Interesting facts about Alice in Wonderland. "Alice in Wonderland": quotes and interesting facts about the book by Lewis Carroll

· Many scenes of the fairy tale have been analyzed by scientists and researchers of various fields of knowledge. So, in the episode when Alice falls into a hole, she asks questions of logical positivism. And cosmologists saw in the scenes of increasing and decreasing Alice the impact of a theory that tells about the expansion of the Universe. Also in the tale they saw a hidden satire on Darwin's theory of evolution and the theory natural selection(episodes with a sea of ​​tears and running in circles).

· The book contains 11 poems, which were a kind of parody of the moralizing songs and poems of that time. Their perception is difficult for modern reader, it is especially difficult to understand the writer's skillful play on words in translations of the book.

· Early reviews of the book were more negative than positive. One of the magazines in 1900 called the tale too unnatural and overloaded with oddities, calling Carroll's work a fairy tale-dream.

The book contains great amount mathematical, philosophical and linguistic allusions, so not every adult can understand all the subtleties of the book. This work is considered the best example genre of the absurd in literature.

· Mad characters Hatter and March Hare were borrowed by Carroll from English sayings: "crazy as a hatter" and "crazy as a March hare". This behavior of hares is easily explained by the mating season, and the madness of the hatter is due to the fact that in ancient times mercury was used to make felt, and mercury poisoning causes mental disorders.

· In the original version of the tale, the Cheshire Cat was absent. Carroll added it only in 1865. Many people still argue about the origin of this character’s mysterious smile: some say that at that time the saying “smiles like a Cheshire cat” was very popular, others are sure that this is due to the fact that the famous Cheshire cheese was once given the look of a smiling cat.

In honor of most of the names that have been associated with the book (including the prototype main character- Alice Liddell), and the names of the characters themselves were named by astronomers of small planets.

· The original book "Alice in Wonderland" had the title "Alice's Adventures Underground" and was personally illustrated by the author. Lewis Carroll is pseudonym Charles Ludwidge Dodgson. He was a professor of mathematics at Oxford.

Movie:

· There are many parallels to Alice in Wonderland in The Matrix, including some that can only be seen by reading the script. Offering two pills to Neo's choice, Morpheus says, "Choose the red one, you'll stay in Wonderland, and I'll show you how deep that rabbit hole goes." And when Neo does right choice, a smile appears on the face of Morpheus Cheshire cat».

In the film Resident Evil, the director used a lot of analogies of the film with the fairy tales of L. Carroll: the name of the main character, the name of the computer "Red Queen", the white rabbit, on which the effect of the T-virus and antivirus was tested, the passage to the "Umbrella Corporation" through mirror, etc.

In Tideland, Jeliza-Rose reads to her father excerpts from Alice in Wonderland, and reminiscences from Alice run throughout the film: bus ride, falling into a hole, a rabbit, Dell acting something like the Duchess from Wonderland, like the White Queen from Through the Looking-Glass), etc.

Film by Tim Burton:

· In Tim Burton's film "Alice in Wonderland" Alice is already 19 years old. Randomly, she returns to Wonderland where she was thirteen years ago. She is told that she is the only one who can kill the Jabberwock, a dragon under the control of the Red Queen.

· Amazing coincidence- Tim Burton's London office is located in a house that once belonged to Arthur Rackham, the famous English artist, author of the legendary color illustrations for the 1907 edition of Alice in Wonderland.

Almost Alice - While working on Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland, two music albums: the soundtrack to the film with music by Danny Elfman and "Almost Alice", a collection of 16 songs, which includes Avril Lavigne's composition "Alice (Underground)", which sounds at the end credits of the film, as well as songs from other musicians inspired by the film. The title of the album is a quote from the movie. The entire Underground eagerly awaits Alice's return, but when she returns, no one - including Alice herself - believes that she is the correct Alice they once knew. In the end, the wise caterpillar Absolem concludes that in front of them is Almost Alice.

