Gene Wilder - Willy Wonka
They say to write to your heroes, but not to expect a response because it puts too much pressure on them to reach your expectations. Mr. Wilder, I want you to know - I don’t just admire you. Because I was introduced to you through Willy Wonka, I am terrified of you. Of your genius. In a good way. So any expectation I would have upon hearing from you would be pre-empted by sheer panic. Which is to say, better for both of us we don’t meet. But hear me out.
Sometimes there are actors out there who play a role that will change your life. For me, it’s Willy Wonka. And not Roald Dahl’s strange, perky, slightly adorably spastic Willy Wonka - the dazzling-eyed, calmly insane, awe-inspiring Gene Wilder’s. Prepare yourself Mr. Wilder; this is quite frankly a long overdue fan letter from a 10-year-old-trapped-in-a-26-year-old’s-body.
What is so compelling about that Willy Wonka? Part of it is that Gene Wilder took something that went from this:
On behalf of us all, thanks for forgoing the goatee, Gene.
In the book, the first description we get of Wonka when he comes out of the factory is pretty vivid:
“How clever he looked! How quick and sharp and full of life! He kept making quick jerky little movements with his head, cocking it this way and that, and taking everything in with those bright twinkling eyes. He was like a squirrel in the quickness of his movements, like a quick clever old squirrel from the park.”
My sentiments exactly, google image squirrel. Not exactly what I saw in the movie.
And this was the exact moment that all of my hopes and dreams for any kind of art I make were birthed from the loins of Zeus.
Gene Wilder wrote to Mel Stuart (director of the movie) that he would take on the role of Willy Wonka on one condition:
“When I make my first entrance, I’d like to come out of the door carrying a cane and then walk toward the crowd with a limp. After the crowd sees Willy Wonka is a cripple, they all whisper to themselves and then become deathly quiet. As I walk toward them, my cane sinks into one of the cobblestones I’m walking on and stands straight up, by itself; but I keep on walking, until I realize that I no longer have my cane. I start to fall forward, and just before I hit the ground, I do a beautiful forward somersault and bounce back up, to great applause. Because from that time on, no one will know if I’m lying or telling the truth.”
“No one will know if I’m lying or telling the truth.”
Only the slightest bit horrifyingly BRILLIANT.
Sound familiar, Shakespeareans? It should.
Take one of Shakespeare’s fools. Feste, for example. From Twelfth Night.
Feste does what a lot of fools do. He makes his living darting between noble houses singing songs and delighting people. Evoking all their emotions. And he carouses and drinks with the lower class too, taunting people who think they are greater than they are (Malvolio). There are no bounds to where Feste can roam and what he can do.
Because he’s a different class of person.
Not that kind. That’s a whole other post.
Fools have a special place in all of Shakespeare’s plays - they entertain, they evoke every feeling, they lie through their teeth, and they tell the god’s honest truth. In fact, they are usually the only ones on stage that can see through just about every illusion.
Feste is the only character in all of Twelfth Night that figures out Viola (dressed as a boy, Cesario) is actually a girl. It’s a clue in the text that A SURPRISING AMOUNT of productions today miss:
VIOLA: I warrant, thou art a merry fellow and carest for nothing.
FESTE: Not so, sir, I do care for something; but in my conscience, sir, I do not care for you: if that be to care for nothing, sir, I would it would make you invisible.
The word “nothing” was a pun to the Elizabethans. It also meant vag. Literally “the no-thing.” As in “NO!” Anyone else find that funny? Anyone?
Feste is basically calling Viola out - that if to care for her is to care for “no-thing,” he wishes that she would disappear. Instead of a girl dressed in boys clothing (which is clearly inconvenient for her). Also, note the number of “sirs” he throws in there. Comic gold.
HOW DO SHAKESPEARE COMPANIES MISS THIS?
Feste is, in his way, an all-powerful being. He sees everything.
So what do you think would happen if someone gave this all-knowing, all-powerful being his own kingdom?
Perhaps a chocolate factory?
Oh, and also - remember all those haunting songs and quotes Wonka throws in there? Just out of the blue? Well, surprise, surprise. Almost all of them are from this guy:
“Where is fancy bred, in the heart or in the head?” - Merchant of Venice
“Springtime, the only pretty ring time. When birds do sing hey ding a ding, ding, sweet lovers love the spring.” - As You Like It
“Adieu, adieu, parting is such sweet sorrow.” - Romeo & Juliet
“So shines a good deed in a weary world.” - Merchant of Venice
“Is it my soul that calls upon my name?” - Romeo & Juliet
And we can’t forget that Roald Dahl wrote this character. He brought it to into being. And his Willy Wonka evokes a lovely aspect of the Shakespearean fool (a bright, twerky, thought-provoking, slightly creepy being), but Wilder’s takes it to the next level.
Just because of that little bit of sinister mystery he places in our brains in that first moment, we have to wonder what he’s going to do to those bad children. He’ll see through them immediately. Like he does.
And you know what happens? They get what was coming to them.
Anyone remember that Feste scene with Malvolio? In the asylum?
TL;DR - Willy Wonka was Gene Wilder’s version of a Shakespearean fool with his own chocolate factory kingdom. Bow down.
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