One of my favourite films. Frog Footman John Bird is still with us as a famous writer and satirist. I think Anne Marie Malik is terrific as Alice; vague, detached and sullen - a refreshing antidote to the traditional depictions.
Among my favourites as well yet its been 35yrs since I saw it Curious why it never got the acclaim it deserved, I only caught it by accident, then again not long after but always felt fortunate about it. To me it evokes something about Britain that nothing else did but that's my own take
Alice is dreaming, she is the passive observer. Malik's performance, though odd, captures that. And Michael Gough's March Hare is mad - not American mad (angry) but English mad - mentally ill and probably suffering severe depression. This is, for me, the version that comes closest to how, as an adult, I think it should be adapted. Fine if you prefer bright colours and noise, but that's not for me.
For an insight into Miller, his closing remarks here: ruclips.net/video/5_3Igu4rjiw/видео.html are useful. My view is that Carroll tapped into children’s struggle to make head or tail of human society - which is bizarre, actually, but we grow up to manage it, more or less - and in particular, what Alice makes of it, in Victorian academic Oxford. Some people ARE a bit like animals or birds, and a young child may make that sort of connection more readily than an older person; some people are a bit like the March Hare as Miller’s actor portrays him. As for children, they are pretty serious about trying to make head or tail of it, and Miller’s Alice hits the spot.
Handing the actors the book and saying "there's your script" sounds like something I might do lol. I can very much relate to the desire to make a film that addresses all the "problems" you see in previous versions! Sounds like an interesting take on the story.
If you know your Lewis Carroll backwards and forwards, it becomes clear that this adaptation utilizes Carroll's original self-illustrated, manuscript ALICE'S ADVENTURES UNDER GROUND as its source. That it is not based on his later published elaboration ALICE'S ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND becomes clear when you see it missing the same sequences from the final, finished product as the first manuscript does as well. Also, Carroll originally pictured Alice as dark-haired instead of Tenniel's later classic light-haired (blonde???) heroine. Other than the Alice who I find strangely tepid and non-engaging as opposed to the self-possessed character in Carroll's books, this is a truly fine adaptation which really excels in its PUNCH ILLUSTRATED-informed trial sequence. (Alison Leggat's Queen of Hearts is one of my favorite depictions of her in any version) This is pure Victoriana with all the stops pulled out.
Much of British TV output was shot in B&W *because there was no colour TV service in 1966!* Colour was launched on the (then) minority channel BBC2 using 625 line PAL in 1967. However, the vast majority of TVs at that time were 405 line monochrome and couldn't display BBC2. The colour service was expanded over the next few years, as the public scrapped their 405 line boxes for the latest colour sets, but for many years there were still plenty of programmes made only in B&W. There may well have been "budgetary issues" for the Alice play (and most of British TV output), but this wouldn't have been the deciding factor. It was made in B&W because it was to be broadcast in B&W, to an audience who were used to seeing their TV in B&W.
JJHatter3 I´m afraid I disagree with you about Anne-Marie Mallik´s performance: I think it is haunting. I guess she was just following the director´s instructions about how to interpret Alice in an inexpressive and mystery way. I perceive that she, and so the rest of the actors, tend to act as if they were in an altered state of consciussness, in a dreamy way, so... I suppose that is why they tend to do not look at each other´s faces! Thank you for this video. I would like you to analyze Jan Svankmajer´s Alice.
Yeah he described her detached/annoyed style as if it was a problem, and not the whole point, her looking at adult traditions and thinking they're stupid or boring, and viewing the whole thing as if dreaming. It was a great performance
t is not weird and extreme. It is typical of a confusing and sometimes bad dream . Dreams DO NOT include infantile and demeaning Disney cartoons. Dreams are often about very jumbled bizarre scenarios that can reflect fears and/or traumatic experiences or just muddled up daily life.. The wit is part of the confusion for an adolescent (or pre-adolescent) and Alice is an intelligent girl who can see through humbug. It is also theatre - not a silly movie. It also reflects aspects of British society, including its problems. Victorian girls were very repressed and even when I was young (1940's) "little girls were seen and not heard". I was not even told when my Grandfather died and thought he disappeared from my life because I was bad. The adults around Alice in her dream ARE somewhat threatening and "out of her league". Gielgud"s "join the dance " is a delightful highlight to counteract seriousness depicted elsewhere.
