WONDERLAND behind the scenes: A Mad Cocktail Party

As soon as I had finished making “Alice Falls” (see A Different Kind of Rabbit-Hole for that story), I remember feeling very certain that I wasn’t done pursuing this idea. But my Alice’s mind had just disintegrated—what could possibly happen after that? Well, nothing. It was so inconvenient that I been inspired by the very first big event of the original Alice’s Adventures In Wonderland story. So I did what every artist does when they run into a question they can’t answer: I changed the question. What happened to my Alice before she falls?

Once I had the basic idea for the story (see My Version of the Story for that—um, story), I knew that there was only one event from the book that could encapsulate the events that sent my Alice over the edge, and that was the Mad Tea-Party.

I had originally envisioned the scene a lot more like “Taxi Driver.” Alice spends a lot of her time alone, just like Travis Buttle (but without the mohawk and the incessant pull-ups). One day while playing crazy hostess to her “friend” the March Hare, she asks it a simple question—how do I get back to Wonderland? When she doesn’t get an answer from this inanimate object, polite asking turns into violent interrogating.

After the March Hare does not respond any differently to her threats than to her sweet inquiries, she loses it and strangles the stuffie. We had so much fun with this angle, and Brooke really committed to the role. After playing this out and taking a short break, we tackled the “Melancholy Alice” shot. Seeing how well that turned out (see Remaking Alice for that story), I wanted to try another angle as well, something less Scorcese and more David Lynch. And that’s how we ended up at my Alice’s Mad Cocktail Party. I mean, the only thing my Alice could do that was crazier than interrogating a stuffie was—well, nothing. Just sit and have a drink with it.

In the book, Alice has a cat named Dinah that she misses dearly. We tried to find a good stuffed cat for a prop, but nothing worked, and they all actually ended up competing with the March Hare in the shot. When I mentioned this to Brooke (Alice) on the set, she responded with seven magical words: “I have a black cat named Hollywood.” What’s more Wonderland than that? At first when she brought him to the set, Hollywood the cat was quite apprehensive. After a little calming, he found a comfortable spot that he liked. He then spent the entire photo shoot perched atop the fridge! It was priceless. Anyone who says that animals are difficult to work with never worked with Hollywood.

Besides, not only did he fulfill the role of Dinah, he played the Cheshire Cat, too! Check out those creepy hypnotic eyes!

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