Alice in Wonderland

"Who am I?" asks a shabbily dressed, scruffy-haired incarnation of Lewis Carroll's immemorial little girl lost. Of course, the answer's come in various forms ever since such cinematic endeavors as Cecil Hepworth's "Alice in Wonderland," made in 1903 (at 12 minutes, the longest British film of the day; Cecil, you'll remember, two years later made the world's first "dog star" with his monumentally successful "Rescued by Rover," which was shown so many times that the celluloid literally deteriorated, forcing the filmmakers to completely "re-produce" it two more times; his "Alice in Wonderland," unfortunately, did not boast such a success, and thus all we have today is something that looks as though it tumbled down the rabbit hole one too many times). But enough of this sluice at the bottom of the March Hare's treacle well, eh?

Made for the BBC's The Wednesday Play television series, Jonathan Miller's take on the subject matter is, as is traditionally the case, a unique one. With a budget approximating nothing more than his usual "taped stage plays" for which he previously gained great renown (think preter-PBS), Miller decided to illustrate what Alice would have gone through had all of her nonsensical dreams been steeped in the quotidian reality of her ordinary life. There are no talking birds, no storytelling mock turtles, no dormice living in teacups. In fact, short of a crude cut-out superimposition of a very ordinary looking "Cheshire cat" flying in the sky (a la the Teletubbies' eerily omniscient baby in the sun), there's really no special effects or anything that would evince this one of being the least bit chimerical…

… that is, unless you know the story of Alice in Wonderland already. Ostensibly, what Miller is doing here is showing us the curious, towheaded girl's "adventures" set in a world where people merely sound like birds and look like supine caterpillars sitting loftily back in their Victorian chairs and wondering aloud, "Who are you?" Imagine Wizard of Oz, but without all the costumes, flying monkeys, and mercurial trees pulling at the heroine's hair.

Suddenly, we along with Alice find ourselves in a land where we were already (that is, of course, if we were a haughty 11-year-old girl wandering lackadaisically through our castellated house in the late 19th century). What we see is the "reality" of the dreamworld of Alice's waking life.

And this is exactly what Miller captures in this version of the epic "children's" tale for stoners and mathematicians. In fact, the only real sense of "dreamland" we can extract from Miller's vision is a kind of proto-Gilliam realm of canted camera angles and unsettling juxtapositions of close-up faces in deep-focus environments (think Brazil or particularly Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas, which clearly owes both its visual and aural style to Mr. Miller). Truthfully, after watching this late 60's stark, black-and-white opus (if ever so disjointed and flawed), one would have to assume that Terry Gilliam took much of his artistic sensibility from what is definitely far more than a simple made-for-TV broadcast.

With a quadrille of British mainstays—Peter Cook as the Mad Hatter, Sir John Gielgud as the Mock Turtle, Alan Bennett as the Mouse, an uncredited Eric Idle, and the King of Hearts himself, Peter Sellers—Jonathan Miller, with lilting, ethereal score by Ravi Shankar, does what no other director has done to date with this timeless urtext: he shows us what would have happened had Alice stayed awake during her infamous tour through dreamland.

PS: If this one doesn't do it for you, try out Czech filmmaker Jan Svankmajer's nightmarish Alice (1988), which must be the most haunting adaptation of Alice's adventures yet put on celluloid.

Alice in Wonderland is one of the most astounding works of literature. It has therefore inspired many entertainers to do many different variations of Wonderland and its sequel, Through the Looking Glass.

Jonathan Miller's BBC version is extremely different from most adaptations of Alice, especially the Disney version (which is not really the most accurate portrayal of Lewis Carroll's logically illogical world). Miller evokes a rather haunting and surrealistic Victorian dreamworld filled with stuffy grown-ups numbly adhering to propriety and social etiquette. Alice is lost in this landscape, trying to find herself and trying to understand the process of growing up.

