Happy Birthday, Roald Dahl
Sep. 13th, 2006 08:55 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
filkertomOn this day in 1916.
First, what are your favorite Dahl pieces? I know, I know, it's like picking your favorite dessert, or your favorite pasta dish. While I like the book Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, I love the movie Willy Wonka (he did the screenplay, so it counts). (The Burton/Depp film, not so much, although it has its moments.) I'm also very fond of The Witches book and movie, and a short story he did for Playboy called "The Great Switcheroo".
Second, what's your favorite bits from any movie based on a Dahl book? Honest to Ghu, mine is that moment in Willy Wonka when we find out that the fifth ticket is a fake, and Charlie walks away dazed and hoping and finds someplace to go peek and there it is. Also, the intro of Wonka -- the limp, the sticking cane, the fall and roll and tah-dahhh!
I also love the last scene in the half-room, where Wonka apparently loses it. Love love love it when Charlie wins.
First, what are your favorite Dahl pieces? I know, I know, it's like picking your favorite dessert, or your favorite pasta dish. While I like the book Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, I love the movie Willy Wonka (he did the screenplay, so it counts). (The Burton/Depp film, not so much, although it has its moments.) I'm also very fond of The Witches book and movie, and a short story he did for Playboy called "The Great Switcheroo".
Second, what's your favorite bits from any movie based on a Dahl book? Honest to Ghu, mine is that moment in Willy Wonka when we find out that the fifth ticket is a fake, and Charlie walks away dazed and hoping and finds someplace to go peek and there it is. Also, the intro of Wonka -- the limp, the sticking cane, the fall and roll and tah-dahhh!
I also love the last scene in the half-room, where Wonka apparently loses it. Love love love it when Charlie wins.
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(no subject)
Date: 2006-09-13 01:08 pm (UTC)Mother of German boy who has fallen into chocolate river: "Somebody do something!"
Wonka: (quietly) "Help. Police. Murder."
Wilder's delivery kills me every time.
And the nightmarish boat ride... CREEEEEEEEEPY.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-09-13 01:12 pm (UTC)As far as movies, I never met one I didn't like (although James & the Giant Peach is really surreal). I've always had a soft spot for Willy Wonka. My favorite scene is when he sings Pure Imagination (my second favorite song after Rainbow Connection). But I think I like Matilda more. I relate to Matilda's disconnection with her family and I love the scenes of her dragging tons of books home from the library.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-09-13 01:13 pm (UTC)From the movie, I also adore Wonka's entrance, love the "world of pure imagination" sequence, and have to keep from laughing out loud -- still! -- at the "I want the world"/"bad egg" sequence. On the other hand, I grind my teeth every time I see the soi-disant Great Glass Elevator; the book illos are SO much closer to how I'd pictured it (pointed top? METAL frame? No freakin' way!) that I repeat the old mantra "the movie is not the book" every time.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-09-13 01:20 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-09-13 01:32 pm (UTC)*CLINK* *Fizz*
If you've every read "Man from The South" ( http://www.classicshorts.com/stories/south.html )or seen the two times its been adapted for TV as "The Bet" you'll know why.
The story concerns two men and a bet, one with a very trusty lighter, the other with money, car, woman. 10 lights in a row for all the marbles.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-09-13 01:32 pm (UTC)Often involving sweet little old ladies who just get pushed a little to far
(no subject)
Date: 2006-09-13 01:47 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-09-13 01:48 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-09-13 01:57 pm (UTC)"Lamb to the Slaughter." Best murder weapon EVAR.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-09-13 02:05 pm (UTC)I'd like to see Burton try that one. Out of the two movies, the original "Willy Wonka" does win over the more current "Charlie and.." though I enjoyed the latter as well because it captures the more sinister dark moments and aspects.
I liked Gene Wilder's passive "oh no" moments when the kids met their fates. "no. wait. don't. please. no." the deadpan was perfectly toned.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-09-13 02:09 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-09-13 02:23 pm (UTC)And of course those books with that guy with the chocolate or whatever. Loved those.
I don't have the attachment to the Willy Wonka movie that many in my age group seem to have...mostly because for whatever reason I didn't see it (or even know if its existence) until I was in my late teens, and it was different enough from my memories of the book that it failed to really resonate with me. I loved the soundtrack to Burton's movie, and I have no idea why I haven't bought it yet.
-=ShoEboX=-
(no subject)
Date: 2006-09-13 03:03 pm (UTC)Being a bit of a traditionalist at times, i tend to see it with the illustrations that were in the copies surrounding me as a kid....which are MUCH harder to find these days, so took forever to get my hands on a copy for my own kids. Thankfully, they also adore it enough to make the hunt worthwhile :)
(no subject)
Date: 2006-09-13 03:06 pm (UTC)I loved seeing Gene Wilder talking about coming up with that on the DVD.