I am one of those people that would rate this as the best film/TV version of the book, but having said that I would put it around an 8. Most other adaptations struggle to get to a 4 or 5. The reason is for me is much the same as Miller outlined, and so his changes to those aspects definitely work for me. Although I may have somewhat agreed with your assessment of Anne-Marie Mallik after the first time I watched this, on subsequent viewings I have come to really appreciate what she is doing here. I believe one of the things that detracts from other versions of Alice is that the actresses play her too big, give her too much personality, so that there is no contrast with the over-the-top characters she encounters in Wonderland. On the hand, Miller's Alice is quiet and internal, the type of girl who presents the world with a well-learned calm exterior even if inside she is freaking out. And as Miller says in the director's commentary, this is a Victorian girl who has been taught to be seen and not heard, so the staid appearance that she wears throughout is completely appropriate. And the more I watch her, the more I like it. Plus, it adds to the feel of this being a dream...I mean how expressive are you in your dreams? For me, I am much like Mallik in this movie, calm but confused while crazy things are happening around and to me. The reason it is not a 10 has nothing to do with what is on the screen, but more to do with the fact that Alice is most fully realized on the page, it lives and is conveyed best there. Anything in live or animated performance must make edits or changes that compromise the look and feel of the story. It is like translation, you may get the gist or the plot but many subtleties are lost when the translator must make choices to fit one language into another. But of the attempts this is my favorite so far. Not to mention the music by Ravi Shankar, and Dick Bush's camerawork is unparalleled. However, I might be open to seeing Studio Ghibli or Genndy Tartakovsky take a crack at it, if they so desired.
Finally! I'm sorry if I left a ride comment but I couldn't believe you had missed this! Sorry about that. Btw I think I know the other one you've been requested, heh. Something foreign, perhaps?
There appears to have been a TV musical of Through the Looking Glass around this time: ruclips.net/video/LLIw8COJ0Qg/видео.html . This might be worth your while. Then there's the animated Alice in Wonderland in Paris, and the Hanna-Barbera animated musical Alice In Wonderland, Or What's A Nice Girl Like You Doing In A Place Like This?
My Dad was in this - Leo McKern, the Duchess. Thank you for posting!
One of my favourite films. Frog Footman John Bird is still with us as a famous writer and satirist. I think Anne Marie Malik is terrific as Alice; vague, detached and sullen - a refreshing antidote to the traditional depictions.
Among my favourites as well yet its been 35yrs since I saw it
Curious why it never got the acclaim it deserved, I only caught it by accident, then again not long after but always felt fortunate about it. To me it evokes something about Britain that nothing else did but that's my own take
Michael Gough is playing the March Hare as a psychopath who seems to be on the very edge of some kind of violent explosion.
Alice is dreaming, she is the passive observer. Malik's performance, though odd, captures that.
And Michael Gough's March Hare is mad - not American mad (angry) but English mad - mentally ill and probably suffering severe depression.
This is, for me, the version that comes closest to how, as an adult, I think it should be adapted. Fine if you prefer bright colours and noise, but that's not for me.
I was just about to say exactly the same thing about both performances. Thanks for saving me the trouble, @ghughesarch
For an insight into Miller, his closing remarks here: ruclips.net/video/5_3Igu4rjiw/видео.html are useful.
My view is that Carroll tapped into children’s struggle to make head or tail of human society - which is bizarre, actually, but we grow up to manage it, more or less - and in particular, what Alice makes of it, in Victorian academic Oxford. Some people ARE a bit like animals or birds, and a young child may make that sort of connection more readily than an older person; some people are a bit like the March Hare as Miller’s actor portrays him. As for children, they are pretty serious about trying to make head or tail of it, and Miller’s Alice hits the spot.
one of my very favorite Alice films. This is a wonderful series, thanks for sharing all of your thoughts!
Handing the actors the book and saying "there's your script" sounds like something I might do lol. I can very much relate to the desire to make a film that addresses all the "problems" you see in previous versions! Sounds like an interesting take on the story.
Same, I would also do that
If you know your Lewis Carroll backwards and forwards, it becomes clear that this adaptation utilizes Carroll's original self-illustrated, manuscript ALICE'S ADVENTURES UNDER GROUND as its source. That it is not based on his later published elaboration ALICE'S ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND becomes clear when you see it missing the same sequences from the final, finished product as the first manuscript does as well. Also, Carroll originally pictured Alice as dark-haired instead of Tenniel's later classic light-haired (blonde???) heroine.
Other than the Alice who I find strangely tepid and non-engaging as opposed to the self-possessed character in Carroll's books, this is a truly fine adaptation which really excels in its PUNCH ILLUSTRATED-informed trial sequence.
(Alison Leggat's Queen of Hearts is one of my favorite depictions of her in any version)
This is pure Victoriana with all the stops pulled out.
