Rebecca C. Serrano

Capstone Introduction

20 September 2017

 

Although watching a movie may seem like an ordinary action, it’s what happens behind the scenes that makes it so important. Most movies begin as stories and even books, which gives us a background or reference to the movie and its important aspects. Someone who is known for turning stories into movies is Walt Disney and Disney Studios. Disney has picked up a lot of rights to old children stories and transformed them into some of the most well-known movies in America if not the World. This transformation, transferring written information to visual productions requires a lot of planning and understanding of the audience and culture of the time. Alice in Wonderland is an important film in Disney culture, Alice being widely accepted as one of Disney Princesses, has been influential on a lot of people’s lives and other film makers. The challenge of creating a move like this is that the phrases and references used in one cannot be used in the other to make a comprehensible movie based on the different culture at the time. This causes the hard task of deciding what to do and how to keep true to the story. Looking at Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland (1865) and the Disney production (1951), using Burkes ideas of termanistic screens and identification, will aid in the understanding of the changes made to transform these beloved texts into the adored films.