I also love the last scene in the half-room, where Wonka apparently loses it.
*chuckle* I just referenced that in - of all things - my latest jobsearch post, regarding a company that couldn't even be bothered to spellcheck their email address....
(no subject)
Date: 2006-09-13 03:09 pm (UTC)I think it was my first year at Burning Man...I was riding around the city with my then-partner, listening to the "official" radio station, and they played that. Perfectly absurd, and absurdly perfect in that setting.
I have a trance cover of "Pure Imagination" that added the lyrics to the boat ride into the middle of the song. Love it to bits.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-09-13 03:19 pm (UTC)I adored every single moment of Gene Wilder's performance in WW&tCF. He had just the right mix of charming and slightly sinister.
I'll also say that I greatly enjoyed the Burton/Depp adaptation as well. You cannot compare it directly to the Wilder film....they are like apples and oranges, in my opinion, but both very well done.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-09-13 03:49 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-09-13 03:57 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-09-13 04:07 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-09-13 04:14 pm (UTC)If you love Roald Dahl try checking out his out of print book that is BACK IN print "THE GREMLINS."
This book is about the little gremlins that messed with airplanes in WWII. Funny thing is Walt Disney was going to do a movie with Dahl based on this book! The movie fell through but the art remained.
So Darkhorse Comics just this month released a NEW version of the book with the DISNEY art included throughout the story!!!!
(no subject)
Date: 2006-09-13 04:40 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-09-13 04:47 pm (UTC)"If you want to know what it's like to be a child, get on your hands and knees and crawl everywhere for about a week. Everything is just out of reach, you have to raise your voice just to be heard, and every time you turn around there's another giant telling you what you must and mustn't do."
(no subject)
Date: 2006-09-13 04:56 pm (UTC)I remember in my youth the local TV station had the syndicated "Roald Dahl's Tales of the Unexpected" on after SNL. I rarely managed to stay up late enough to watch an episode, but I knew this was something cool. Opening theme was "Danse Macabre," naturally.
Also, around 4th grade we read an excerpt from "James and the Giant Peach" and made a three-foot tall peach out of paper-mache.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-09-13 05:26 pm (UTC)For his grown-up fiction, how about Switch Bitch? Naughty!
As for the movies, both Wilder and Depp left me a little cold for different reasons. I wish I wish I wish there could have been a version with Danny Kaye, who would have done it just right.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-09-13 05:29 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-09-13 05:30 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-09-13 05:32 pm (UTC)There's another one whose title I can't remember involving a woman who hates to be late and her husband keeps her stalling, just one time too many.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-09-13 05:33 pm (UTC)I read "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" to my class every year though, and they always get a kick out of it!!
"Witches" the movie scared the crap out of my when I was younger!!!
(no subject)
Date: 2006-09-13 06:09 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-09-13 06:36 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-09-13 07:37 pm (UTC)Dahl's Wonka is not a character with a visible inner life and a lot of motivation. That's Charlie. Wonka is an exuberant, self-justifying force of nature. He is what he is without hesitation nor apology. Ask him to explain himself and he'll tell you a joke. Bother him again and something not very nice might happen. You take your trip with him under his guidelines, or you keep away. You don't go trying to change him, any more than you'd try and change Aslan.
Seems to me Wonka ought to be played by a slapstick comedian without much attention to depth. If I were casting, and I couldn't have Danny Kaye, I'd cast Jim Carrey opposite Haley Joel Osment. (I'd also like to experiment a bit with the "bad children", like maybe making Augustus an Italian glutton with an overdone mother, and Mike Tivi a half-Japanese anime-obsessive from Silicon Valley)
(no subject)
Date: 2006-09-13 07:43 pm (UTC)I also disagree about the slapstick comedian, though. That'd be about the worst choice I could imagine.
Regardless. She said it, I didn't.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-09-13 07:46 pm (UTC)Those are just the ones that leap to my mind first. I remember getting my hands on the Henry Sugar book at around 12, because it was Roald Dahl, and I had to convince 3 different librarians that yes, I really wanted to check the book out.
I loved every inch of it, and Henry Sugar was my hero for a while.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-09-13 11:51 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-09-13 11:56 pm (UTC)As for my favorite book, I'd have to say "Matilda", because I always felt smarter than my teachers.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-09-14 12:04 am (UTC)It was released yesterday
Date: 2006-09-14 04:31 pm (UTC)http://www.darkhorse.com/profile/preview.php?theid=10-665
This looks absolutely fantastic...I'm calling up my local shop to see if they have any, and order me one if they don't!