Research #6: Alice

January 29, 2016

For many years I've loved Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Alice Through the Looking Glass. Many adaptations have been made and they all take a different perspective on the story. Click on the pictures for more information.

The Book

The first Alice in Wonderland book I ever read was illustrated by Lisbeth Zweger. Unlike the Disney version of Alice, here she was a normal girl with very long brown hair that whipped around in the wind as she fell down the rabbit hole. No tiny blue costume with a white apron, just a plain burgundy sweater and a white dress. It's all made with beautiful watercolours. All the animals are realistically drawn, but the story remains fantastical. The baby turns out to be a piglet, the foods make you grow or shrink and it's always tea-time. But of course, nothing can compare to the original.
In the original story is illustrated by John Tenniel, in black and white. Shoulder length slightly wavy hair, dress with and apron. Where Zweger's story is scary due to it feeling more like something that could happen in real life, Tenniel manages to capture the events in his illustrations without making us uncomfortable. However, his illustrations also take away something which I think is important to the story; it's not supposed to seem logical or normal. Alice should make the reader uncomfortable due to it's unconventional storytelling and strange creatures. It should make you think about the conventions that the world has placed on little girls and how they don't actually make sense.

Television

Just like all illustrators have created different versions of Alice, so have TV makers. One of the most recent versions is SyFy's Alice staring Caterina Scorsone as a grown up Alice and Andrew Lee Potts as Hatter. Where the book is always about the little girl, this Alice deals with relationship issues and the loss of a parent. The new interpretation makes Alice into something an older audience is supposed to relate to instead of the stories for children. That being said, the story still has the Queen of hearts and a tea party that never ends, however, the tea party can now be better compared to drugs than to tea. 
In the episode "Duped" from the Tv show Warehouse 13 Alice also plays a role. However, this is not the Alice form the books. A mirror that once belonged to Lewis Carroll contains the 'spirit' of Alice Lidell, who in this story turns out to have been a serial killer in her later life. Her spirit takes over one of the main characters, Myka. Myka herself gets trapped in the looking glass, an empty space in which she can only look out into the real world. Alice goes on a rampage, destroying relationships and threatening people who are close to Myka. The Alice from the books is nowhere to be found here.

Film

Tim Burton and Disney teamed up to make a live action remake of Alice in Wonderland. Due to the episodial structure of the original story, the movie has rearranged it as well as added characters and scenes from 'Through the Looking Glass'. Alice is once again older than the version in the books, even being old enough to be proposed to by a prospective lover. The movie tries to make a more coherent story out of the source material by making the queen of heart and the red queen into one character and adding a conflict with the white queen to the mix. The hatter is more prominent character and guide to Alice.
An even stranger version of Alice can be found in Jan Švankmajer's film of the same name. The film is a combination of live-action and stop motion animation. Unlike most depictions of Alice, she does not wear blue in this film, nor is she all grown up. The film is an absurdist and dark story, using skulls and dead fish as characters. Alice doesn't fall, but goes down a dark elevator shaft, filled with dark and dangerous things. The orange marmalade she picks up is filled with thumbtacks. The beautiful garden is just a backdrop, like one would use for a play. There are very few vibrant colours, instead we have a muted pallet with very little light.

Other Works

One of the more permanent marks of Alice on the world is the world famous statue of her and other characters form the story in Central Park, New York. Although not all characters actually meet in the books, in this statue they can all be seen together. that is, everyone who helps Alice. The caterpillar, the queen and her knights are nowhere to be seen. The statue is made of bronze and made to be climbed on my everyone who wants to join Alice.

A slightly newer version of Alice can be found in the Royal Ballet's Alice in Wonderland. in this version, not a word is spoken but instead dance and staging is used to create the wonderful world of Alice. Alice once again has a love interest in this version, as she is once again older than she was written in the book. Where film and TV can make the growing and shrinking of Alice happen through computer effects or small staging, in the ballet this is done through light and large or small props. The cheshire cat is a large puppet controlled by several puppeteers and is based on the original illustrations by John Tenniel. 

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Second year student at Kingston Uni. Loves Movies and TV shows, Fashion and Cooking.

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