What is it about Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland that has managed to endure so many remakes without audiences calling for enough? With the exception of adaptions such as the video game Alice: Madness Within and books like Alice in Zombieland, few break outside of the original story and yet, particularly throughout the nineties, every time you turn around there appears to be a new adaption.
Just a few quick pointers - it might be worth combining this topic suggestion with the three previous 'Alice' topic suggestions here at The Artifice - see "Alice in Wonderland: in Adaptation: What Makes it so Difficult?, The Legacy of Alice in Wonderland and American McGee's Alice in Wonderland, all of which have a similar theme in mind re adaption/adaptation (whichever variation is preferred). There's also the recent suggestion that Carroll's original intention behind writing 'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland' was to parody and pick apart what he saw as the inherent weakness of new abstract mathematics - a theory that actually makes a lot of sense if you really dig into the original text and read between the lines. Reductio ad absurdum, as Carroll decided, declaring that the new mathematics was nearly impossible to teach. It might also be worth bearing in mind, with regard to filmed versions of the story, that the world's first 'Alice in Wonderland' (silent) film was made in 1903. A partially restored copy is available on You Tube, for those interested. – Amyus7 years ago
As a beautiful tale for children; the timeless classic is often overlooked as a treat for adults too. The Mad Hatter is such a character who can produce huge amounts of contents alone. – TheBlackCurse7 years ago
Lewis Carroll's nonsense novel has seen endless variation in adaption across all forms of media, but how many of these are actually successful? Look at both the more faithful adaptions (Disney, the 1999 TV Movie), and the "darker" or somehow radically different ones (American McGee's Alice, The Looking Glass Wars). Compare some of the adaptions which are similar in tone, like Tim Burton's recent film and American McGee, or the Disney film and the TV Movie, with an eye for determining, which one does what it's trying to do better (e.g., a faithful translation from book to film, a darker take), while examining what makes adaptation of this novel so difficult.
One of my favorite adaptations is actually the 1999 TV movie. That's likely an incredibly nostalgia-based opinion since I watched it a lot during my early childhood. Nevertheless, it's one of my favorites because it still retains the intelligence of the book. I wasn't a huge fan of the Tim Burton version (although I still haven't seen the sequel yet) since it was more of a fantasy action-adventure story involving good versus evil. For me, it lacked a bit of Lewis Carroll's signature wit whereas the 1999 version did a good job of showing just how ridiculous and nonsensical the adult world can be through the eyes of a child. – aprosaicpintofpisces8 years ago
You could also reference the difficulties of crafting a screenplay, which follows many story rules, compared to the wandering nature of Alice in Wonderland. Think of The Wizard of Oz--it has a similar path, but the character journey and story structure are quite traditional. ALICE takes more liberties. – Nate Océan8 years ago
You read my mind... Been thinking about a way to make Alice reverberate to contemporary minds, as I, like you, first experienced it as young child. It's a tale that always prods and pokes at the right strings in the pivotal moment. Meaning, I walked away from Alice as soon as first grade was over, only to find that Wizard of Oz was faithfully waiting in the wings of second grade. Third grade weighed in with Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, just as I figured I'd seen it all. (High school brought the MTV variety, with Tom Petty's Alice.) Can it get any meaner? Peter and the Wolf? Write this one as a classic, in and of itself, shouldn't be hard to do, with such a fan base. – lofreire7 years ago
The plot of Carroll's Alice in Wonderland is both confusing and simple: a child, in what is said to be a dream, encounters and creates havoc in an alternate world. However, the meaning of the story has changed drastically over time. While some works (ex. Tim Burton's Through the Looking Glass or The Matrix) use the original story as a metaphor for fighting social and governmental oppression, many others, from the recurrent use of the name Alice for mentally unstable/institutionalized characters (ex. Twilight) to the discussion of drug/alcohol issues (Even in music, ex. Shinedown's Her Name is Alice) see in the tale a darker message. In both cases, these interpretations at first glance seem far removed from the story of a sleeping child. How have the connotations of the story changed over time, and are these changes reflective of the work's audience, the cynicism of the era the audience lives in, both, neither, etc.? Alternatively, since we know that fighting social norms was once considered a sign of insanity, are the various connotations actually conflicting, or are they in any way interconnected? In short, it would be interesting to take a closer look at the various legacies of Alice in Wonderland, dark and positive, and determine which have persisted over time and why. What do they say about the work, and what do they say about us?
I wonder if the book and movie Still Alice would fit here? It's probably a coincidence that the protagonist's name is Alice, but from what I understand, Alzheimer's can make you feel like you're falling down a rabbit hole. Whoever writes the topic might also want to look into Finding Alice, author Melody Carlson. It's a Christian-based novel but not overtly so. The protagonist, raised in a fundamentalist home, develops schizophrenia in college. She uses allusions to Alice in Wonderland, as well as appropriate descriptions, metaphors, and so on while going through the journey of mental illness. – Stephanie M.8 years ago
I actually had "finding Alice" in mind while writing this topic but couldn't remember the title and author, so indeed it would definitely be something to think about. Also, another work that the writer could look into is Resident Evil, though I'm not very familiar with it, since many of the elements (character called Alice, security system called Red Queen) reference the work [Note: This is about the movie, I'm not sure how different it is from the games]. I don't know if this falls into the first category of fighting oppression (I thing the games are about fighting a corporation), the second, or if it opens up new avenues of interpretation/legacies, but it could add to the writer's analysis to look into it. – Rina Arsen8 years ago
The video games "American McGee's Alice" and "Alice: Madness Returns" are excellent samples to study when exploring the mentally unstable Alice route. – KennethC8 years ago
There's also a short TV series called Alice very ''dark'' that maybe can help you or TV series ''Once Upon A Time in Wonderland''. The connotations have change with the contexts and the different theories that come up everyday thanks to the historical criticism. Regarding to fighting social norms as a sign of insanity, I'm not very sure if I have understood your question, but personally believe that either before nor now is interconnected to insanity as social norms are created to destroy our freedom as we can read in Foucault and his bio-politics or Betham's panopticon. Could you reformulate you question? – barbarapetidier8 years ago
@barbarapetidier I would, but I'm not sure which part you are confused about. When I speak of fighting social norms as being a sign of insanity, I'm talking about the 18th, 19th and 20th century (depending on the country we are talking about) when people who defied social norms were often ostracized, arrested or locked up in psychiatric hospitals (take for instance prostitutes, homosexual people, radicals, sexually active women, etc.). Standing outside social boundaries or pushing against them used to be treated as a medical/mental condition. I'm pretty sure Foucault does talk about it, so I think you might understand what I'm referring to? He's the one who points out that even today, social deviance is medicalized. In any case, just let me know how you feel I should change my question and I will – Rina Arsen8 years ago