· Portraits of Johnny Depp - Actor Johnny Depp always prepares hard for every role, and the Mad Hatter is no exception. Long before filming began, the actor began to draw watercolor portraits Mad Hatter. Later it turned out that his vision of the character largely coincides with the director's vision of Tim Burton.

· Mad Hatter Mood Indicator - The Mad Hatter is a victim of mercury poisoning. Unfortunately, in old days such incidents were common among hatters, since chemistry was immutable attribute their crafts. Depp and Burton found an original way to emphasize the Hatter's madness: he is like a mood ring; the slightest change in his emotional mood is instantly reflected not only on his face, but also in his clothes and appearance.

Changes - In real life the height of Mia Vasikovsky, who plays Alice, is 160 cm, but Alice's height changes more than once during her wanderings in Wonderland: from 15 cm to 60 cm, then up to 2.5 m, or even up to 6 meters! The filmmakers tried very hard to use practical methods on set rather than special effects. Sometimes Alice was placed on a box to make her appear taller than the others.

Drink Me - The Elixir that Alice drinks to shrink herself is called Pishsolver. The cake she eats to grow up is called Rastibulka (Upelkuchen).

Sweet and Sour - Actress Anne Hathaway playing White Queen, decided that her heroine would not be flawlessly white and fluffy. The White Queen shares the same bloodline as her sister, the evil Red Queen, which is why Hathaway calls her "a punk rock pacifist and vegetarian". When creating this look, she was inspired by Blondie, Greta Garbo, Dan Flavin and Norma Desmond.

· Jig-how? - Jiga-Dryga (Futterwacken) - a term for a dance of unbridled joy performed by the inhabitants of the Underground. When it came to composing the music for this dance, composer Danny Elfman was puzzled. He wrote 4 different options, each of which was funny, unique and, in Elfman's own words, "teetered on the brink of propriety".

· Twins - Actor Matt Lucas was cast as Tweedledum and Tweedledum, chubby twin brothers who constantly quarrel among themselves and whose incoherent chatter is incomprehensible to anyone but themselves. However, Lucas (for some reason) could not portray both Tweedledum and Tweedledum at the same time. Help was sought from another actor, Ethan Cohen, who was standing next to Lucas on film set. However, it will not appear on the screen.

· Fitting and Fitting - Costume Designer Colleen Atwood worked tirelessly on Alice's costumes for Mia Wasikowska. After all, the heroine is constantly changing in size and often changes outfits, including a dress made from the curtains of the Red Queen's castle, and even knightly armor. Atwood had to find special fabrics for each size and tailor the costumes in such a way as to emphasize Alice's unexpected changes in height.

Leave his head! Crispin Glover plays Stein, the Knave of Hearts in the film, but on screen we only see his head. The body of this 2.5-meter character is drawn on a computer. On the set, Glover moved around in a green suit and on stilts to appear taller. In addition, he was heavily made up (an eye patch and a scar complete the image). Stein's torso, armor and even his helmet were created using computer animation. The actor owns only the face.

Leave her face! - Helena Bonham Carter endured 3 hours every morning while makeup artists turned her into the Red Queen. During this time, the actress was sprinkled with white powder, blue shadows were applied to her eyes, her eyebrows and lips were painted in the shape of a perfect scarlet heart. After filming, special effects specialists enlarged the actress's head in the frame, completing the final image of the Red Queen.

Surprise soles - Costume designer Colleen Atwood painted scarlet hearts on the soles of the Red Queen's shoes. They can be seen when the royal person puts her feet on a live pig-stand.

Stilt Trouble - Crispin Glover most I spent my filming time on stilts. Once he fell off them and twisted his leg, after which stuntmen in green suits followed him around the site to catch him in the event of a new fall.

Bunny Friends - Tim Burton wanted the animals to appear on screen as real, not cartoon characters. Therefore, before starting work on the White Rabbit, the animators spent the whole day in a shelter for abandoned rabbits, watching the animals. They filmed a whole photo shoot to capture the finest nuances of rabbit facial expressions.

