There’s a new Roald Dahl movie adaptation around the corner, another big-screen foray into the fantastical and incredible worlds created by one of the most influential children’s authors of our time. Dahl’s stories have been a constant source of inspiration, awe and wonder, and the vast and impressive body of work has been translated to screen and stage many times – sometimes successfully and sometimes not.
Steven Spielberg’s The BFG, which will be released in India on July 1, retells the story of the titular Big Friendly Giant and his little friend Sophie. The giant is being played by Academy Award winner Mark Rylance. The trailer takes us from Sophie’s orphanage all the way to Giant Country – the BFG’s home and laboratory, where he brews up dreams and eats snozzcumbers. While we can hope that the Disney production brings to the screen the heart and the energy of the 1982 publication, it is important that visual effects do not deviate from the basics of Roald Dahl’s universe.
A much-loved adaptation, produced for Christmas 1989 by ITV in the United Kingdom, owes its timelessness to its simple and straightforward portrayal of the unassuming world of Dahl’s writings. But the near-faithful reproduction of the giant is all that the animated feature had to offer. The rest of the cast and voice performances were flat, and much of the charm and wit that defines Sophie in the book were lost. While the giants in Giant Country must have been scary to the target audience of young children, the basic animation did not measure up in front of other animated films of the time, including Disney’s The Little Mermaid and The Beauty and the Beast.
The same, however, can’t be said about The Witches (1990). Starring Anjelica Huston as the Grand high witch, The Witches is considered to be as close to the original work of Dahl as any adaptation has ever managed to be. The author himself found the film “utterly appalling” since it delivered a different ending from the book that was chosen owing to its commercial value. The film remains extremely enjoyable. Huston’s deliciously evil performance as the hater of children and wearer of masks and wigs adds volumes to this rendition of the vile witches of England.
Another adaptation that hit most of the right notes is Matilda (1996). The movie is about child prodigy Matilda Wormwood making her way through a world full of dreadful grown-ups (a constant theme in the works of Dahl), from her unsympathetic and self-absorbed parents, to the truly terrible school headmistress Agatha Trunchbull. Directed by the versatile Danny Devito, who also stars in the film as Wormwood, Matilda is another classic. The only complaint is that the movie took Matilda from its obviously British setting to America. But DeVito’s direction of this fabulous story in defence of reading and the wonders of telekinetics ensures that Matilda does not fail. Mara Wilson’s performance remains memorable, as does Bruce and the very large cake. Go Bruce!
Dahl’s most iconic and imaginative book, Charlie & the Chocolate Factory, has been adapted for screen more than once. The 1971 production, named Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory and starring Gene Wilder, aimed to bring alive the fantastical and magical world of Wonka. In the process, it shifted the focus from Charlie, who is the novel’s protagonist. The musical was not a huge success but was nominated in the best original score category at the Academy Awards in 1972.
While his performance as the kooky chocolatier won Wilder a Golden Globe nomination, the author hated the film. As the project became more and more commercial and the studio made changes with which Dahl did not agree, he parted ways with the studio, vowing to never sell the movie rights to any of his books again. This is why the sequel, Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator, was never made.
We’ll never know what Dahl felt about Tim Burton’s dark and rich 2005 version, with saturated colours and stylised cinematography. The Johnny Depp starrer Charlie and The Chocolate Factory put the focus back on Charlie, but still deviated from the plot by giving Wonka a new and unnecessary back story. However, the film rectified a lot of the mishaps in the previous adaptation. A prominent cast that includes Depp, Helena Bonham Carter, Freddie Highmore, Christopher Lee and the brilliant Ooompa Loompas, played by Deep Roy, ensured that every character is completely fleshed out.
It took the studio Warner Bros years to convince the Dahl estate to let them remake Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. The movie was made possible only after complete artistic control and the final casting privilege were accorded to Dahl’s wife, Felicity, and daughter, Lucy. Burton’s efforts on an earlier Roald Dahl adaptation in 1996 could have been one reason that the film saw the light of day.
Produced by Burton and directed by Henry Selick (The Nightmare before Christmas), James and the Giant Peach (1996) was an exceptionally bizarre and enchanting combination of live-action and stop-motion animation. The format gave the director the opportunity to bring alive the crazy and peculiar setting of the book. James, lonely and troubled after the loss of his parents, finds a new home and family inside a giant magical peach that grows in his yard. Together with a group of magical bugs, he rides the high seas and takes to the skies, all the way to New York City. Dahl did not live to see the eccentric and extraordinary treatment, but his widow claimed that he “would have been delighted by what they did with James”.
Wes Anderson’s Fantastic Mr Fox (2009) is more Anderson than Dahl and more American than British. A typical Anderson work of art starring his usual cast of Owen Wilson, Jason Schwartzman and Bill Murray along with A-listers Meryl Streep and George Clooney, the movie adds new hues and a soundtrack to the story of the fox who can’t help but raid farms at night. The screenplay is wittier and adds a level of human complexity and a horde of new characters that are not present in the book. It is not very Dahl, but is an exciting film that deploys the Wes Anderson palette across the medium of stop-motion animation. As a Roald Dahl loyalist, it just doesn’t make a lot of sense, but as an Anderson fan, there might not be much to complain about.
At the other end of the spectrum is the made-for-TV film Danny, the Champion of the World (1989). A heartwarming tale about a father-son relationship, the film stars Jeremy Irons and his son, Samuel Irons. A low-key film about the adventures of the duo that steals pheasants from a despicable local farmer, Danny is a page out of the more autobiographical works of the author instead of the curious inventions, superpowers and candy shops.
One of the more recent made-for-TV adaptations is the BBC1 production Esio Trot, starring Dustin Hoffman and Judi Dench. The Christmas feature told the delightful story of Mr Hoppy, who falls in love with his vivacious neighbor, Mrs Silver, who lives with a pet tortoise, Alfie. Hoffman’s Hoppy is perfect in his awkward crushing over Judy Dench’s sparkling and lively Silver. A thing of absolute wonder, the TV film is also beautifully produced, and every dialogue is crisp and measured.
My only gripe is with the narrator, James Corden. His constant interruption of the story is a nuisance, and the film needed to have focused on the love story unfolding between Hoppy and Silver.
Dahl’s short stories for grown-ups have also been adapted on British TV. Tales of the Unexpected, aired between 1979-88 on Anglia Television’s anthology series, featured murder, mystery and horror, and contained the trademark Dahl twist ending and the sinister humour. Dahl himself introduced many episodes of the first season, sharing his inspiration behind the stories.
And while we’re discussing the brilliance, let’s just collectively agree to ignore the fiasco that was the anthology comedy Four Rooms (1995), directed by Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez, among others.
The extensive fiction created by Dahl has been produced for screen and stage many times, and will undoubtedly continue to inspire filmmakers into attempting more and more versions of the ageless stories. Here’s hoping the Disney-Spielberg production of The BFG can retain the charm and magic of Giant Country and create something that Dahl would have been truly proud of.