Thursday, Aug 21, 2008
I've seen the original "Willy Wonka" 27 times, but I'm going to skip the remake. How could Tim Burton possibly improve on one of the best movies ever?
Jul 12, 2005 | A lot of people have been eagerly awaiting "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory," the new version of "Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory." I am not one of them.
This is no knock on the director, Tim Burton. I enjoyed "Beetlejuice" and "Edward Scissorhands" and, well, I haven't seen any of his other films, but I'm sure they're fine too, in a goth-fairy tale sort of way. It's just that Burton is way out of his league with "Willy Wonka," because the original version, released in 1971, is one of the most important films in the history of cinema.
You might ask: How do I know?
Answer: Because I have seen it 27 times (not including the three times I watched the film in preparing this piece, which was supposed to be just once, but hey, what can I tell you -- it's that good).
I should be forthright in noting that I had a special interest in "Willy Wonka," as a result of a lifelong and rather well-documented candy addiction. I was the kind of kid who thought about candy incessantly, who dreamed about it, who organized his Halloween booty according to a hierarchy that somewhat shames the Dewey Decimal System.
I was also 6 when "Willy Wonka" hit theaters. I don't remember much about that year. But I do remember sitting in the darkened theater, as lustrous images of liquid chocolate in mass production rippled over me. I was dumbstruck with gratitude.
I didn't even mind that the film had musical numbers in it (something I would not have otherwise tolerated) because they were all linked to candy. I remember humming the chorus to the song "The Candy Man" -- Talk about your childhood wishes/ you can even eat the dishes! -- for months after seeing the film.
The plot, based on Roald Dahl's excellent book "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory," runs like so: The reclusive chocolate maker Willy Wonka decides to hold a contest. Five lucky kids who find golden tickets inside his Wonka bars will receive a lifetime supply of chocolate, along with a personal tour of his super-secret factory.
The result of this contest, as we are breathlessly informed by news anchors, is Wonkamania. What follows is a biting, and remarkably prescient, satire of the modern media shark feed; there is simply no other story being told in the popular culture at that moment.
In one scene, a frail young man tells his psychoanalyst about a dream.
"To believe in one's dreams is a manifestation of insanity," the doctor informs him, in a heavy German accent.
"But I dreamed the arch angel came to me and revealed to me the precise location of a Wonka golden ticket."
The doctor looks stunned. "And what exactly did he say?"
"Well, what difference does that make?," the patient objects.
"Shut up," the doctor shrieks, "and tell me where the ticket is!"
It is at this point that, even at age 6, I intuited that the filmmakers were going for something a little more sophisticated than "The Apple Dumpling Gang."
This was the genius of "Willy Wonka" -- it dared to defy demographic mandates. The humor was broad enough to appeal to kids, but sophisticated enough to reward grown-ups.
I can happily affirm this, as I watched the film (for a third time in one week) with Anabel (age 7) and Jake (age 4), both of whom had also seen the film before, multiple times, and claimed to have better things to do, but nonetheless fell rapt under its spell. Such is the effect of Willy Wonka. It is crack cocaine to the candy freak. And as an adult, the film has become even more enjoyable for me to watch, because I now understand gags like the endless non-indemnity clause that the contest winners have to sign before entering the factory.
Another great thing about the movie is that the kids in it -- the contest winners -- are not your standard Disneyfied vessels of innocence. On the contrary, they are as corrupt as the adult world around them: the petulant, screaming Veruca Salt, the gluttonous Augustus Gloop, the shrill, gum-chomping Violet Beauregarde.
My favorite was Mike Teavee, who seemed to represent, at age 8, a protean American vulgarity. We first encounter him in the thrall of a TV western (he watches around the clock) shooting at the screen with his cap gun while reporters stick microphones in his face.
One of the reporters asks Mike if he likes guns.
"Wait 'til I get a real one," Mike says. "Colt 45. Pop won't let me have one yet, will ya, Pop?"
"Not 'til you're twelve, son," his dad says fondly.
The one good kid in the film is Charlie Bucket, the blond mop top who (of course) finds the final ticket. Charlie is everything the other kids aren't: sweet, humble, hardworking and poor.
This last fact bears mentioning, as American film culture is famously reluctant to confront, in any way, the existence of poverty in the midst of our generalized profligacy. Movie poor people never look much like real poor people.
Charlie Bucket does, though, down to his ragged wool sweater. There is no dad in his family, just an overworked mom and four invalid grandparents who sleep in the same bed. They eat cabbage soup for supper. I remember being astonished when Charlie, in an effort to find his grandpa Joe's slippers, peeks under the bed. There are chamber pots, a concept my mother reluctantly explained to me.
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