Alice in Wonderland; Extracts

Here are a few extracts from Sparknotes that we found interesting and inspiring.

"Death as a Constant and Underlying Menace

Alice continually finds herself in situations in which she risks death, and while these threats never materialize, they suggest that death lurks just behind the ridiculous events of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland as a present and possible outcome. Death appears in Chapter 1, when the narrator mentions that Alice would say nothing of falling off of her own house, since it would likely kill her. Alice takes risks that could possibly kill her, but she never considers death as a possible outcome. Over time, she starts to realize that her experiences in Wonderland are far more threatening than they appear to be. As the Queen screams “Off with its head!” she understands that Wonderland may not merely be a ridiculous realm where expectations are repeatedly frustrated. Death may be a real threat, and Alice starts to understand that the risks she faces may not be ridiculous and absurd after all"

"Dream

Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland takes place in Alice’s dream, so that the characters and phenomena of the real world mix with elements of Alice’s unconscious state. The dream motif explains the abundance of nonsensical and disparate events in the story. As in a dream, the narrative follows the dreamer as she encounters various episodes in which she attempts to interpret her experiences in relationship to herself and her world. Though Alice’s experiences lend themselves to meaningful observations, they resist a singular and coherent interpretation."


"Subversion

Alice quickly discovers during her travels that the only reliable aspect of Wonderland that she can count on is that it will frustrate her expectations and challenge her understanding of the natural order of the world. In Wonderland, Alice finds that her lessons no longer mean what she thought, as she botches her multiplication tables and incorrectly recites poems she had memorized while in Wonderland. Even Alice’s physical dimensions become warped as she grows and shrinks erratically throughout the story. Wonderland frustrates Alice’s desires to fit her experiences in a logical framework where she can make sense of the relationship between cause and effect."

Experimental Audio; Planning

For the experimental audio, my partner Fatima and I firstly met up to brain storm ideas as well as think about equipment and schedules, discussing locations and ideas we had for the theme of sense of space. As a student who has experience with sound feels comfortable about audio editing, I had a clear idea of how we'd be able to edit the audio in post-production. We almost immediately came up with the theme Alice in Wonderland. After further research on the topic, we knew that it was an idea of which would allow us to be able to really experiment with a number of different sounds as well as explore an eerie and haunting ambience through different editing techniques and manipulation.

Alice in Wonderland has some very deep and dark themes and motifs as a story. To further research into this concept, we each went away to do our own research in order to come up with a number of different ideas and appraoches we can make towards not only the audio piece but also the tone and visuals we'd like to achieve for the experimental film. 

One website I found to be beneficial was this: http://www.alice-in-wonderland.net/ for general knowledge on the book, but more importantly http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/alice/themes.html discusses the themes, motifs and symbols apparent within the story; most of which are dark concepts involving childhood innocence, death and drugs. 

Audio Analysis; Meat Factory Ear Worms

Meat Factory Ear Worms— Audio Analysis

The main elements of this audio piece is the voice over of the narrator, the machinery noises of the factory and the music. The repetition of the same lyrics and how the narrator repeats the phases reflects this idea of ‘Ear worms’, a term used to describe when a song is stuck in your head. 

This audio piece has a purpose of telling a story of this man—the narrator—whom used to work on the killing lines of a meat factory around Ireland and states to have been ‘plagued by a few ear worms’ in his life time. Now he is reminiscing those days, and those songs he once heard during his days in the factory now represent a certain period of his lifetime. I feel that this audio piece portrays that rather well and does it in a very interesting and entertaining way that makes it so that we as the audience are really drawn to what’s happening in the background with the machinery and the song lyrics. 

It’s a rather strange but also unique story told through nothing but simple audio composition and combines two rather different things. A meat factory where they kill animals is almost juxtaposed to the upbeat, lively music that the narrator is singing along to. 

Experimental Film Analysis; Ballet Mécanique

Ballet Mécanique is a great example of experimental film in abstract form. It is one of the earliest experimental films to have ever been made and, as explained in Bordwell and Thompsons Film Art, it's a classic example of how mundane objects can be transformed when their abstract qualities are used as the basis for a films form. 

At first glance, the film may seem random, nothing more than a bombardment of random objects and a woman edited in different ways, but delving further into it’s construction and themes, Ballet Mécanique actually has many complex motifs and hidden meanings. From the title, we can only think that the film would be based on ballet as a form of dance and I was very surprised, albeit confused by the way Ballet Méchanique was presented. It puts emphasis on seemingly random objects such as horse collars, hats, faces and more in strange edits and almost kaleidoscope-like imagery. Immediately, we’re confused, but also intrigued. 

It’s only after viewing it a few more times that I realise the mechanical vibe of the footage and movement. The rhythm and stylisation of the film is indeed very experimental, but it also has meaning and theme. The woman is portrayed as the machinery, whereas the other moving images seem to dance along the screen, ironic to how ballet and ballerinas are supposed to be graceful and elegant, the womans facial expressions and movements are almost robotic. Ballet Méchanque, again quoting Bordwell and Thompson, ‘uses of film techniques to stress the geometric qualities of ordinary things’ and I personally find it fascinating and enjoyable.