23 March 2010

Futterwack or Futterwacken, Mad Hatter's Dance

Spoiler alert!

There is a high quality version of the Mad Hatter's dance from Burton's film available on YouTube. It seemed to be a highlight among the children in the audience when I went to see it.



22 March 2010

Photographs of the "real" Alice

With the Disney and now Tim Burton films, and even the colored Tenniel drawings, it can be surprising to know that the "real" Alice -- Alice Liddell -- was a brunette.  She is the girl child friend of Charles Dodgson/Lewis Carroll who asked for the story that told the tale of Wonderland. 

She has a Wikipedia page if you are interested in a introductory biography!

The first few are by Charles Dodgson himself, who was an avid photographer (I will post more on this later).


Dodgson was keen on making narrative photos, and here Alice posed as a beggar child:


Dodgson was also fond of Alice's two sisters, who are referenced in the All in the Golden Afternoon poem as Prima and Tertia (Alice being Secunda).  He photographer the three together:


Julia Margaret Cameron, a contemporary photographer, also photographed Alice, though now she is in her early 20s.  This photograph is entitled "Pomona":


This photograph is titled "Alethea":

By this photograph, Alice is married to Reginald Hargreaves, whom she married at 28 years of age:


And here is a newspaper clipping with accompanying photograph announcing Alice's death:






03 March 2010

The Original Alice in Wonderland film


 Watch the film via theauteurs

Alice in Wonderland (1903), the first-ever film version of Lewis Carroll’s tale, has recently been restored by the BFI National Archive and premiered at a celebration of the history of the classic story at the British Library.

Made just 37 years after the novel’s publication and eight years after the birth of cinema, the first film adaptation was directed by Cecil Hepworth and Percy Stow, and was based on Sir John Tenniel’s original illustrations. Hepworth cast his wife as the Red Queen, and he himself appears as the Frog Footman. His production secretary May Clark played Alice, and even the family cat and dog got in on the act. The cat played the Cheshire Cat, and the dog would go on to become the first authentic British film star (canine or otherwise) to have his name in the credit of a film when he headlined the pioneering chase film Rescued By Rover in 1905.

Although originally running just 12 minutes, Alice in Wonderland was the longest film produced in England at that time and represented a major investment for the pioneering Hepworth Studios. However, despite its historical importance, it was almost lost for good, and just one incomplete print is known to survive. —BFI National Archive