Jonathan Miller's BBC adaptation of Alice is original, slyly subversive and perfectly captures the haunting, dreamlike and strangely menacing atmosphere of Lewis Carroll's fantasy. Featuring an all-star cast and with music specially composed by Ravi Shankar.
This film, like the dreamworld it portrays, is a langorous timeless piece which evokes, particularly for those who remember it the first time round, that sense of wond... more >
This film, like the dreamworld it portrays, is a langorous timeless piece which evokes, particularly for those who remember it the first time round, that sense of wonder, essentially an aspect of the Sixties, in a world where
absolutely anything is possible. A perfect synthesis of ideas, images and music, this film transcends both its origins and its intended interpretation
as a satire-cum-indictment of the stifling idiosyncrasies of Victorian society, to become a unique vision of a world-time-place viewed within Jonathan Miller's imagination and by extension transferred to the mind of the viewer. The soundtrack alone, all droning summer insects, lapping
seashores, approaching marching bands (the sound phasing in and out on the breeze), can recreate a mood of ennui tinged with surrealism that many of us can recall from our own childhoods. (The 1950s wasn't so much different
from Alice's bizarre world of meaningless ritual and hypocritical sobriety.) The players, not the least being Anne-Marie Malik's 'Alice', BECOME their parts, they don't merely represent them, and Dick Bush's photography (which would be rendered horrible if it were in colour) captures
images, shadows and slight movements in precisely the same way we observe things in our dreams. The viewer almost adopts rapid-eye-movement patterns while watching this film! Brilliant then, even better now on this BFI DVD,
this is truly one-of-a-kind. And it even features an uncredited appearance by Angelo Muscat - the tiny butler from 'The Prisoner' - in tandem with Leo McKern. Now, what a small (dream)world. < less
By David Parkinson on 13th March 2003
Alice in Wonderland was broadcast on the BBC at 9.05pm on 28 December 1966. The Daily Mail opined that it was `a historic clanger’ to show a children’s literary classi... more >
Alice in Wonderland was broadcast on the BBC at 9.05pm on 28 December 1966. The Daily Mail opined that it was `a historic clanger’ to show a children’s literary classic so late at night. But its critic totally missed the point of Jonathan Miller’s adaptation of Lewis Carroll’s deliciously subversive tale. Viewing Alice’s adventures as a Kafka-esque, neo-Gothic dream, Miller was scarcely concerned with childhood. He was more interested in exploring the melancholic realisation that youth all-too-rapidly gives way to the frustrations and regrets of adulthood.
He had a satirical intent, too. Consequently, he produced a surreal and occasionally sinister portrait of Victorian society, with its petty snobberies, pernicious prejudices and antiquated rituals - traits that Miller clearly perceived in a Britain about to scale the permissive peak of the Swinging Sixties. Thus, he stripped the characters of their Disneyfied masks and allowed the likes of John Gielgud, Michael Redgrave and Peter Sellers to revel in the pompous absurdities of the upper classes.
Shooting on film, Miller made dislocating use of angles and perspectives that do more to convey the story’s eccentricities and improbabilities than any more devious SFX. This effect is reinforced by Ravi Shankar’s score and Anne-Marie Mallik’s disarmingly priggish performance in the title role.