· From 2D to 3D - Director Tim Burton made the decision to shoot the film in a conventional, two-dimensional format and then convert it to 3D. The 3D conversion of his film The Nightmare Before Christmas made such an impression on Burton that he decided to follow the same path with Alice.

· Super Special Effects Specialist — Tim Burton turned to legendary special effects guru Ken Ralston and Sony Imageworks to help create Wonderland and its wondrous inhabitants. Ralston (on whose account the first trilogy " Star Wars as well as Forrest Gump and The Polar Express) and his team created over 2,500 visual effects shots. The film did not use "motion capture" technology; instead, the creators developed a combination of game scenes, animation and a whole range of other technical effects.

All in Green - Cardboard silhouettes, models in full height or people in green with eyes glued to different parts body - to help the actors choose the right direction of view.

· Caterpillar hair - While examining enlarged photographs of real caterpillars, the animators discovered that the caterpillars are hairy. Therefore, Absolem was provided with a beautiful animated head of hair.

· Handcrafted - Very few actual sets were built for Wonderland. Only three interiors round hall(where Alice falls down the rabbit hole) and the Red Queen's dungeons were built on the site. Everything else is computer generated.

· Mirror of the Soul - The Mad Hatter's eyes are slightly enlarged: they are 10-15% larger than Johnny Depp's eyes.

· Surf the Web - When the animators started working on the Dodo, the first thing they did was to search for its images in the Google search engine, and then in the London Natural History Museum.

Big head - A special camera was used to film the Red Queen (Helena Bonham Carter) high resolution called "Dulsa": with its help, the character's head could subsequently be doubled without the slightest loss in image quality.

Alice and Carroll:

Alice Liddell was the daughter of the dean of Christ Church College, Oxford, where the young writer Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (Lewis Carroll) studied and then taught mathematics. Dodgson got to know their family and interacted with Alice over the years.

· The original version of his fantastic story, inventing on the go, the writer told the three Liddell sisters during a boat trip on the Thames. The main character was very similar to one of the girls, and the rest of the sisters were assigned secondary roles.

· Listening to Alice's requests, Carroll put his story on paper. In the same year, he gave the girl the first handwritten version of a book called Alice's Adventures Underground. After 64 years, after losing her husband, 74-year-old Alice auctioned a valuable gift and received £15,400 for it. After this event, a copy of the book was resold several times and found its rest in the British Library, where it can now be found.

· literary character Carrolla - the main character Alice - could have received a different name. At the birth of the girl, the parents thought for a long time whether to call her Marina. However, the name Alice was considered more appropriate.

Alice was a well-bred and gifted child - she was seriously engaged in painting. John Ruskin himself, famous English 19th century artist century, gave her lessons and found her paintings talented.

· In 1880, Alice married a student of Lewis Carroll - Reginald Hargreaves. One of the three sons was named Caryl by the young parents, probably in honor of the "procurer".

On August 2, 1865, Macmillan published the first edition of Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.

SmartNews decided to choose the 5 most interesting facts related to this famous fairy tale.

hatter

There is a character in the tale called the Hatter or the Mad Hatter. The name Mad Hatter owes its origin to the English proverb "mad as a hatter". The appearance of such a proverb is due to the fact that in the 19th century, craftsmen who made hats often suffered from excitability, impaired speech, and trembling hands. The health disorder of the hatters was caused by chronic mercury poisoning. A solution of mercury was used to process hat felt. As you know, toxic mercury vapor affects the central nervous system.

Cheshire Cat

The Cheshire Cat was not in the original version of the tale. This character was added to the tale in 1865. The enigmatic smile of the Cheshire Cat is attributed by some to the then-popular saying "smiles like a Cheshire cat." Some researchers believe that the famous Cheshire cheese was given the appearance of a smiling cat. According to another version, Carroll came up with the idea to come up with this character with a sandstone cat figure, which was installed near the church of St. Wilfrid in the village of Grappenhall.

Dormouse Mouse

The character of the Dormouse Mouse in the book "Alice in Wonderland" was periodically in the teapot. This can be explained by the fact that children at that time kept dormouse as pets in teapots. The kettles were filled with grass and hay.