My favorite version
👍
I like the sitar music in the background. Love these wonderland analysis videos
Much of British TV output was shot in B&W *because there was no colour TV service in 1966!* Colour was launched on the (then) minority channel BBC2 using 625 line PAL in 1967. However, the vast majority of TVs at that time were 405 line monochrome and couldn't display BBC2. The colour service was expanded over the next few years, as the public scrapped their 405 line boxes for the latest colour sets, but for many years there were still plenty of programmes made only in B&W.
There may well have been "budgetary issues" for the Alice play (and most of British TV output), but this wouldn't have been the deciding factor. It was made in B&W because it was to be broadcast in B&W, to an audience who were used to seeing their TV in B&W.
JJHatter3 I´m afraid I disagree with you about Anne-Marie Mallik´s performance: I think it is haunting. I guess she was just following the director´s instructions about how to interpret Alice in an inexpressive and mystery way. I perceive that she, and so the rest of the actors, tend to act as if they were in an altered state of consciussness, in a dreamy way, so... I suppose that is why they tend to do not look at each other´s faces! Thank you for this video. I would like you to analyze Jan Svankmajer´s Alice.
Yeah he described her detached/annoyed style as if it was a problem, and not the whole point, her looking at adult traditions and thinking they're stupid or boring, and viewing the whole thing as if dreaming. It was a great performance
The military hospital was Netley near Portsmouth which has been demolished.
t is not weird and extreme. It is typical of a confusing and sometimes bad dream . Dreams DO NOT include infantile and demeaning Disney cartoons. Dreams are often about very jumbled bizarre scenarios that can reflect fears and/or traumatic experiences or just muddled up daily life.. The wit is part of the confusion for an adolescent (or pre-adolescent) and Alice is an intelligent girl who can see through humbug. It is also theatre - not a silly movie. It also reflects aspects of British society, including its problems. Victorian girls were very repressed and even when I was young (1940's) "little girls were seen and not heard". I was not even told when my Grandfather died and thought he disappeared from my life because I was bad. The adults around Alice in her dream ARE somewhat threatening and "out of her league". Gielgud"s "join the dance " is a delightful highlight to counteract seriousness depicted elsewhere.
I am one of those people that would rate this as the best film/TV version of the book, but having said that I would put it around an 8. Most other adaptations struggle to get to a 4 or 5. The reason is for me is much the same as Miller outlined, and so his changes to those aspects definitely work for me. Although I may have somewhat agreed with your assessment of Anne-Marie Mallik after the first time I watched this, on subsequent viewings I have come to really appreciate what she is doing here. I believe one of the things that detracts from other versions of Alice is that the actresses play her too big, give her too much personality, so that there is no contrast with the over-the-top characters she encounters in Wonderland. On the hand, Miller's Alice is quiet and internal, the type of girl who presents the world with a well-learned calm exterior even if inside she is freaking out. And as Miller says in the director's commentary, this is a Victorian girl who has been taught to be seen and not heard, so the staid appearance that she wears throughout is completely appropriate. And the more I watch her, the more I like it. Plus, it adds to the feel of this being a dream...I mean how expressive are you in your dreams? For me, I am much like Mallik in this movie, calm but confused while crazy things are happening around and to me. The reason it is not a 10 has nothing to do with what is on the screen, but more to do with the fact that Alice is most fully realized on the page, it lives and is conveyed best there. Anything in live or animated performance must make edits or changes that compromise the look and feel of the story. It is like translation, you may get the gist or the plot but many subtleties are lost when the translator must make choices to fit one language into another. But of the attempts this is my favorite so far. Not to mention the music by Ravi Shankar, and Dick Bush's camerawork is unparalleled. However, I might be open to seeing Studio Ghibli or Genndy Tartakovsky take a crack at it, if they so desired.
Finally! I'm sorry if I left a ride comment but I couldn't believe you had missed this! Sorry about that.
Btw I think I know the other one you've been requested, heh. Something foreign, perhaps?
where you get the background music?? Is it from the Ravi Shankar from the Alice movie??
There appears to have been a TV musical of Through the Looking Glass around this time: ruclips.net/video/LLIw8COJ0Qg/видео.html . This might be worth your while. Then there's the animated Alice in Wonderland in Paris, and the Hanna-Barbera animated musical Alice In Wonderland, Or What's A Nice Girl Like You Doing In A Place Like This?
So, the White Rabbit is a king mixer, is he? (At least he's clean.)
What a clean old man!
I've never heard of this. I don't think I would like it. It is odd though that they rated it X without viewing it