Tim Burton in: Treason

[Roderick]

(Note that there are spoilers in here for Alice in Wonderland and Charlie and The Chocolate Factory)

Tim Burton’s recent Alice in Wonderland is in many ways a weird and wonderful movie, with one quite peculiar aspect. The Mad Hatter, the classic character from the wild tea party, got an origin story. In a flashback we learned that the Hatter used to work in the court. A devastating attack on the queen left his mind broken and ever since he was the zany psychiatric patient we all really like.

Why does this feel so familiar? In Burton’s Charlie and The Chocolate Factory, another classic book adaptation, the director pulls the same trick. Willy Wonka, the eccentric factory owner who doesn’t care about conventions and carves his own path in life, got an origin story too. His father was revealed to be a cruel dentist who hated candy. Restrained by a huge set of braces, Wonka’s sanity snapped and he fled into a delusional candy world of his own creation.

Does no one else get a bitter taste in the mouth by all of this? The moral of the story is clear. These classic, superbly insane, not-a-care-in-the-world, colourful characters are reduced by Burton to victims. Their whole state of being caused by trauma. What a horrible message!

By emphasizing these characters (who in the original works simply were what they were, on the same level as every other figure) as traumatized, tragic, disturbed, Burton tells us that this kind of eccentricity is abnormal. This is not the way people are supposed to be! It’s a depressing subliminal message from a director who himself flaunts with his own weirdness. But Burton unmasks himself as a disheartening pessimist: someone who can only see that which deviates from the norm as the result of trauma.

A disappointing realisation. Burton is a self-hating eccentric, who doesn’t believe that people can deviate without something being wrong with them. I want to make it clear that I have nothing against tragic heroes. Edward Scissorhands was clearly a tortured creature and Jack Skellington wallowed in his own sadness, but these were new creations linked to the movie’s theme! It is exactly by perceiving and seeking tragedy behind characters that from themselves were never tragic, like Willy Wonka and Mad Hatter, that Burton shows his true colours. He broadcasts a horrible message: if you’re different from other people it’s not your personality -- you’re mentally broken.

[Scrobbs]

I loved the analysis right up until the last paragraph - nay last sentence - making the leap from "someone who can only see that which deviates from the norm as the result of trauma" to "if you’re different from other people it’s not your personality -- you’re mentally broken." I think is a leap of logic, logic that is not immediately apparent and further, has no derived inference.

Otherwise, I like your thinking.

[Roderick]

I can see that, but it is what I infer from the message, since the reason for these characters being crrrazy is hinged solely on their trauma. But, of course, feel free to disagree!

[eljay]

Just because a cause is negative doesn't mean the effect is, I took the Willy Wonka example in the opposite way: After experiencing the example of his father he strove to create the reverse environment and bring wonder to the lives of children instead of fear.

edit: I should probably point out I didn't much care for seeing a wonka backstory, but didn't see it as a negative slant on eccentricity. Also I did enjoy Christopher Lee saying "Chocolate"

Edited April 1, 2010 by eljay

[DanJW]

Yeah I agree - although Burton still celebrates eccentrics, he has developed a tendancy to try and explain them. He has lost the magic and mystery. This was especially evident in Alice in Wonderland, where 'Underland' felt far too structured, ordered even, rather than the realm of chaos and non-sequiturs that it was in the Lewis Carrol stories.

[OssK]

Well, you point out the very reason why this world is a failure, inserting in it a backstory for anything is implying two things :

1) These things have a reason because it's a reasonable world which it is not supposed to be

2)Events imply similar things as in our world, Wonderland obeys rules very much like ours.

3) There is a past, meaning there is a present and a future.

But there is not, there can simply not be, because no one in the world could come up with a viable narrative explanation for why for thousands of years those guys have been having tea, or where the tea comes from, or…*There is no explaining it and that is exactly why, when Alice comes, everything seems crazy, because just as in quantic physics, the observer must disturb the natural order of an event to see it.

So, in a universe where chaos and craziness is to be found everywhere, you insert rules, behaviors, and a prophecy, which is plain stupid.

Because there is not a single shred of mystery in the world anymore, it has very simple mechanics, it just works, and rather than be the agent of some more chaos she once was, Alice is just THE piece that comes here, makes everything right in a matter of minutes and then exits the world…

Well done, you ruined it for everybody.

Now on the theme of the movie : adulthood.

Just like in Return to Oz (where, by the way, Jack Pumkinhead was invented and is probably the next adaptation of Burton) Alice is supposed to undergo pressure in her world which pulls her back to the fantastic world and make a journey there that makes her accept what is to be lived in dreams, and what the concessions that she has to make in the real world are.

And, as you originally pointed out Rodi :

In Alice it goes from "well, I don't know what to do" on to "I don't care, I'm a psychopathic social outcast because I'm different"

[AndrewArmstrong]

Tim Burton films are getting pret-tey formulaic. I've not seen the new film, don't really want to, but this script really does lay it down. I liked the nod to American McGee's Alice though, which I saw a Let's Play of which was pretty awesome and dark (imaginative dark, not stupid dark).

I don't think the "Give a weird character a backstory" thing is anything other then time padding and really, really freaky justification for the characters. No rhyme or reason for it (the Charlie and the Chocolate Factory adaptation just is rubbish, ruins a perfectly good childhood book which had it's own perfectly good brand of weirdness! Dentist fathers are just plain stupid).

Not been rushing to see Burton, but as a causal viewer it does tend to put me of what he's rehashing in films. He's done some rather more unique and clever original films, it's just sad to see a director trotting out remakes.

Wonder what will be next, any guesses? Best bet: The Wizard of Oz where the Wicked Witch of the West had an abusive relationship with her sister of the East (with lots of CGI and a Johnny Depp crazy scarecrow).

Edit-fu: OMG, didn't read all of OssK comment, and he said Oz too. Haha! This makes me sad

[DanJW]

Tim Burton films are getting pret-tey formulaic. I've not seen the new film, don't really want to, but this script really does lay it down.(

That script is spot-on. It is exactly the film I saw in the cinema.

And yeah, American McGee's Alice would have been a more interesting film. From what I understand, it was that game which got this movie remake optioned in the first place.

[OssK]

http://uk.movies.ign.com/articles/107/1078533p1.html

[OssK]

Oh man, in the fake (but so real) script they talked about the wiz of oz too !!!