“It is a film about children, not explicitly
for them”, Jonathan Miller commented on his personal
adaptation of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. The
film was first broadcasted on BBC at a late hour, 9:05 p.m., on December
28th, 1966. Such timing and attitude
caused a scandal and unfriendly comments in the press (“a
travesty”).Almost forty years later this television movie still provides a fresh view on childhood and dreaming. It is not a travesty but a very loyal adaptation of Lewis Carroll’s story; for example, almost all of the dialogue comes from the book, with only a few improvised lines by some actors. The visual language was inspired by Victorian photography and Pre-Raphaelite paintings (and Las Meninas by Diego Velázquez). Miller mentions photographs taken by Carroll and Julia Margaret Cameron as models. All sceneries and sets are such that a nineteenth-century Alice might have seen and known them.
Concerning Carroll’s book, the greatest change is that we see no animals portrayed in this production, only actors and actresses. Miller justifies this in his audio commentary by saying that the animal names could be interpreted as nicknames for persons as well. It is possible to identify all actors who perform in this movie. You see Wilfrid Brambell, not some anonymous actor who wears a gigantic bunny suite, like the corresponding actor in Percy Stow’s (1903) or Nick Willing’s version (1999). The animalism is left to the imagination of the viewer.
The
visual appearance of this
movie is elegant and sparse. It is black-and-white, the aspect ratio is
1.33 : 1, audio track monophonic, and most of it has been
photographed (by Dick Bush) with a 9-millimetre wide-angle lens, which
gives a deep focus. Some takes remind one of Stanley Kubrick’s
visual style. The deep focus and distortion of the close-ups give the film a
surreal and dream-like appearance.There was nothing Freudian in his conception, Miller assures us, although most critics have viewed the movie in deeply Freudian terms. Miller was not interested in Sigmund Freud but William Wordsworth and his view of childhood; he disliked especially the Disney version (1951), calling it “absurd”. Alice in Wonderland is a very successful dream movie precisely because it doesn’t aim to be Freudian. Too obvious Freudianism has ruined many classical movies, like The Spellbound and Secret Beyond the Door. Despite the intentions of the filmmakers, Alice in Wonderland can, of course, be analyzed with psychoanalytical means, and in so doing, one should be able to point out something new, not simply to identify the clichés that the filmmakers inserted or avoided.
The
essence of dreaming is
captured very appositely by Miller. This movie reminds the viewer of the
truly great dreamers of the screen: Jean Cocteau
(Orphée) and Federico Fellini (Otto e
mezzo). The Brechtian alienation (Verfremdung) of the
dialogue delivery and abrupt changes of place create a very dream-like and
surreal atmosphere, and this seems to be very close to the real essence of
dreaming proper. Problems and situations of ordinary life appear disguised
in the dream and new solutions are hinted at. Wishful thinking rules in the
kingdom of dream: note especially how the bottle with the label
“DRINK ME” and the cake with the
words “EAT ME” appear from
nowhere and how unostentatiously Alice’s size changes: no
amazing trick photography, only a different lens & angle and smaller
or bigger furniture. These kinds of changes illustrate the
“psychoanalytic understanding of infantile subjective experience as
lacking in clear self-representations of any sort and as dominated by
inadequate or absent differentiation between what is thought and what is
real” (Roy Schafer, Aspects of Internalization,
p. 92).
Anne-Marie
Mallik plays the
central role of Alice. She appears rather expressionless, not dull, in most
scenes, talking almost impatiently and harshly to the Wonderland
characters, who seem mostly to have only silly things to say — like
adults in real life. The viewer must project feelings onto this girl. Her
inexpressive performance illustrates the suspension of the reflective
self-representations which occur in dreams; when dreaming, one usually is
not surprised of the absurd ideas of the dream but takes them for granted.
The dialogues do not resemble conversation but recitation; they sound
more like rituals, in the vein of Bertolt Brecht. Aki Kaurismäki has
utilized the same effect in his movies.
