Paul Dale just can’t help welcoming Tim Burton’s take on CHARLIE AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY, starring Johnny Depp.
‘ ome adults forget what it was like to s be a kid. Roald Dahl didn‘t.‘ says Tim
Burton. Dahl had a particularly memorable childhood. not least his annus horribilis of 1920. When he was three. his seven- year-old sister Astri died of appendicitis and his father Harald died of pneumonia — within a few weeks of each other. Following his father’s wishes. his Norwegian mother brought her grieving children to England but darkness. death and instability had already entered young Dahl's life — it was never to leave him. And yet his grasp of such depressing truths was to inspire him: all the events in his very adventurous life. from boarding school to the loss of his sight during a WWII military plane crash over Libya. were later tumed into very unexpected tales.
20 THE LIST 21 Jul—4 Aug 2005
Dahl‘s 196-1 book ('lzurlir' and the Chocolate
Factory was based on his experiences at l.landaff
(‘atbedral School in the late l‘)2()s. There he was carted by the headmaster after putting a dead mouse in a jar of sweets at the local candy shop owned by a loathsome old woman called Mrs Pratchett. The experience grated with I)ahl until.
aged 4-1 years. he came up with the character of
(‘harlie Bucket. a good boy surrounded by selfish adults and children who just wanted to see the inside of Willy Wonka‘s chocolate factory. l’or l)ahl. like many of the great British writers of his generation. tunnelling his ill temper into a beaten up old typewriter was the catharsis that saved him from bitterness.
Sometime in the early 1960s a yotmg man called Tim Burton picked up one of the first [IS editions of l)ahl's book. ('liurlit' . . was an experience he would never forget. Talking from the set of his new film ('nrpse Brit/e. Burton attempts to put his young feelings in context. ‘()ne of the interesting aspects of the book is that it‘s so vivid in mood and feeling and so specific. yet it still leaves room for interpretation.’ Burton pauses. ‘11 leaves room for your own imagination. which. I think. is one of Dahl‘s strengths as a storyteller.
‘You have characters that remind you of people in your own life and kids you went to school
with. but at the same time it harks back to age- old archetypes of mythology and fairy tales. It's a mix of emotion and humour and adventure that‘s absolutely timeless and I think that’s why it stays with you. He remembers vividly what it was like to be that age but he also layers his work with an adult perspective. That’s why you can revisit this book at any time and get different things from it no matter what your age.‘
Having worked with Felicity Dahl — Dahl’s wife and the caretaker of his estate since his death in l‘)‘)() — as producer of the I996 animated fantasy adventure James and the Giant P’(I(‘/I. Button wanted to remake Dahl‘s classic. (‘lmrlie . . . His bid (following Mel Stuart‘s much criticised but hugely enjoyable 1971 film version of the book) was welcomed with open arms by model Sophie‘s step grandmother. l‘elicity sees in Burton some reflections of her
‘IF TIM BURTON WANTED TO SHOOT ME STARING INTO A LIGHTBULB WITHOUT BLINKING FOR THREE MONTHS, I'D DO IT'