Roald Dahl is one of the best known British authors internationally and also one of the most adapted to the audiovisual medium. ‘Charlie and the Chocolate Factory’ is one of his most celebrated novels and has been brought to the big screen twice (three, if you count the prequel starring Timothée Chalamet that is on the way). Dahl only lived to see the first one and almost all the better because he hated her with all his might.
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Roald Dahl himself was always a character. Born in Wales in 1916, the writer had a prolific literary career full of hits such as ‘Matilda’, ‘The Witches’ or ‘Charlie and the Chocolate Factory’. His stories they appealed to a youthful audience, whom he saw capable of reaching deep reflections without speaking to them from paternalism.
‘Charlie and the Chocolate Factory’ is a good example of the craziest and most unbridled side of some of Dahl’s stories, beginning with the character of Willy Wonkaa wealthy owner of a chocolate factory who had his workers enslaved and had fun watching the children fall into his traps.
Without a doubt, the premise of those children who fulfilled the dream of visiting a candy paradise could seem at first sight somewhat charming and naive, but at its base there was a perverse sense of humor and a acid criticism of how parents spoil their offspring.
Precisely, Dahl’s main criticism when he saw the version starring Gene Wilder (renamed ‘Willy Wonka and the chocolate factory’ and in Spain as ‘A fantasy world’) was for not be dark enough. Despite being involved in the script, the author bristled from the start at the small changes made by David Seltzer, the manuscript’s reviewer.
The author was very dissatisfied with the direction of Mel Stuartwhom he called “have no talent or style”. Not to mention what he considered “garbage musical numbers”even trying to eliminate ‘The Candyman’ without much success.
But the most blatant mistake What did the novelist of that version find? were the oompa loompas. In the book, these characters were African pygmies who worked day and night in the service of Willy Wonka, something that the NAACP (an American association that defends the rights of the black community) did not see favorably.
Finally, Dahl agreed to represent the Oompa Loompas as these disturbing orange-skinned beings of indefinite ethnicity, who burst into song while the children dropped like flies during their visit to the factory.
On the other hand, Dahl grew fed up with the producers’ insistence on making Willy Wonka the center of everything, due to the financial interest in using the story to launch a new Quaker Oats candy bar. He also didn’t like Gene Wilder’s watered-down performance.which he found pretentious and lacking in the macabre connotations of the novel.
Although he was paid for the rights and the release of the tape had a positive impact on book sales, Dahl disowned it throughout his life and stated that the experience had been totally depressing for him. The author died 15 years before the premiere of Tim Burton’s version, so we are left with the question of what opinion Johnny Depp would have received as the deranged Willy Wonka.