This variation is clearly more suitable for adults, since the mood is darker and none of the characters have any makeup at all. But the cast is excellent, with appearances by such legends as Sir Michael Redgrave, Sir John Gielgud, and Peter Sellers. Anne-Marie Mallik portrays a more sullen Alice but is perfect for this version of Wonderland.

A unique and artistic production- a must for Alice fans who like to see Lewis Carroll in all forms!

Probably will remain in my top 3 Alice in Wonderland film adaptations (it only covers the first book), just below Svankmajer's wonderfully surreal stop-motion version, titled Alice, and I'm somewhat ambivalent about whether I prefer the Disney version or not-it's nicely colored and the characters are more similar to the drawings In Carroll's book, but it has the goofiness of a Disney film, of course. This adaptation is quite faithful to the original book, though a few scenarios might have been removed for time or were altered in some way, but most of the dialogue remains the same.

I was expecting it to feel more like a big studio production, and while the production values were quite good, it's not reminiscent of a Hollywood film or the British equivalent. It has the aura of a B&W art film-and the girl playing Alice (makes me think of a French New Wave heroine), who never smiles, often scowls, is rather sullen, often avoids eye contact or talks while not even looking at the character she's speaking to, and is clearly older than 7 (I believe that was the stated age of Alice in the book). Though she's a bit sassy in the book and not a push over or anything, her behavior seems altered quite a bit based off my, admittedly somewhat time-eroded, memories of Alice and Wonderland. The other change is, while the film is quite faithful in terms of the scenes adapted, the actors are all humans with no attempts to dress them up as the curious assortment of talking animals, odd creatures, and flat card-like men and women found in the book.

The choice of sitar music, with occasional accompaniment, by Ravi Shankar (and someone else I hadn't heard of on oboe) was an interesting and surprisingly fitting choice. I always imagined Canterbury prog or some old folk music with flutes.

In some sense I think it has a more dream-like continuity than the book, because the whimsical passages of Carroll lend's the novel a more structured and deliberate quality, compared to the way the scenes flow and our edited in this version.

A fascinatingly, surreal and psychedelic version of the Alice in Wonderland story. Shot in a Gothic black and white style, the cinematography is very well done and still holds up 50 years later.

The cast is very very good, particularly Anne-Marie Malik in her one and only role of Alice. She's petulant and outspoken, but also very reserved and examining. She's adorable, and her delivery of lines add to the dreamlike quality of the movie. She makes the whole movie worth watching.

Filmed as a TV play it's surprisingly well made, thank the BBC for that, they do some exceptional work.

Jonathan Miller's Alice in Wonderland is worth viewing if you can find it.

This is an experimental TV-movie from the BBC's "Wednesday Play" anthology. That series was always willing to risk trying something different, and this ambitious, low-budget "Alice" is certainly different. I don't exactly *enjoy* this film, but it's certainly fascinating.

I appreciate it as an experiment in what television could do. I admire the cast of iconic and talented Britons who wouldn't normally coincide in the same project: Peter Sellers, John Gielgud, Leo McKern (in drag as the Duchess), Michael Redgrave, Peter Cook, Wilfrid Brambell, Alan Bennett, Malcolm Muggeridge, etc.

I also admire the creativity it took to imagine this quintessentially British tale accompanied by Ravi Shankar music.

Some viewers may find the film too creepy and surreal, but the original book is pretty disturbing to begin with. This film is fairly incoherent, but then so is the book, which follows the ever-shifting logic of a dream.

The biggest problem (aside from pacing that now seems too leisurely) is that Miller's production assumes you already know what's going on. For instance, it assumes you know that the two men dressed as... um... men are actually the Gryphon and the Mock Turtle.

In other words, this is an "Alice" for people who are already overdosed on adaptations of "Alice," and who might appreciate a weirdly different take on the familiar story. Or to narrow that audience a bit, people age 12 and up who might appreciate a different take on the story.