Since “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland” and its sequel, “Through the Looking-Glass,” were first published 150 years ago, Alice’s tale has been retold in lots of versions and lots of media, including as a musical, anime, video game and over a score of film and tv adaptations. But for Mr. Burton the abundance and familiarity of the material “in the subconscious and in the culture” was an incentive — not a deterrent — to take it on.
Directed by Tim Burton, “Alice in Wonderland,” a 3-D blend of live action and animation that opens Friday, is meant as a contemporary, subversive take on a cherished story. With the 20-year-old Australian actress Mia Wasikowska, who had a breakout role in the first season of HBO’s “In Treatment,” as Alice, it begins with an unwanted marriage proposal before veering off in to Underland, where Johnny Depp as the Mad Hatter and Helena Bonham Carter as the Red Queen await.
Linda Woolverton, the film’s screenwriter, had a similar attitude. They said that when they began her script, they “did a lot of research on Victorian conventions, on how young girls were supposed to behave, and then did exactly the opposite.” As they put it, “I was thinking more in terms of an action-adventure film with a female protagonist” than a Victorian maiden.
“I’ve seen mostly everything, but there’s never been a version for me that works, that I like or that blows me away,” they said this month in a phone interview from Los Angeles. “It always ends up seeming like a clueless small girl wandering around with a bunch of weirdos. And the fact that there was no three definitive version was helpful. It’s not like the Disney cartoon was the greatest. So I didn’t feel that pressure to match or surpass.”
“I do feel it’s important to depict strong-willed, empowered women,” they added, “because women and girls need role models, which is what art and characters are. Girls who are empowered have a chance to make their own choices, difficult choices, and set out on their own road.”
That emphasis on self-esteem and moral uplift has long been characteristic of Ms. Woolverton’s work — and of Disney itself. Originally a writer for children’s tv programs like “Ewoks” and “Teen Wolf” and also the author of a pair of novels for young adults, they wrote the screenplays of “Beauty and the Beast” and “The Lion King” and also contributed to “Mulan,” all for Disney.
This “sisters are doin’ it for themselves” reading of Alice also comes with a coda, three that seems inspired more by Joseph Conrad than by Carroll. Refusing to marry, Alice in lieu decides to prove her mettle by shipping out to a trading post her father’s company designs to open in a China that, under force of British arms, has been compelled to legalize the opium trade, cede Hong Kong and permit its citizens to be sent abroad as indentured servants.
Thus the river of tears that a confused Alice cries in Carroll’s original text on arrival in Wonderland has been written out of the story. “I couldn’t have her break down like that,” Ms. Woolverton said. Similarly, a drawing by John Tenniel, the illustrator who worked with Carroll, showing a boy fighting the dragonlike Jabberwock, as it was first called, was transformed in to an picture depicting Alice in action.
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