{"id":233,"date":"2009-10-04T10:29:04","date_gmt":"2009-10-04T14:29:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/tatar\/?p=233"},"modified":"2009-10-04T17:03:52","modified_gmt":"2009-10-04T21:03:52","slug":"233","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/tatar\/2009\/10\/04\/233\/","title":{"rendered":"The Disappearance of Wonder?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-235\" src=\"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/tatar\/files\/2009\/10\/GC_011433.jpg__1254517426_94013-300x212.jpg\" alt=\"GC_01143.jpg__1254517426_9401\" width=\"300\" height=\"212\" srcset=\"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/tatar\/files\/2009\/10\/GC_011433.jpg__1254517426_94013-300x212.jpg 300w, https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/tatar\/files\/2009\/10\/GC_011433.jpg__1254517426_94013.jpg 539w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>http:\/\/www.boston.com\/ae\/movies\/articles\/2009\/10\/04\/where_the_wonder_goes\/<\/p>\n<p>Ty Burr worries that children&#8217;s stories translated into the cinematic medium risk losing their &#8220;innocence.&#8221; He makes the point that successful stories for children &#8220;address profound aspects of childhood while seeming to look the other way.&#8221;  Films, by contrast, refuse to look away and offer so much information that little room is left for the imagination.  I was reminded of early anxieties about sound film.  In an essay on the Culture Industry, Horkheimer and Adorno worried that film would leave &#8220;no room for imagination or reflection of the part of the audience.&#8221;  The &#8220;victims&#8221; of sound film are so &#8220;absorbed&#8221; by what takes place on screen that they end up equating the cinematic spectacle with reality.<\/p>\n<p>Looking at Burr&#8217;s inventory of cinematic adaptations that &#8220;work&#8221; or &#8220;don&#8217;t work,&#8221; it seems fairly obvious that the success of an adaptation has little to do with &#8220;too much information.&#8221;   The MGM version of <em>The Wizard of Oz<\/em> is actually better than the book, and it is full of fanciful excesses.  Or take <em>Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory <\/em>and <em>Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. <\/em>Why does one work and the other fall flat?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>http:\/\/www.boston.com\/ae\/movies\/articles\/2009\/10\/04\/where_the_wonder_goes\/ Ty Burr worries that children&#8217;s stories translated into the cinematic medium risk losing their &#8220;innocence.&#8221; He makes the point that successful stories for children &#8220;address profound aspects of childhood while seeming to look the other way.&#8221; Films, by contrast, refuse to look away and offer so much information that little room is left for [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2125,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26363],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-233","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-childrens-literature"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/tatar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/233","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/tatar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/tatar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/tatar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2125"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/tatar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=233"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/tatar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/233\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":241,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/tatar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/233\/revisions\/241"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/tatar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=233"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/tatar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=233"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/tatar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=233"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}