Johnny Depp as Willie Wonka --- it doesn't get better than that. There's the star's porcelain skin, the off-rhythm way of talking, the Michael Jackson strangeness. And there, on a breathtakingly beautiful set conceived by Tim Burton, is the dazzling candy factory and Charlie Bucket's house.
I saw the movie of 'Charlie and the Chocolate Factory' a few days before its opening, and, as I write, have no idea what the reviews will be and what the public will think. But I am fairly sure of this --- the craze for Roald Dahl books, which spikes every time one is turned into a film, is about to crest once again. Which is great news. Kids who are not, this weekend, hunkering down with the new Harry Potter novel could do much worse than see 'Charlie and the Chocolate Factory' and begin any of the four books in the Roald Dahl gift set.
Dahl's books appeal to kids for the simplest of reasons. They're great stories --- and the author is firmly on the side of children. "Parents and schoolteachers are the enemy," Dahl once said. "The adult is the enemy of the child because of the awful process of civilizing this thing that when it is born is an animal with no manners, no moral sense at all." That's his polite answer. In book after book, the message is nastier --- adults are mean and stupid, and kids must learn to defeat then.
Dahl was a genius. And a self-promoter. And, for his publishers, an abusive jerk. Another way of saying all that is that Dahl was one of those artists who was a kid all his life --- and that his heroes are very much like him.
This is especially the case with Willie Wonka, the candy king in 'Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.' Willie is a theatrical character: a showman, a circus ringleader. So was Roald Dahl --- he commanded your attention, he made your visit into an event. From earliest childhood, he loved stories and told them expertly. He adored chocolate, and had the good fortune of participating in blind tastings at a candy bar company. In his early 20s, at one of his early jobs, he began a lifelong habit: eating a candy bar after lunch. He used the silver wrappers to make a ball, which grew larger and larger. Later, he kept packets of candy in the glove compartment of his car, and gave those sweets to his kids for telling the best story on car trips.
The story of 'Charlie and the Chocolate Factory' deals with the two sides of Dahl's personality --- the paranoid genius who has been stripped of his innocence by greedy and evil competitors, and the pure young boy who is heartbreaking in his goodness. As a plot device, it works out this way: Willie Wonka has closed his factory because some of his employees were selling his secrets to rival candymakers. Years pass, and he's back in business, using tiny creatures and squirrels as workers. He decides to insert five 'Golden Tickets' in his chocolate bars. The children who find them will win a tour of the factory, with one getting a special surprise.
In the book and in Tim Burton's movie, all the kids but Charlie Bucket are dreadful: selfish, boorish, on the make. (Their parents are overwhelmed enablers or immoral accomplices. Very satisfying.) These louts prove that Dahl is more than a kids vs. adults moralist. His kids are also cruel and loutish to other kids. Which is a delightful irony: In these stories, obnoxious kids read about obnoxious characters --- and, of course, never see themselves in those characters.
'Charlie and the Chocolate Factory' was an instant hit when it was published in America in 1964; its first printing sold out in a month. In the early l970s, Dahl produced a sequel, 'Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator.' Later, a movie with Gene Wilder --- a very different movie from Tim Burton's --- turned Charlie into a kids' classic.
Starting around age 8 or 9, all the smart kids I've known have loved Dahl's books, especially the ones in this collection: the two 'Charlies,' 'James and the Giant Peach' and 'The Fantastic Mr. Fox.' (They have gone on, without exception, to devour more Dahl books, especially 'Matilda' and 'The BFG' and the memoir, 'Boy.') If you have not seen them before, the drawings by Quentin Blake in these four books are superb.
Dahl's books are comedies, but they deal with the big issues: evil, integrity, loneliness. No wonder kids love them, and cherish them, and identify with their heroes. And how right it is that this flawed man produced such flawless books, one after another, the quality never faltering.
--- by Jesse Kornbluth, for HeadButler.com
To buy the 'Roald Dahl Gift Set' from Amazon.com, click here.
