I'm by no means a professional (or critic) of cinematography, so I'm solely approaching this question from the perspective of a fan of Lewis Carroll's two Alice tales. And by Alice, I mean Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass, as the latter (or more precisely some of its characters and storylines) are often sold as the former - which breaks the hearts of Through the Looking Glass girlies, like me...
So, without further ado -
Let me present My Very Own Ranking aka Alice Movie Reviews:
First things first, I had to disqualify a contestant:
Alice in Wonderland, 1972
(directed by William Sterling)
Why does an adult man (a movie-Lewis Carroll) have lovey-dovey eyes when looking at a child? That's what I'd like to know. There is of course that uneasy backstory of Carroll and Alice Liddell but we surely do not want to see it on the screen. It made me very uncomfortable and when I say very, I mean
VERY.
It was just not it. I know that the movie was made in the 70s but this aspect didn't age well - it quite frankly, simply just rotted - and as it was, unfortunately, the very beginning of the movie, it left me with this sense of dismay throughout the whole thing.
There was another point too that made it quite hard for me to enjoy this particular adaptation. The characters sang more than they spoke (I looked it up later and saw that it was, in fact, a musical adaptation) but none of the songs, let me repeat it, none of the songs were anyhow remarkable, not even close. The characters started singing absolutely randomly; why did the white rabbit for example have a sing-off with Alice on whether she was Mary Ann or not....? Too much singing, in itself, wouldn't have gotten this version disqualified, of course, but with Carroll's voyeurism and how unaddressed and 'normal' it seemed to be was just something I couldn't cope with.
However, I really liked the settings and the colouring, it had that vintage-like nostalgia - just to say something positive too.
If I had a child, I wouldn't want them to be looked at like this. Fight me if you dare.
#13: Alice Through the Looking Glass, 2016
(directed by James Bobin)
Disney's Through the Looking Glass is an absolute disaster, let's just not talk about it.
#12: Alice in Wonderland, 1931
(directed by Bud Pollard)
This version is less than an hour, they omitted a lot of key moments, including Alice's falling down the rabbit hole and changing her size. While Alice is oddly animated, the Queen of Hearts is oddly under-animated and surprisingly meek (compared to what we'd expect from her). It is a no from me.
(Also, as is the case with many old adaptations, some of the animal characters look straight away horroristic.) The card characters, on the other hand, have a lovely design.
#11: Alice Through the Looking Glass, 1966
(directed by Alan Handley)
Why does the white queen have a gun and what are giraffes (!!!), Lester the Jester (???) and witches (!!!!) doing in an Alice movie? This one is a mixture of a very sixties Alice with a very sixties hairstyle and stolen elements of Wonderland randomly thrown around Grimm tale-esque characters - the latter seemingly having run away from that other tale universe of theirs.
(With endless singing, but that's nothing new.)
#10 Alice in Wonderland, 1982
(directed by John Clark Donahue)
This adaptation is visually pleasing but isn't very refined (Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass moments, once again, randomly thrown together). This Alice is probably the most hysterical out of all Alices (on this list) - getting deeply upset over anything and everything and hence pulling her very chaotic and also very artificial-looking wig after her while running around as a tempered tornado.
On the bright side, Wonderland's design isn't overdone but manages to stay very creative; in some cases consists only of a yellow and black chequered road winding, twisting, bending and running up and down - a well-built construction wisely used. The costumes are interesting, the masks quite often horroristic.
#9: Alice in Wonderland, 1949
(directed by Dallas Bower)
The surprise participant of the list was definitely this stop-motion French adaptation with a cute and endearingly cheeky Alice. There is though an absolutely unnecessary subplot of Lewis Carroll at the beginning and end of the movie - he, at least, is not inappropriate. I still wish they had just left him out...
#8: Alice in Wonderland, 1985
(directed by Harry Harris)
Any team that's up to making a 3 hour long Alice adaptation should be applauded. The youngest Alice on the list (being the child she's actually meant to be) runs (quite literally) through both Alice stories. The first, Wonderland half is actually pretty carefully made, although the second, Through the Looking Glass part quickly turns into much chaos with Jabberwocky chasing Alice - at one point straight into a huge spiderweb, making thus an odd children's horror story (or a Halloween-esque Alice). Alice also encounters wise owls and sings a lot (though that's nothing new), at one point like a mini Peter Pan having befriended a now pirate, ex-caterpillar.
(And though it's a tiny thing, I wish they hadn't put such an odd wig on the poor child. I bet she had hair of her own...)
#7: Alice in Wonderland, 1903
(directed by Cecil Hepsworth)
This is a short black-and-white adaptation without anything special going on. For me, as a non-movie-person (and probably without the appreciative skills to adore how surely inventive it was) it's a cute but forgettable little thing.
#6: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, 1910
(directed by Edwin S. Porter)
This is another black and white adaptation and I surprisingly loved it. Some of the puppet and cardboard solutions are very pleasing and the whole movie has an atmosphere of joy, youth and fun. I wish it were longer than ten minutes, but nice job otherwise.
#5: Alice Through the Looking Glass, 1973
(directed by James MacTaggart)
So, this is a very adorable (and quite faithful!) adaptation of Through the Looking Glass, even though its pace is sometimes a tiny bit slow (especially, as the book is pretty speedy). I love the colouring and the cardboard-ish background a lot.
