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Fun Fact:
The first film version of Alice in Wonderland was made in 1903, and at that point was the longest film ever made in Britain.

 

 

 

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The Evolution of Alice in Other Media

Alice in wonderland 1951In this section we really begin to leave Lewis Carroll behind and let readers take over. For, just as different illustrators "hijack" Carroll's Alice and impose their own interpretations and visions on our imaginations, so too visions of Alice in film, music, games, and art shape our experience with it. For instance, for many born after 1951, it is not Tenniel's Alice that reigns supreme, but Disney's animated character that has conquered as the epitome of Alice representation, an incarnation that Carroll never would have imagined or recognized. And every generation re-invents Wonderland with the result that our question of “What is Alice?” really can have no stable and enduring answer. Helen Pilinovsky in her article “Body as Wonderland: Alice’s Graphic Iteration in Lost Girls” recognizes the appeal for readers to transform Alice, to adapt her and make her our own. “Alice, created a hundred years before most of the other classic figures of children’s literature, starts off with one key advantage: she’s in the public domain.  In the hundred years since her copyright expired, she has passed from being a specific character to being a near archetype: images of Alice appear in every medium" (182).  She then quotes Carolyn Sigler who argues that the  “Alice books’ enduring power and appeal may very well lie in the fact that, like dreams, they can mean whatever the readers need them to mean” (182). And the past 150 years certainly has "needed" Alice to mean many different things. And so, once again harnessing the power of the internet to connect us to thousands of Alices adapted by thousands of readers, in this section we explore further the Evolution of Wonderland through the art adapted from or inspired by Alice in other media.

 

Disney 1951 poster

The Evolution of Alice on Film

An overview of a few of the most prominent or interesting Alice adaptations in film. As usual, I've focused on scenes/clips from chapters 5, 6, and 7.

 

 

 

Alice at the Palace posterAlice on the Stage

An overview of a few prominent theatrical adaptations of Alice.

 

 

 

 

Alice (Syfy) PosterAlice on Television

A few Alices as they have appeared on television.

 

 

 

 

Music of Alice

Alice in Music

A quick tour through Alice as she's appeared in classical and popular music.

 

 

 

 

Screenshot of Google Search "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland"Alice on the Internet

Alice as she is shaped by the millions of users on the Internet. This is also a fascinating look at how we as a culture see and think about Alice.