Wednesday, July 27, 2005
CHARLES IN CHARGE
After having yet another disappointing Evanstonian dining experience, Viv and I saw Charlie and the Chocolate Factory on Monday night. I'll cut to the chase since I'm sure that anyone with a pulse knows the story.
The best thing that I can say about Tim Burton's version is that the prologue leading up to the tour of Willy Wonka's factory is far superior to the one in the previous film. These early scenes have a nice wintery gloom that captures the spirit of Dahl's book and a much stronger sense of pacing. We actually enjoy meeting Charlie and his family and don't feel as if we're just killing time until Willy Wonka makes his appearance. It helps that the actors who play Charlie and his immediate family are uniformly good. Freddie Highmore is much more natural than Peter Ostrum, the first Charlie; his Charlie is kind and caring, but he doesn't turn the character into a bland, goody-two-shoes. All of Charlie's grandparents are much better in Burton's film too. Unlike the prior film, they all register with distinct personalties, particularly Grampas Joe and George. I also liked Noah Taylor as Charlie's father; I don't think I've ever seen him in a film where he wasn't interesting to watch.
Unfortunately, as the film moves on to the tour of the Chocolate Factory it loses its crisp pace and distinct look. The vignettes featuring the disposal of the children have a static, slack feel that contrasts poorly with the brisk, snappy tone of the earlier film. The big problem is Johnny Depp's performance, or, more accurately, the director's failure to react to the performance. Depp's Wonka is an androgynous child-man; with his somewhat high-pitched voice and drugged demeanor there's more than a hint of Michael Jackson about him. This Willy Wonka is so odd that we stop anticipating the story moving forward and keep waiting for him to do something strange or disturbing. We react with nervous laughter to each bizarre thing that he does or says, but then nothing comes of it. Burton appears to have had the same reaction to Depp, letting each Depp outburst hang in the air until it dies, the puzzled looks on the faces of the children mirroring our own.
Burton and the other makers of the film seem to have lacked the courage to make Willy Wonka a truly frightening character; they've settled for surface oddity instead. Gene Wilder's Wonka was certainly a strange bird, but Wilder was so understated that it was difficult to tell if his intent was truly malicious or if he was merely playing games with his tourists. That ambiguity made the character fascinating to watch. Depp's Wonka is just pathetic; the only way to make him interesting would have been to push him much farther to the dark side. Instead, we get a back story of an abusive, candy-withholding, dentist-father, played by Christopher Lee. This newfound past for Wonka is a tacit admission by the film-makers that they don't want the character to be too menacing, that they would rather we sympathize with him. The effect is to reduce one of the great characters of children's literature to the stuff of Dr. Phil's waiting room.
I was also surprised that each set for each vignette so closely resembled the earlier film's design. I wasn't necessarily expecting a completely different look, but I didn't think it would be so similar. I'm assuming that the sameness stems from Burton's faithfulness to the book, but for someone that seems to put so much effort into the look of his films, it's strange that this film still looks quite a bit like the wonderfully cheesy early 70s film. That's the problem though; while the earlier film's look was just short of campy, it had a touching humanity to it. Everything felt the right size. Burton's film feels colder and more empty; Wonka's factory is bigger with large, ominous, dark spaces that dwarf the actors. There's more than a whiff of Stanley Kubrick about the whole thing.
What is it with Tim Burton anyway? I've never understood the appeal of his films. To me, they've just been a series of over-detailed sets surrounding quirky characters. Burton seems to be trying for disturbing and mysterious, but the films just seem cute and clever to me. I don't get the sense that anything tragic, or even unpleasant, has ever happened to Burton. I feel like he's fascinated with doom and gloom like a high school goth kid, and similarly, there's no experience or conviction behind his vision. He's a poseur. ¶ 9:37 AM
The best thing that I can say about Tim Burton's version is that the prologue leading up to the tour of Willy Wonka's factory is far superior to the one in the previous film. These early scenes have a nice wintery gloom that captures the spirit of Dahl's book and a much stronger sense of pacing. We actually enjoy meeting Charlie and his family and don't feel as if we're just killing time until Willy Wonka makes his appearance. It helps that the actors who play Charlie and his immediate family are uniformly good. Freddie Highmore is much more natural than Peter Ostrum, the first Charlie; his Charlie is kind and caring, but he doesn't turn the character into a bland, goody-two-shoes. All of Charlie's grandparents are much better in Burton's film too. Unlike the prior film, they all register with distinct personalties, particularly Grampas Joe and George. I also liked Noah Taylor as Charlie's father; I don't think I've ever seen him in a film where he wasn't interesting to watch.
Unfortunately, as the film moves on to the tour of the Chocolate Factory it loses its crisp pace and distinct look. The vignettes featuring the disposal of the children have a static, slack feel that contrasts poorly with the brisk, snappy tone of the earlier film. The big problem is Johnny Depp's performance, or, more accurately, the director's failure to react to the performance. Depp's Wonka is an androgynous child-man; with his somewhat high-pitched voice and drugged demeanor there's more than a hint of Michael Jackson about him. This Willy Wonka is so odd that we stop anticipating the story moving forward and keep waiting for him to do something strange or disturbing. We react with nervous laughter to each bizarre thing that he does or says, but then nothing comes of it. Burton appears to have had the same reaction to Depp, letting each Depp outburst hang in the air until it dies, the puzzled looks on the faces of the children mirroring our own.
Burton and the other makers of the film seem to have lacked the courage to make Willy Wonka a truly frightening character; they've settled for surface oddity instead. Gene Wilder's Wonka was certainly a strange bird, but Wilder was so understated that it was difficult to tell if his intent was truly malicious or if he was merely playing games with his tourists. That ambiguity made the character fascinating to watch. Depp's Wonka is just pathetic; the only way to make him interesting would have been to push him much farther to the dark side. Instead, we get a back story of an abusive, candy-withholding, dentist-father, played by Christopher Lee. This newfound past for Wonka is a tacit admission by the film-makers that they don't want the character to be too menacing, that they would rather we sympathize with him. The effect is to reduce one of the great characters of children's literature to the stuff of Dr. Phil's waiting room.
I was also surprised that each set for each vignette so closely resembled the earlier film's design. I wasn't necessarily expecting a completely different look, but I didn't think it would be so similar. I'm assuming that the sameness stems from Burton's faithfulness to the book, but for someone that seems to put so much effort into the look of his films, it's strange that this film still looks quite a bit like the wonderfully cheesy early 70s film. That's the problem though; while the earlier film's look was just short of campy, it had a touching humanity to it. Everything felt the right size. Burton's film feels colder and more empty; Wonka's factory is bigger with large, ominous, dark spaces that dwarf the actors. There's more than a whiff of Stanley Kubrick about the whole thing.
What is it with Tim Burton anyway? I've never understood the appeal of his films. To me, they've just been a series of over-detailed sets surrounding quirky characters. Burton seems to be trying for disturbing and mysterious, but the films just seem cute and clever to me. I don't get the sense that anything tragic, or even unpleasant, has ever happened to Burton. I feel like he's fascinated with doom and gloom like a high school goth kid, and similarly, there's no experience or conviction behind his vision. He's a poseur. ¶ 9:37 AM