Turtle Quasi

The Quasi Turtle character in Lewis Carroll's book often cries. This is due to the fact that sea turtles often have tears. They help turtles remove salt from the body.

1. On July 4, 1862, Oxford college mathematics professor Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (real name Lewis Carroll), his colleague Duckworth, and Rector Liddell's three young daughters set out on a boat trip down the Thames. Throughout the day, while the walk lasted, Dodgson, at the request of the girls, told them a story they made up as they went. Her characters were the participants of the walk, including the professor's favorite - 10-year-old Alice Liddell. She liked the story so much that she begged Dodgson to write it down, which he did the next day.
2. However, it took the busy professor two and a half years to completely write down the story. He gave Alice a green-leather-lined book with neat handwriting as a Christmas present in 1864. The story was called "Alice's Adventures Underground" and contained only four chapters. Today it is kept in the British Library in London.
3. A chance meeting at a party with publisher Alexander Macmillan made Dodgson's dream of publishing Alice come true. However, first of all, he needed to find a good illustrator. He managed to get the famous John Tenniel. It was his black and white illustrations to "Alice" are considered classic today, and the image of Alice with long blond hair is canonical.
4. When choosing the color for the cover of Alice, Dodgson settled on a pure and vibrant red. He found it most attractive to children. This color became the standard for editions of Alice and other Carroll books in England.
5. Macmillan's The Claredon Press of Oxford printed 2,000 copies of the book—what we now call first printing—but it never went on sale. The illustrator Tenniel was extremely dissatisfied with the quality of the print, and Dodgson made a concession to him. He even withdrew with apologies those 50 copies that he managed to send to friends. New edition was printed by another printer, and this time Tenniel was satisfied. The reprint, however, cost Dodjoson a pretty penny - according to his agreement with Macmillan, the author took on all the expenses. For a 33-year-old Oxford professor with a modest income, making such a decision was not an easy task.
6. Today, any copy of that very first edition is worth thousands of pounds. The fate of these books, however, is rather vague. Currently, only 23 surviving copies are known, which have settled in the funds of libraries, archives and private individuals.
7. First Russian edition"Alice in Wonderland" was called "Sonya in the realm of the diva." It was printed in 1879 in the printing house of A. I. Mamontov in Moscow, without indicating the author or translator. Russian reviewers found the book strange and nonsensical.
8. There are about 40 adaptations of the book "Alice in Wonderland". The first film adaptation was staged in 1903. The silent black-and-white film lasted approximately 10-12 minutes and included special effects, enough high level for that time - for example, Alice grew smaller and smaller while in a dollhouse.
9. One of the first cartoons based on the book was Alice in Wonderland, drawn by Disney in 1951. The project was in development for about 10 years, another five took its production. And for good reason - this colorful and lively cartoon is still popular today. Russian cartoon about Alice, not nearly inferior in its artistic qualities American, was created at the Kyiv film studio of popular science films in 1981 (director - Ephraim Pruzhansky).
10. Last movie today based on "Alice in Wonderland" - a 2010 film directed by Tim Burton with Mia Wasikowska, Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter in the lead roles. This is not a classic production, but rather an interpretation of the book. Modern computer graphics allowed to create a colorful and frightening Wonderland, almost as absurd as Carroll's.

On August 2, 148 years ago, the wonderful book "Alice in Wonderland" was published. A fairy tale about the travels of the girl Alice in amazing country written by the English mathematician Charles Lutwidge Dodgson. We have collected interesting facts about this book.

In what images did not imagine the heroes of modern fairy tales

Lewis Carroll is nothing more than a pseudonym. Charles Dodgson tried his best to distance himself from his alter ego, sending back letters from Alice fans marked "addressee unknown." But the fact remains: the Alice's travels he created brought him much more popularity than all his scientific works.

