The mystery of Alice

Recently popular dark film director, Tim Burton, released him $1000 million hit "Alice in Wonderland" inspired by Charles Lutwidge Dodgson's 1865 hit, Alice's Adventures Under Ground. Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, also known as Lewis Caroll was bright young promising man, he was an amazing photographer. His favorite subject was a young girl by the name of Alice Liddell. She is featured in numerous photos of his. It is said that a possible relationship between the two may have occurred. Alice Liddell was the inspiration of his popularly known Alice in Wonderland. He originally told young Liddell the story, which at the time was only a dream, on a boat ride one calm afternoon.

Alice in Wonderland is a simple story of a girl who dozes off one afternoon and finds herself falling through a rabbit hole, as she enters a mystical realm of talking creatures, strange figures, and queer landscaping. The majority of people are familiar with the story because of Disney's 1951 classic animated version. Though this film is beloved there are many other versions of the classic. To manys' surprise Disney's 1951 version was not the original film of Alice in Wonderland. The character of Alice originally appeared on film in 1903 played by May Clark. There were a total of eight versions of Caroll's hit book before Disney finally captured this story. There has been an estimated thirty versions of this film.

Though I think what really makes Alice's story so memorable is the legendary tea party she finds herself at suddenly. This scene depicts Alice's character at a strange ever lasting tea party consisting of a tired dormouse, the insane March Hare, and a Mad Hatter. It is a particular enigma what makes this scene so memorable, perhaps the relation of everyone having someone not really sane in their life. It is almost an art to discover the different portrayals of the tea party, the scene being not only captured numerous times on film, but also in many pieces of artistic expressions. Popular actor, Johnny Depp, recently played the well known part of the Mad Hatter in Tim Burton's 2010 version. Though Tim Burton's film follows the same theme as the original story of Alice, his version features an adult Alice revisiting her Wonderland from her childhood. Though it does not take the title of Caroll's sequel Through the Looking Glass, it is said to be a sequel to Alice in Wonderland however it consists of the same title. Mia Wasikowska does play a strong role as Alice in Burton's new hit movie. Though I find my favorite version of the classic tale is William Sterling's 1973 Alice's Adventures in Wonderland starring Fiona Fullerton as Alice. It is not clear to me why Fullerton's performance stands out to me above all others' however it is clear to me why I love this version of the film. The music in it is rather beautiful and I find it tells the story in an easy to follow way, in some version the story line seems to be lost or fragmented. This particular version of the film however is clear to viewer and has simply amazing scenery and such especially for the time. Though many find the scene with the dark ominous crow carrying away Tweetle Dee and Tweetle Dum to be frightening I find it shows Caroll's vision a bit more full then other version. After viewing nearly every version of the film I would be obliged to say the 1972 version is the best quality and expressed the story to its fullest, on the other side, I find the 1951 animated film to be surprisingly low on the scale, I just find some of it to be unnecessary. However everyone is opened to their opinion. Burton's new film however is definitely worth checking out if you are a fan of the story. Though there is nothing like a good old book.