Today I went to church. Then I went to see Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland. Then I went to a friend’s house, talked and read for a few hours, ate supper, and went to Evensong. Only as I was driving home did I realize what the glaring problem with this movie was – besides the clichéd and typically Hollywood believe-in-yourself/make-your-own-destiny messages spouted by characters throughout, in addition to all the now-tiresome elements which characterize much of Burton’s work (Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter with pale makeup, Danny Elfman score, exaggerated costumes, over-simplistic good guys/bad guys dichotomy, etc.).
This problem was very similar to one plaguing the Harry Potter books towards the end of the series, something I can best describe as an attempt first to take characters and elements originally created for a whimsical story, perhaps even something like a faerie-tale, and then to fit them into what is clearly intended to be a grand, mythic narrative. (This phenomenon is also observable in the recent film adaptations of the The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe and Prince Caspian.) And the problem, of course, is that this simply does not work. Taking plot elements and characters intended for one genre and trying to make them work in another is, in general, a bad idea (unless the goal is surrealism).
I think this device almost works in the Harry Potter books, which I attribute to the facts that the crossover is being attempted by the author who created the characters in the first place, and also because mythic structure into which they are being forced is a true myth, in terms of narrative (not simply a big battle featuring characters who speak pompously about destiny and address all their superiors as “my lord”).
Burton’s Alice in Wonderland and the Narnia movies, however, are not really myths underneath their belligerent exteriors. They’re examples of formula writing: people fight, the protagonists have to decide whether to do the right thing or the wrong thing, people around them tell them to do the right thing, the protagonists angst, the protagonists decide to do the right thing (or what the screenwriter thinks is the right thing). There are none of the complexities or underlying moral, philosophical, and theological ideas that make the great works of mythic literature truly great; works such as The Iliad, The Odyssey, Beowulf, Paradise Lost, even The Divine Comedy… and, of course, The Bible – and more recent works such as The Lord of the Rings and Watership Down.
I don’t want to get into a detailed discussion of what sets true myths apart from the wannabe postmodern schlock of today (I’ll save that for a later post). I don’t really even want to try to explain what characterizes a “myth” specifically (though I have provided a few criteria). It should be clear to anyone, however, that there is a world of difference between a whimsical, absurdist story like Alice in Wonderland and an epic, mythic story like The Lord of the Rings. And it should also be fairly clear that trying to combine the content of one with the outward appearance of the other and expecting a cohesive whole to emerge, is wishful thinking at best.
