William Sterling
8 connections found
Filmography
View:
Connections, in both directions
Alice in Wonderland (2010)
Directed by Tim Burton
influenced by Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1972)
Plot
Taking for granted that his audience is as fascinated and familiar with Lewis Carroll's Alice stories as he is (both Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass are referenced here), Burton throws us into his wild world with little to go on except the knowledge that teenage Alice (Mia Wasikowska), like every other children's literary hero, is no ordinary girl.
Burton has lifted ample amounts from both “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland” and “Through the Looking Glass,” but, crucially, he sets the story, for the most part, 13 years ahead of the material in the books, so that Alice ( Mia Wasikowska ), instead of being a preteen, is 19.
The film follows on from the events of both Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass, filling each scene with references to the books in both the visual design and the dialog, which is witty and snappy and often wonderfully absurd.
But if you’re going to turn Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland into something akin to Dungeons and Dragons ala Dodgson, it would be nice if your narrative was as knotty and imaginative as the man behind the lens.
Spirited Away (2001)
Directed by Hayao Miyazaki
influenced by Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1972)
Themes Plot
It’s a story rife with familiar influences, from Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland to Japanese folklore and, of course, Studio Ghibli’s now expected coming-of-age elements.
It is, at heart, just another plot-light parade of grotesques in the Alice's Adventures in Wonderland model, but given life with fuller characters and grander fantasy than most of that genre's numerous examples would dare to reach for.
In the tradition of "The Wizard of Oz" and "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland," "Spirited Away" is about a girl who overcomes her fears when plopped into a strange world and takes control of her fate.
The Shape of Water (2017)
Directed by Guillermo del Toro
influenced by Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1972)
Plot
In the way that Guillermo del Toro’s Academy Award-winning “Pan’s Labyrinth” rearranged Lewis Carroll’s “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland” to tell a story about a little girl during the Spanish Civil War, his latest magical mystery tour, “The Shape of Water,” is an even more macabre re-imagining of “Beauty and the Beast” for these dark, cruel times.
The Little Prince (2015)
Directed by Mark Osborne
influenced by Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1972)
Plot
Not unlike Alice in Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, The Little Girl falls down the “rabbit hole,” that of The Aviator’s world of a previous century.
And I don't mean having a character who's tied to a definite age entering into a fantasy world, because we've seen that a multitude of times since J. M. Barrie introduced audiences to Peter Pan, L. Frank Baum gave us Dorothy in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, and Lewis Carroll penned Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.
A sequel to Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass, Alice in Wonderland follows a grown-up Alice (Mia Wasikowska) as she's summoned back into the title fantasy world by Michael Sheen's White Rabbit - with the film subsequently revolving around Alice's ongoing efforts at ending the Red Queen's (Helena Bonham Carter) reign of terror.
Beau Is Afraid (2023)
Directed by Ari Aster
influenced by Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1972)
Visuals
Aster retoma mucho de aquellos miedos masculinos de Cabeza Borradora ( Eraserhead , 1977), de David Lynch, el sarcasmo alucinógeno de Terry Gilliam, las minucias del teatro del absurdo modelo Samuel Beckett, Eugène Ionesco y Tom Stoppard, el costado más neurótico del primer Luis Buñuel, la frialdad y parsimonia de Stanley Kubrick, las sátiras surrealistas recientes del griego Yorgos Lanthimos, el ardor carnavalesco por antonomasia, el grotesco circense de Federico Fellini y Ken Russell, la misantropía estándar de Lars von Trier, los latiguillos de las road movies existenciales, el encadenamiento fantástico de Las Aventuras de Alicia en el País de las Maravillas ( Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland , 1865), de Lewis Carroll, la animación elegíaca artesanal de idiosincrasia indie -hoy condensada en el estupendo segmento de la obra teatral entre la arboleda, a cargo de los chilenos Cristobal León y Joaquín Cociña, aquellos de la experiencia lúgubre en stop motion La Casa Lobo (2018)- y la parano…
The Lobster (2015)
Directed by Yorgos Lanthimos
influenced by Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1972)
One could think of the film as a parody of the reality shows “The Bachelor” and “Survivor” with a touch of “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland” and Pasolini’s “Salo.”