Imagination and Invention ALICE IN WONDERLAND ON SCREEN
In the century-and-a-half since Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland was first published in 1865, it (along with its successful sequel, Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There, published in 1871) has been welcomed by an enthusiastic audience of young readers delighted by its mixture of humour, fantasy and sheer nonsense. Funny, silly, fantastical and full of unexpected characters, images and ideas, Alice’s adventures quickly entered the public imagination, and over time have gone on to exceed their narrative context. The Alice books are among the most quoted and referenced texts in the English language, and are a recurring visual and thematic source within the creative arts and popular culture. There are also myriad moving-image adaptations of Carroll’s books, beginning with Cecil M Hepworth and Percy Stow’s Alice in Wonderland (1903). This silent short has been followed by approximately forty film adaptations, offering an array of interpretations that attest to the art and craft of filmmaking.
Hepworth and Stow made in the very early years of cinema (the Lumière brothers’ first screenings had taken place in 1895), and used a range of in-camera special effects developed by the trailblazing innovator Georges Méliès. Their was designed to be a film that was as much about the filmmaking process – the ‘cinema of attractions’ – as it was about the story it was telling. With a running time of twelve minutes (ten of which have survived), Hepworth and Stow’s was remarkably long for the time, and is made up of a series of episodes, each introduced by an intertitle explaining what will take place. These pithy summaries gave viewers the opportunity to focus on how the filmmakers were using the new technology of cinema to bring Carroll’s classic narrative to life. For instance, the film makes particularly effective use of the dissolve to communicate the transmutability of the world Alice has entered. The Cheshire Cat is a fluffy (and delightfully nonchalant) real cat, whose appearance showcased the magical effects offered by double exposure as well as adding a witty intimacy to the film. For twenty-first century viewers, the innovation driving this film makes it fascinating and fairly fast-moving; but, according to British Film Institute curator Robin Baker,