1. Lost in translation

The book has been translated into 125 languages ​​of the world. And it wasn't that easy. The thing is that if you translate the fairy tale literally, then all the humor and all its charm disappears - there are too many puns and witticisms based on features in it. of English language. Therefore, the greatest success was not the translation of the book, but the retelling of Boris Zakhoder. In total, there are about 13 options for translating a fairy tale into Russian. Moreover, in the first version, created by an anonymous translator, the book was called "Sonya in the Kingdom of the Diva." The next translation appeared almost 30 years later, and the cover read "Ani's Adventures in the World of Wonders." And Boris Zakhoder admitted that he considered the name “Alice in Wonderland” to be more appropriate, but decided that the public would not appreciate such a title.

Alice in Wonderland has been filmed 40 times, including animated versions. Alice even appeared in the Muppets show - where Brooke Shields played the role of a girl.

2. The Mad Hatter was not in the first edition of the book.

Yes, don't be surprised. The tactless, absent-minded, eccentric and extravagant Hatter, so brilliantly played by Johnny Depp, did not appear in the first version of the tale. By the way, in the translation by Nina Demiurova, recognized as the best of all existing ones, the character's name is Hatter. The fact is that in English hatter meant not only “hatter”, as they called people who do everything wrong. Therefore, we decided that our fools would be the closest analogue in Russian. So the Hatter became the Hatter. By the way, his name and character originated from the English saying "Mad as a hatter". At that time, it was believed that workers who create hats could go crazy due to exposure to mercury vapor, which was used to process felt.

By the way, the Hatter was not the only character who was not in the original version of Alice. The Cheshire cat also appeared later.

3. "Alice" was illustrated by Salvador Dali himself

In fact, if we talk about illustrations, it is easier to name those who in their work bypassed the motives of "Alice". The most famous are the drawings of John Tenniel, who created 42 black and white for the first publication of the book. Moreover, each drawing was discussed with the author.

Illustrations by Fernando Falcon leave an ambiguous impression - seemingly cute and childish, but it seems to be like a nightmare.

Jim Min Gee created illustrations for best traditions Japanese anime, Erin Taylor drew an African-style tea party.

And Elena Kalis illustrated Alice's adventures in photographs, transferring the events to the underwater world.

Salvador Dali painted 13 watercolors for different situations from book. Probably, his drawings are not the most childish and not even the most understandable for an adult, but they are delightful.

Cheshire cat - this is how the great Salvador Dali saw him

5. A mental illness was named after Alice

Well, this is just not surprising. The whole Wonderland is a world of absurdity. Some vicious critics even called everything that happened in the book nonsense. However, we will ignore the attacks of too mundane personalities, alien to fantasy and devoid of imagination, and turn to the facts from the field of medicine. And the facts are: among mental disorders a person has micropsia - a state when a person perceives objects and objects proportionally reduced. Or enlarged. Remember how Alice grew and then decreased? So here. A person with Alice in Wonderland syndrome can see an ordinary doorknob as if it were the size of the door itself. But much more often people perceive objects as if from afar. What is most terrible, a person in this state does not understand what really exists, and what only seems to him.

People suffering from Alice syndrome are not able to understand where is reality and where is a hallucination.

5. Film Reflection

There are references to the work of Lewis Carroll in many books and films. One of the most famous implicit quotes is the phrase "Follow the white rabbit" in the science fiction action movie The Matrix. A little later in the film, another allusion pops up: Morpheus offers Neo two pills to choose from. By choosing the right one, Keanu Reeves' character finds out "how deep that rabbit hole goes." And on the face of Morpheus there is a smile of the Cheshire cat. In "Resident Evil" there is a whole bunch of analogies, ranging from the name of the main character - Alice, to the name of the central computer - "Red Queen". The action of the virus and antivirus was tested on a white rabbit, and to get into the corporation, one had to go through a mirror. And even in the horror movie "Freddie vs. Jason" there was a place for Carroll's heroes. One of the victims in the film sees Freddy Krueger as a caterpillar with a hookah. Well, we, the readers, use from the book in our daily speech. It's getting weirder and weirder, weirder and weirder, right?