The
rest of the cast is more
lively and expressive, especially the Hatter (Peter Cook), but his gestures
seem nonchalant and out of context — that is, mad. More obvious
insanity can be observed in the caucus-race sequence which parodies High
Church religion. This scene shows quite mercilessly how a child can
experience the outward forms of hypocritical worship: chaotic, empty,
jerky gestures totally devoid of substance. I guess Alice feels herself an
outsider in her world, and is not sure if she wants to be a member of that
fussy adult society.
Miller
has interpreted
Alice’s story quite extensively as a critique of Victorian society.
The Queen of Hearts (Alison Leggatt) resembles Queen Victoria, and the
depiction of her court isn’t very flattering. Miller lets a child see
the pervasive infantilism of the undemocratic way of life. Alice is like a
foreign correspondent observing this ingrained kingdom from the outside
(cf. Lettres persanes). On the other hand, the courtroom scene
is obviously a childish reconstruction based upon hearsay. The set itself is
lavish and surreal (set designer Julia Trevelyan Oman), with a janitor and
a gardener, and animal voices in the background. The Queen sews her
cross-stitch embroidery during the trial.The story proceeds without hesitation, but the overall impression is not that of rushing through in a hurry, as in Nick Willing’s version, for instance. Miller mentions that the first rough cut was 20 minutes longer, and Huw Weldon made him shorten it considerably — with favourable results.
For
a small-scale production,
the cast is most impressive. Anne-Marie Mallik is a perfect choice for an
alienated Alice. Her calm expression carries the film from the first take to
the last. The White Rabbit is played by Wilfrid Brambell, whom many
may nowadays remember as Paul’s clean grandfather from A
Hard Day’s Night. Sir Michael Redgrave as the Caterpillar
and John Bird as the Frog Footman so aptly portray adults who have
nothing meaningful to say to a child. Leo McKern’s Ugly Duchess
is surely one of the most memorable and exuberant drag performances
ever seen on film before and after Dame Edna. The Mad Tea-Party, which
is hosted by Peter Cook (Hatter), Michael Gough (March Hare) and
Wilfred Lawson (Dormouse), surely creates the impression of exhaustive
timelessness, when riddles and other pastimes turn into their dire
opposites: you are supposed to be amused by a riddle without an answer,
and a story without the least sense in it (“They lived at the bottom
of a well”). John Gielgud (Mock Turtle) and Malcolm Muggeridge
(Gryphon) personify old men who still (or finally) glorify their ancient
school days and dance by the sea; their childhood has nothing in common
with that of Alice. Peter Sellers brings quite a lot of dotage to his role of
the King of Hearts, including slapstick that Miller slightly disapproves in
his commentary.
One
of the most alienating (and
refreshing) factors in this production is the music. Miller approached Ravi
Shankar and asked him to provide music for the film. So we mostly hear
the unusual combination of sitar and oboe in a British production of a very
British classic. Miller mentions that the sound of the sitar is meant to
invoke the buzzing of insects in the summer nature. Because of the
Beatles, the sound of the sitar reminds one irresistibly of the sixties, but
the music is still alive and exciting. I could not imagine a happier film
score for a production like this.Miller’s Alice in Wonderland has been seen rarely, and a new release is most welcome. The British Film Institute has produced a beautiful digital transfer of the movie and put it on DVD. The original negative appears to be in rather good condition; some fading can be noted, but otherwise no film deterioration is apparent. Also video artifacts are very few indeed; the clarity and sharpness of the image is preserved. The audio track is monophonic and the sound is clear and free from hiss and distortion. One needs a region-2 or region-free DVD player and a PAL-compatible equipment to view this disk, but a similar release for region 1 exists.
The
disk provides some extra
features as well: full-length audio commentary by the director, and the
first Alice movie ever made, Alice in Wonderland
by Percy Stow from 1903. Although in a bad condition, this silent movie
runs 8 ½ minutes, and has an audio commentary by
Simon Brown. Add to this Miller’s biography, production
photographs and an essay by Philip Kemp.Carroll is not the only author that Miller used in this production. At the end, Alice quotes from Wordsworth’s ode “Intimations of Immortality”:
