As if he never got around to seeing Jan Svankmajer's version from the 1980s.
Posted on 03/05/2010 12:41:49 PM PST by EveningStar
...This has never been a children's story. There's even a little sadism embedded in Carroll's fantasy. It reminds me of uncles who tickle their nieces until they scream...
(Excerpt) Read more at rogerebert.suntimes.com ...
ping
Did the real ebert say that, or the computer animated ebert?
Suggestions of paedophilia
Dodgson’s friendships with young girls, together with his perceived lack of interest in romantic attachments to adult women, and psychological readings of his work – especially his photographs of nude or semi-nude girls[37] – have all led to speculation that he was a paedophile. This possibility has underpinned numerous modern interpretations of his life and work, particularly Dennis Potter’s play Alice and his screenplay for the motion picture, Dreamchild, and even more importantly Robert Wilson’s Alice, and a number of recent biographies, including Michael Bakewell’s Lewis Carroll: A Biography (1996), Donald Thomas’s Lewis Carroll: A Portrait with Background (1995), and Morton N. Cohen’s Lewis Carroll: A Biography (1995). All of these works assume that Dodgson was a paedophile, albeit perhaps a repressed and celibate one. Cohen claims Dodgson’s “sexual energies sought unconventional outlets”, and further writes:
We cannot know to what extent sexual urges lay behind Charles’s preference for drawing and photographing children in the nude. He contended the preference was entirely aesthetic. But given his emotional attachment to children as well as his aesthetic appreciation of their forms, his assertion that his interest was strictly artistic is naïve. He probably felt more than he dared acknowledge, even to himself.[37]
Cohen notes that Dodgson “apparently convinced many of his friends that his attachment to the nude female child form was free of any eroticism”, but adds that “later generations look beneath the surface” (p. 229).
Cohen and other biographers argue that Dodgson may have wanted to marry the 11-year-old Alice Liddell, and that this was the cause of the unexplained “break” with the family in June 1863.[38] But there has never been significant evidence to support the idea, and the “cut pages in diary document” (see above) implies that the 1863 “break” had little to do with Alice, but was perhaps connected with rumors involving her older sister Lorina, or possibly their governess.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lewis_Carroll
Ebert is right that the book was not really suitable for young children. I tried to read it when I was small, and it scared the heck out of me. So I doubt the movie would be good for kids either.
Still I might be persuaded to see it, if only for Johnny Depp. Yes, I know — liberal, “turned his back on the US,” etc. etc. But dang, he can play weird very well.
bookmark
As if he never got around to seeing Jan Svankmajer's version from the 1980s.
Then again I never really understood the appeal of Lewis Carroll in the first place nor understood why Alice in Wonderland is such a classic.
Also, while I have deep respect for Burton's talent and creativity, I am never emotionally drawn into the worlds created in his films nor to the characters.
I guess thats good if you go for that sort of thing.
It’s public domain. Which means it can be adapted for free. Unlike Pooh (or even Peter Pan).
I read it and liked it when I was little, many times.
I wasn’t a normal reader though and my children have never gotten into it.
Can you please expand on that?
Not only that, the book was social/political satire. It was clearly written for adults. Many of the characters in the book were thinly veiled caricatures of prominent individuals and politicians of the day.
Yeah right. Modern day analysts telling you what someone was or was not whom they have NEVER even interviewed.
Dodgson was a brilliant mathematician. The times were different than today. Adults if they chose could interact with children without the whole world accusing them of being a perv.
The modern analysts can go pound sand....
The most generic and heartless Tim Burton movie since Planet of the Apes.
Once upon a time, there was a young visionary director called Tim Burton who lent his unique style to such modern fables as Beetlejuice and Edward Scissorhands as well as the poignant character study about the art of film-making, Ed Wood. He was accompanied by an unusual acting talent called Johnny Depp, an off-kilter leading man who lent his remarkable physical grace to every character he portrayed. Together, they joined the ranks of Scorsese/De Niro and Herzog/Kinski as one of the seminal actor-director teams in the history of cinema.
Alas, the lure of fat paychecks and exhibitionist number-one spots at the box office got the better of them, and as they slipped into middle-age, their collaborations gradually became stale and soulless as they sacrificed depth for marketability. Eventually the gods of world cinema banished Depp and Burton to the land of sell-outs where they were forced to contemplate their insatiable greed for the rest of their days. The end…or was that simply a wonderful dream?
Alice in Wonderlandis the kind of film an unimaginative fanboy dreams up on an IMDb message board. Every element arrives in a package so neat and uncontroversial that it lacks all of the texture and bite that the writings of Lewis Carroll may have had. All the creatures and landscapes are perfectly-rendered CGI concoctions that contain absolutely no weight or humanity whatsoever.
Watching these generic images in 3-D – a disingenuous war against piracy that has been disguised as "immersive" and "revolutionary: – doesn't help. What exactly is so immersive about tea cups almost hitting you in the face? At least James Cameron tried experimenting with 3-D's depth-of-field when he made FernGully in Space. Here, the effect is so cheap and gimmicky that I kept wishing the Red Queen would cry "off with his head" and let the 3-D axe end my suffering once and for all.
If a camel is a horse designed by a committee then Alice in Wonderland is a Tim Burton film designed by Disney fatcats in a boardroom. They spent so much time worrying about selling it as a product that they completely forgot about putting together a half-decent story. This Alice has no character arc; she is exactly the same by the end of the film, and therefore her journey is utterly pointless. The narrative thrust is so weak that they have to resort to a hollow battle scene in order to keep everyone awake.
Meanwhile, Depp's Mad Hatter is so dull and phoned-in that one can barely call it acting (Unless putting on too much blush and a stupid wig counts.), Mia Wasikowska's Alice is so wooden that I kept expecting the Cheshire Cat to use her left arm as a tree branch, and while Helena Bonham Carter's Red Queen is mildly amusing, the odd chuckle here and there isn't enough to save this exercise in fantasy sleepwalking.
I never thought Burton could make another film as hopelessly bland as Planet of the Apes but here it is. Save your money and either watch one of his early classics or simply watch the 1951 Disney classic again: It's shorter, it's funnier, and it's infinitely trippier. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1014759/
How old are you?? Lewis Carroll is a classic read for any number of reasons. Have you actually read his work or have you just consume the stuff that Disney put out?
That’s okay you probably haven’t read The Oz books either
So him taking photo’s and drawing pictures of nude or semi-nude girls is not pervy?
"The tension of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland emerges when Alice’s fixed [stodgy Victorian] perspective of the world comes into contact with the mad, illogical world of Wonderland. Alice’s fixed sense of order clashes with the madness she finds in Wonderland. The White Rabbit challenges her perceptions of class when he mistakes her for a servant, while the Mad Hatter, March Hare, and Pigeon challenge Alice’s notions of urbane intelligence with an unfamiliar logic that only makes sense within the context of Wonderland.
"Most significantly, Wonderland challenges her perceptions of good manners by constantly assaulting her with dismissive rudeness. Alice’s fundamental beliefs face challenges at every turn, and as a result Alice suffers an identity crisis. She persists in her way of life as she perceives her sense of order collapsing all around her. Alice must choose between retaining her notions of order and assimilating into Wonderland’s nonsensical rules."
I sympathize with Alice's identity crisis as I try to adjust to Obama's Marxist Radicaland. Assimilation is not an option!
While I don’t have much use for Ebert’s political views, I respect and enjoy his opinions as a film critic. I’m glad he’s been able to continue his work in spite of his illness. I thought Tim Burton ran out of gas a while ago - it’ll be interesting to check out his Alice.
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