Lewis Carroll is nothing more than a pseudonym. Charles Dodgson tried his best to distance himself from his alter ego, sending back letters from Alice fans marked "addressee unknown." But the fact remains: the books he created about Alice's travels brought him much more popularity than all his scholarly works.

1. Difficulties in translation

The book has been translated into 125 languages ​​of the world. And it wasn't that easy. The thing is that if you translate the fairy tale literally, then all the humor and all its charm disappears - there are too many puns and witticisms based on the peculiarities of the English language. Therefore, it was not the translation of the book that enjoyed the greatest success, but the retelling of Boris Zakhoder. In total, there are about 13 options for translating a fairy tale into Russian. Moreover, in the first version, created by an anonymous translator, the book was called "Sonya in the Kingdom of the Diva." The next translation appeared almost 30 years later, and the cover read "Ani's Adventures in the World of Wonders." And Boris Zakhoder admitted that he considered the name “Alice in Wonderland” to be more appropriate, but decided that the public would not appreciate such a title.

Alice in Wonderland has been filmed 40 times, including animated versions. Alice even appeared on the Muppets show - where the role of the girl was played by Brooke Shields.

3. The Mad Hatter was not in the first edition of the book.

Yes, don't be surprised. The tactless, absent-minded, eccentric and extravagant Hatter, so brilliantly played by Johnny Depp, did not appear in the first version of the tale. By the way, in the translation by Nina Demiurova, recognized as the best of all existing ones, the character's name is Hatter. The fact is that in English hatter meant not only “hatter”, as they called people who do everything wrong. Therefore, we decided that our fools would be the closest analogue in Russian. So the Hatter became the Hatter. By the way, his name and character originated from the English saying "Mad as a hatter". At that time, it was believed that workers who create hats could go crazy due to exposure to mercury vapor, which was used to process felt.

By the way, the Hatter was not the only character who was not in the original version of Alice. The Cheshire cat also appeared later.

In fact, if we talk about illustrations, it is easier to name those who in their work bypassed the motives of "Alice". The most famous are the drawings of John Tenniel, who created 42 black and white illustrations for the first publication of the book. Moreover, each drawing was discussed with the author.

Illustrations by Fernando Falcon leave an ambiguous impression - seemingly cute and childish, but it seems to be like a nightmare.

Jim Minji created illustrations in the best traditions of Japanese anime, Erin Taylor drew an African-style tea party.

And Elena Kalis illustrated Alice's adventures in photographs, transferring the events to the underwater world.

Salvador Dali painted 13 watercolors for different situations from the book. Probably, his drawings are not the most childish and not even the most understandable for an adult, but they are delightful.

Well, this is just not surprising. The whole Wonderland is a world of absurdity. Some vicious critics even called everything that happened in the book nonsense. However, we will ignore the attacks of too mundane personalities, alien to fantasy and devoid of imagination, and turn to the facts from the field of medicine. And the facts are as follows: among the mental disorders of a person there is micropsia - a condition when a person perceives objects and objects proportionally reduced. Or enlarged. Remember how Alice grew and then decreased? So here. A person with Alice in Wonderland syndrome can see an ordinary doorknob as if it were the size of the door itself. But much more often people perceive objects as if from afar. What is most terrible, a person in this state does not understand what really exists, and what only seems to him.

There are references to the work of Lewis Carroll in many books and films. One of the most famous implicit quotes is the phrase "Follow the white rabbit" in the science fiction action movie The Matrix. A little later in the film, another allusion pops up: Morpheus offers Neo two pills to choose from. By choosing the right one, Keanu Reeves' character finds out "how deep that rabbit hole goes." And on the face of Morpheus there is a smile of the Cheshire cat. In "Resident Evil" there is a whole bunch of analogies, ranging from the name of the main character - Alice, to the name of the central computer - "Red Queen". The action of the virus and antivirus was tested on a white rabbit, and to get into the corporation, one had to go through a mirror. And even in the horror movie "Freddie vs. Jason" there was a place for Carroll's heroes. One of the victims in the movie sees Freddy Krueger