#4: Alice in Wonderland, 1999
(directed by Nick Willing)
So, here, we have a Wonderland mixing both Alice stories (especially in the second half of the movie). Tina Majorino is probably the second-best Alice (after Mia Wasikowska). The movie has a pretty strong cast (including Martin Short, Whoopi Goldberg and Christopher Lloyd) and a very alluring vintage colouring that just simply feels warm and welcoming. They understood the assignment with the vividness and overflowing greenery and probably this is the last moment on my list when Carroll's magical world is not just magical but also truly intellectual and funny ( - as he's the king of literary nonsense).
It's a shame though that around the end of the movie it feels like they decided to rapidly throw together a lot of random storylines of both Alice books without much logic - just to cover as much as possible, I assume. Also. Songs. It might be just me, but in this version, I just couldn't wait for the songs to be over.
But then, look at this cutie:
#3: Alice in Wonderland, 2010
(directed by Tim Burton)
Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland. A pretty controversial adaptation; Burton's Alice is almost an adult one (aged 19), who returns to Wonderland. Burton was apparently not interested in Carroll's humour, so his version is heavily magic-relying. For those who feel upset over shedding humour - I can feel you, especially now, as an adult. The movie, though its script has its flaws, also has a few very strong points. Danny Elfman's music is truly on point, and let's celebrate that he applied whole choirs to sing in the background instead of dedicating a 5-minute solo track for every single side character. Thank God. My soul shall be revived, at last.
Mia Wasikowska was 17 when she was chosen for the role and 21 when the movie was released (if I remember correctly) and hence brings a perfectly awkward mixture of being kind-of-an-adult-but-also-fearing-the-loss-of-childhood. Burton ultimately celebrated dreams and imagination and the choice of not letting all of it slip away when growing up. That's why this movie managed to hit me like a truck when I first saw it - I was 15..
Yes, all this is enough for me to put it in third place.
Also, one of my favourite scenes of all time (I can feel it, even now) is when Alice gets proposed to but runs away - just to chase that famous white rabbit still more appealing than the idea of a settled life:
(I will be forever grateful for Burton to express this dilemma.)
#2: Alice Through the Looking Glass, 1998
(directed by John Henderson)
A truthful Through the Looking Glass adaptation with wittiness and joyous absurdity. The speedy nonsense is nicely ornamented by bits the creators added; Kate Beckinsale's Alice keeps appearing in ever-changing outfits - without ever addressing what is going on with her clothing (something I find deeply amusing). She is a good Alice - even though as a twentysomething one probably the oldest of the list - I only wish they didn't call her 'little girl', it's a tiny bit cringeworthy. Speaking of cringe, when Alice arrives at Tweedledum and Tweedledee, good taste dies, tragically, violently. I have this feeling that the creators brainstormed over the worst possible costumes, music, and way of presentation and concluded the process with great contentment saying 'yeah, let's do all this, together'. And God did they deliver. It might be that I never actually liked Tweedledum and Tweedledee, especially the story of the Walrus and the Carpenter - but Henderson's interpretation of it is straight away psychotic. Don't tell me that awfully ugly costumes, and odd murmuring to blues (???) appeal to anyone.
Yikes.
The majority of the movie is, however, by far the best Through the Looking Glass adaptation and the second-best Alice movie I've seen.
(And then, this happened:)
#1: Alice in Wonderland, 1951
(directed by Clyde Geronimi, Wilfred Jackson and Hamilton Luske)
I can't believe that I'm writing this, but Disney actually won this competition. They did something none of the other versions managed to; made their (cartoon) Alice iconic. Also, their songs are quite captivating, and if characters truly have to sing, it helps a lot if they do it....you know... in an entertaining enough way. Although having mixed both Alice stories, the creators seemed to have just followed their own vision without going crazy by overcomplicating things - and it just worked.
There are plenty of interesting facts about Disney's cartoon adaptation, instead of attempting to recite them, I'll just leave a link here for whoever might be interested: https://www.alice-in-wonderland.net/resources/background/disneys-cartoon-movie/
Conclusion:
Obviously, this ranking shows my opinion and would probably be highly controversial amongst Carroll fans. And still, I'm not done, haha. I have the feeling that there is a constant, ongoing battle, about whether an Alice adaptation should be magical or intellectual. The truth is, Carroll went for both and did it well. Directors - I assume - follow their own lead or highlight parts they want to preserve more. Old-ish adaptations seemed to have grabbed the naivety of childhood (with faaaaaar toooooo maaaaaaany soooooooongs - but that's my take), some adaptations held onto the wittiness and humour over telling a whimsical tale, whereas the newest ones seem to have gone in dominantly for the magic. Some of the movies made Wonderland real (in contrast to admitting it to be solely a dream) - and, really, who can blame anyone for wanting all the magic to be tangible... They attempted to create atmosphere over anything else (Danny Elfman & Tim Burton, I'm looking at you.)
I do know that both Alice stories are multi-layered but they were written first and foremost for children. I wish that those complaining online about some versions not being intellectual enough would keep that in mind and leave their poor high horses alone. And I'm saying this as someone who doesn't actually enjoy (and thus consumes) fantasy, purely because for me, personally, tales with magic are just not enough. I want something else too; nonsense, humour, absurdity? But that's just me, and who am I to know anything...
"`What do you know about this business?' the King said to Alice.
`Nothing,' said Alice.
`Nothing whatever?' persisted the King.
`Nothing whatever,' said Alice."
(Lewis Carroll - Alice in Wonderland)
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