I also watched the 30th Anniv edition. I loved the book (and re-read it in my junior year of college, which was only about 5 years go) and found Willy Wonka an eccentric yet lovable character. In the movie he is terrifyingly psychotic. I agree that the fact that movie makes no effort to show that the kids really ARE okay make it look like he has murdered them in cold blood. Just a flat-out disturbing movie. There is also something in the general atmosphere of the movie that creates an ominous feeling. I can’t put my finger on it. All I know is, if I were Charlie, I wouldn’t be geting into an enclosed space with Wonka at the end of the movie; I’d be running like hell.
Zoggie, not sure which poem you’re talking about, but one famous poem that’s quoted in WW is “The Music Makers” by Arthur O’Shaunessy:
The Music Makers
We are the music-makers,
and we are the dreamers of dreams,
wandering by lone sea-breakers,
and sitting by desolate streams;
World-losers and world-forsakers,
on whom the pale moon gleams;
Yet we are the movers and shakers
of the world forever, it seems.
We, in the ages lying
in the buried past of the earth,
built Nineveh with our sighing,
and Babel itself with our mirth;
And o’erthrew them with prophesying
to the old of the new world’s worth;
for each age is a dream that is dying,
Or one that is coming to birth.
I don’t know if the boat ride quote is original or taken from some other source…I do know, though, that Marilyn Manson borrows it on his album “Portrait of an American Family.”
Willy Wonka’s been one of my favorite movies since I first saw it in the theater at age 6.
Does Willy Wonka remind anyone else here of Lewis Carroll? The magical fairy-land, the plays on logic, the strange relationships with small people, even a slight physical resemblance between Carroll and Gene Wilder in the movie (I think so).
… I wouldn’t trust him with kids - the way he gazes at Mike Teevee creeps me out.
doom-pi-ty doo…
Wasn’t Violet the annoying girl who rarely stopped talking? Didn’t Wonka tell her she’d learn more if she kept her mouth shut and her ears open? She didn’t and that was her sin. She’s self-centered and doesn’t know how annoying she is. How was she punished?
She was turned into a giant blueberry.
Let THAT be a leson to all the talkative, self-centered, annoying people out there!
They were both sort of like that.
Except the song afterwards is all about gum. Your idea makes more sense.
She chewed gum that turned her into a giant blueberry.
Mythologically speaking, the boat ride would represent a journey to the underworld (or the subconscious, depending on how you want to look at it) followed by a kind of re-birth. I don’t remember the movie very well, or what they see during the ride, but the boat ride itself suggests that some kind of transformation is going on, or that the characters are gaining some kind of insight that is important for the resolution of the story (quest). Then again, I could be talking out of my hat.
Alice’s entry into Wonderland is also a descent into the underworld, BTW. Literally.
rivulus
Veruca’s line during the boat ride sequence was classic, very telling of the mood of the scene: “What is this? A freak-out?”
*there’s no earthly way of knowing, which way the rowers they are rowing…
People, didn’t you watch the ending? (Okay, Cabbage did.) Charlie was redeemed and the other kids weren’t because he was the only one who returned his Everlasting Gobstopper back to Willy Wonka rather than sell it to Slugworth. By not betraying a trust, even when he had himself been betrayed, he proved he was worthy to be Wonka’s successor.
You’d be surprised. I took my four year old nieces to see Chicken Run last year. When they showed the scene where Mrs Tully picks out a hen who wasn’t laying eggs and a few scenes later show her finishing up her Sunday dinner, I was hoping the girls wouldn’t make the connection. But Leah looked over and solemnly informed me, “She ate the chicken.”
Well, strange relationships with small people is a good analogy. Although Carroll didn’t give young boys the time of day… he was only interested in little girls. But I can’t seem him terrorizing kids the way Wonka does.
Willy Wonka reminds me of Dr. Who or Jeremy Brett’s Sherlock Holmes. They’re very condescending, prone to random outbursts and shouting, and not a little unsettling in general but they’ve got a force of personality such that people seem more than willing to put up with them just to see what they will do. And their hearts are in the right place. Both of them, in the Doctor’s case, he he he.
-fh
Secret Social Agendas Part ??
I think this film’s portayal of Willy Wonka can be looked at from two different points of view.
- It’s good to be different, because you can do anything you want. Yes it’s a little scary, but that’s the price you pay for being different.
- It’s bad to be different. To be different is to be scary/frightening/nuts. If you think about it, this whole movie plays off the old mad scientist stereotype. I.E.: A man so obsessed with his experiments he doesn’t care who they hurt.
3.Hi, Opal!
BTW: I think this book is slanted towards children. “If you bad and you don’t do what your parents tell you, you’ll get in trouble.”
I don’t know the name of it (or if it even has a name), but here’s the poem from the tunnel scene:
I’d say Dahl was pretty unconventional all around. Check out Switch Bitch if you get the chance; not psychadelic, but a great read. **
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Dahl’s definitely 3 degrees out of phase with the rest of us! I absolutely love his short story where the wife beats her husband’s head in with a frozen leg of lamb, then winds up serving the lamb as dinner to the investigating cops.
While spending a few days alone in a rural Thai hospital being treated for pneumonia, I read the Collected Short Stories. It added greatly to my otherworldly feelings. I still reread that book from time to time.
Heh. Not long after my kids saw Chicken Run, we were eating at Boston Market and my five-year-old started asking me what they did with the chickens’ heads. Fortunately, I was able to find out for him despite the fact that I wasn’t then hooked into this wonderfully weird board. 
That’s easy… They sell the heads to McDonalds!
I remember now. I also remember that Wonka specifically warned her NOT to chew that gum, it was not yet perfected and something dire would happen to her. I also remember Wonka shaking his head sadly and muttering something about how this always happened when they reached the blueberry stage. (Recall that the gum was supposed to change flavors as it was chewed.)
Violet was not punished for chewing gum because Wonka made his own chewing gum. She was punished for not listening to Wonka’s warning, for not resisting temptation. (Insert allusion to Eve and the Forbidden Fruit HERE.)
I don’t know how I missed this thread before, but as long as it’s back, here’s some relevant information for you about the movie adaptation:
http://www.corona.bc.ca/films/details/willywonka.html
The suggestion of Nicolas Cage’s involvement goes back a while, but it’s basically just unsubstantiated rumor, exactly like the talk that Marilyn Manson was supposed to be involved. :eek:
Anyway, for more information, check out the above. Basically, the movie’s in development, but as of now has not been actually slated for production.
(And remember, kids, when you have questions about upcoming movies, Corona is your friend. :))
Manson has an obsession with Wonka. Ever seen the video to “Dope Hat”? It’s a direct lift of the boat scene, and even a part with flavored wallpaper. “The boys taste like boys, the girls taste like girls.” Creepy.
When talk about the new movie was circulating, Manson desperately wanted to be Wonka, and even released information stating that he had been cast in order to try and secure the spot, but he was still sent away. Poor Marilyn :(.
The video to dope hat is at the bottom of this page. It’s really quite cool in a disturbing way.
Lucky Charms (Formerly MarxBoy)
I’m still not clear on this, because it’s not as if any of the other kids had a chance to give back their gobstoppers, seeing as they were being sucked up pipes and dropped into bad egg chutes and getting rolled away by singing Oompa Loompas. Why does Wonka give Charlie that moment of contemplation?