Wonka and Depp: Truly Scrumdiddilyumptious

Having just finished watching Tim Burton’s new Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005), I am still in awe of Burton and of Depp, his apparent timeless muse.

Let me start off by saying that, being a pro-Union person, Wonka himself has some explaining to do. This is a man who, having fired his entire staff without warning, replaced them with illegal immigrants who work for a slave wage based upon cocoa beans. Willy Wonka is either the most magical person you’ve ever heard about, or the greatest monster that labour relations has ever known. Take your pick.

Aside from that, this book has been a long standing favourite with me, and I was apprehensive (to say the least) about this new film. The original Gene Wilder version Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (1971) had one major pull on my affection: Gene Wilder. However, it was a severely flawed film, with massive lulls during anything spoken or sung by Charlie’s mum, and a fairly cavalier attitude towards the integrity of the book. Nevertheless, Wilder was a magnificent Wonka, and it was hard to imagine that anyone, even a man as talented and beautiful as Johnny Depp, would be able to top him.

Wait. Go back. Thank you. We should lay the groundwork. I have no doubt that most of you know the basic story. A brilliant yet eccentric chocolate maker, who closed his factory because of spies, releases five golden tickets in Wonka bars which will allow five children to come to his factory and see inside the “magic”. This basic plot, of course, is unchanged in the new version, with most of the innovation taking place at the character and special effects level. Veruca is still spoiled, Augustus is still gross (although, in our new Big-Mac-World, much less funny than he was), and Charlie is still… Well, Charlie- perfect, loyal, sweet, poor, good, etc, etc, etc. In short, kind of sickening.

However, in Mike TeeVee, and Violet Beauregarde, Burton has added some much needed modernization. Whereas the Mike of yore was a fifties-style TV-cowboy-show addict, in this version he is a spiky-haired little turd who lives through video games, satellite and Encarta. He is “hip”, jaded and brutal, as well as destructive for destruction’s sake. In truth, the original Mike wasn’t really as bad as he might have been, so Burton has created a modern nightmare: a kid who is made evil by television, but not as zombified and sedate as we would have liked. Similarly, Violet is updated for an A&E generation. While she herself is not quite as enjoyable as that delightful girl in the original, her mother is a hoot. Whereas the original Violet was a typical, stereotypical, and cartoonish “Yank” who chewed gum like cud and was loud and abrasive, this Violet is trendy, aggressively-suburban and completely artificial. And no wonder- look at that Barbie of a mother! It’s like the Jon Benet Ramsey family wound up in a chocolate factory. Creepy, but wonderfully satirical.

In terms of set dressing and effects, you will like them if you like Burton. That’s about all I can say. They are clever and slightly creepy, and always slightly off-kilter. Burton has a masterful way of taking fifties/sixties Americana and selling it back in a processed, horrific way. In typical middle-America fashion, the puppets put on a show, singing and mechanically gesticulating in a completely unsubtle commercial for Wonka. This is a clear imitation of cold war era amusement parks. However, only Burton would make these puppets a little seedy and discolored. And only he would have them catch a blaze in a pathetic anti-climax to their chirpy and terrifying song. And only he would then have them go to a puppet burn ward! (That, I think, was the cherry on top.)

And only he would have Wonka get more fun from the burning than from the song.

Wonka is, of course, the heart of the picture. What ever actor takes on this role must, really, have enough talent and charisma to carry the entire film. We are very unlikely to watch just because Charlie is sweet and loyal. (Talk about cavities.) While I had misgivings about remaking this film, I must say that Depp was worth it. Effectively mixing innocence and insanity, his Wonka is clever, fascinating, funny, sad, and, not to any small degree, absolutely monstrous. This film seeks to delve into Wonka: The Man, an interesting task. They have managed to fulfill a need that I didn’t know I had, and Depp carries it beautifully.

While I have not read many reviews of this film, I have heard that many critics have under appreciated (i.e. hated) Depp’s performance in this film. I have heard that many people feel that there are too many shades of Michael Jackson in Wonka for him to be funny. True, the voice and clothes may evoke the other “magic” man living in his own secluded and twisted palace, but I don’t see that Depp is directly cribbing him. Depp is clearly cribbing his own past performances, however, with heavy shades of Ed Wood, Edward Scissorhands, a little Ichabod, and even some Sam. This does not harm my enjoyment, though, and I feel that Depp is one of those craftsmen who, like Chaplin, continually sought ways to employ previously developed and remembered bits of characterization, honing them over several pictures. Thus, Wonka is not so much a cribbed performance as he is a sharpened one, and the effect worked very well on me.

Frankly, in the end, I’m not sure that Depp did top Wilder, exactly, but, rather, he stands as a fully alternate version of the character. His performance is a totally new creation on the elfish man from the Dahl book, and it neither replaces or surpasses Wilder’s. On the contrary, the two stand as companion performances.

This film worked so well on me, in fact, that I actually feel that this remake was well worth seeing, and, what’s more, well worth making. It is pert, attractive and modernized. True enough, I am not sure that the Oompa Loompa half-time-like dance sequences will age any better than did those retro scenes in the original. I’m sure we may all either deride them or love them for their irony in a few years. Nevertheless, I am tickled that I went, and can recommend this picture to anyone who liked the book, anyone who is a Depp-screen-persona devote, or anyone who appreciates the unusual art of Burton.