DVD set. Musically one of the most interesting is an abandoned song for the Cheshire Cat, “I’m Odd”.
Compared
with some other film
versions of Alice, this adaptation has its strengths and
weaknesses. First of all one has to say that this version is always a
pleasure to watch and to hear. The animation is vivid and detailed and the
music score contains swinging songs and movements. Kathryn Beaumont
gives a very refined and elegant performance as the voice of Alice.
Disney’s Alice character does not much resemble that of John
Tenniel but she is a very truthful representation of the young Ms.
Beaumont; one can remark this when watching the old publicity materials
discussed below. Although this version is of the same length as that of
Jonathan Miller (presented in Lewis Carroll Review
issue
Nº 31), it feels a bit more hurried, as if there were too much
material squeezed in 75 minutes. Compared with Nick Willing’s
newer version (presented in Lewis Carroll Review
issue
Nº 23), this is more fluent and entertaining though, far from an
episode movie like Make Mine Music (1946).
Quite
like Miller’s
version also Disney’s Alice is a coherent and happy
film and although aesthetically most different they have to be counted
among the best film versions of Carroll’s book. Animation makes
it possible to actually show many of the Wonderland events, like changes
of size, and imaginary characters, anthropomorphic animals and even
plants and things, and they are spectacular and surreal in Disney’s
version. On the other hand, Miller’s version feels very loyal to the
phenomenal nature of the dream, and he doesn’t simplify things
like Disney does. Ultimately, the choice belongs to the viewer.In Disney’s Alice, the original dialogue has been treated and adapted freely and only rarely do we hear direct quotes from the books; when the poems are set to music, they are shortened, like “The Walrus and the Carpenter”. On the other hand, it is the Caterpillar who recites “How Doth the Little Crocodile”, and Tweedledum and Tweedledee are given “Father William”. Changes like this undermine the basic theme of the books, namely Alice’s confusion, but they feel somewhat dream-like.
After
having seen a selection of
Disney’s propaganda shorts from the World War II released in the
DVD set Walt Disney on the Front Lines, one starts to ponder
upon whether there be any political undercurrents in Alice in
Wonderland, too, which was released after the beginning of the
Cold War. The cynical and sinister tone of the cartoon Chicken
Little (1943) seems to prevail in the episode “The Walrus
and the Carpenter”. One may notice a star, perhaps a star-fish,
attached at the behind of the trousers of the Walrus as he begins to lead
the oysters to the shore. Curiously enough (as this cannot be a coincidence
in a hand-drawn movie) it reminds one of the five-point star present in the
flag of the Soviet Union for instance. It feels now very tempting to see the
Walrus as I. V. Stalin, the Carpenter as V. I. Lenin and the
poor oysters representing East-European and Asian peoples who were
lured to embrace Communism, and then consumed to consummation. It is
rather difficult to judge if the filmmakers really had such startling
intentions in mind but political aspirations were not wholly alien to Walt
Disney — think of his movie Victory Through Air
Power (1943) for instance.
The
animated musical feature is
a truly American art form and a genuine contribution to the art of the
world. The music score always forms an essential part in Disney cartoons
and animated features, especially in the well-known Silly
Symphonies. Disney’s Alice in Wonderland is
full of music, too, and many scenes follow the rhythm of the music; for
example, Tweedledum and Tweedledee make very danceful twins. The
enchanting music and catchy songs of the movie belong to the best of
Disney films. Although the Mad Tea Party is somewhat too bustled for my
taste, I find the song “A Very Merry Un-birthday” quite
tuneful. (As Humpty Dumpty does not appear in the movie, the idea of an
un-birthday has been given to the Hatter and the March Hare.) The
fourteen songs in the movie make it almost a Singspiel.
