A more informal version of this essay was written on my other blog.
(Amelia Shankley as Alice Liddell, Ian Holm as Charles Dodgson (Lewis Carroll) , press photo for Gavin Miller and Dennis Potter's Dreamchild, 1985)
Finding press photos for this film has made me think about the very strange press promotions at the time for this film. I’ve also written an academic paper on Lewis Carroll and portrayals of him in film and TV. I’ve probably spent too much time wondering why on earth this particular film is like the way it is.
For those who don’t know, this film is marginally based on Florence Becker Lennon’s now debunked 1945 biography Victoria Through the looking Glass. Dennis Potter based the film on this, uncredited. He also based the film on his early 1965 tv play Alice, which also used Becker as a basis. If you want to know more about Becker, I recommend this page by Karoline Leach on early Carroll biographies.
There is a general mix of uneasiness around the film’s story in the press releases (the film, as in Becker’s 1940s bio, depicts Carroll as basically a repressed pervert, something future biographers in the late 90s would expose as myth) but also a strange pushing of this theme from some parts of the press team. Several pieces of press from around this time (1980s french VHS trailer, this poster from an unknown country) seem to actively push the implied abuse in the film as a marketing point. Why this was done, I don’t know.
Other pieces, generally originating from the UK and US, push a “true story” biopic angle. You can see this in this poster for US audiences, and this one for the UK.
There are conflicting interviews by producers and those involved in the film. When asked about how the film characterises its fictionalised Lewis Carroll (as played by Ian Holm), both producer and director give VERY different remarks.
This is from a 1985 interview with director Gavin Millar (from starlog issue 101)
love and its various forms, and how it bends under the influence of society, inhibition, repression or morality. It wasn’t a film about a paedophile…it was about a man who was bursting with love for a series of objects
This contrasts with the opinions of producer Kenneth Trodd, who believed that Shankley’s young Alice and Holm’s Dodgson in the film had:
quite a definite, unspoken, unreal- ized, innocent sexual charge
Why did Millar and Trodd say these things? We can’t be sure, but my guess is due to marketing. Each quote plays with then rejects scandal. It wants things both ways. Running co current with these strands was a press strand about Henson and the puppetry used in the flashback sequences.
This strange mix of on one hand marketing scandalous undertones and on another, refusing to speak about the film’s content, is extremely reminiscent of biographer Karoline Leach’s remarks about the 20th century schools of thought on Lewis Carroll. On one hand, Freudians delighting in inventing ideas of perversion in Carroll, on another, the apologists who would only turn their faces away and refuse to refute the Freudians claims, despite evidence being available to do so.
Perhaps the 20th century was the worst time to attempt a carroll biopic? With the diaries not published in full until 1993 and much of biography of that era being made up of theories presented as fact. Not having access to someone’s personal papers breeds myth.
SOURCES:
BOOKS:
Leach, Karoline. In the Shadow of the Dreamchild: the myth and Reality of Lewis Carroll, Peter Owen Press, 2015.
PHOTOS
Dreamchild Ian Holm Amelia Shankley. Alamy Photos
https://www.alamy.com/dreamchild-ian-holm-amelia-shankley-date-1985-image156926801.html
IMDB: Dreamchild Poster 1985, Country Unknown
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0089052/mediaviewer/rm3212818945
Dreamchild UK 1985 Poster 2: Actors Highlighted . Accessed November 12, 2020. https://images.static-
https://images.static-bluray.com/products/20/38412_1_large.jpg
Filmaffinity: Dreamchild US Poster. Accessed November 12, 2020.
https://pics.filmaffinity.com/Dreamchild-508564099-large.jpg
INTERVIEWS:
Pirani, Adam. “On the Set of Dreamchild.” Starlog Magazine no. 101, November 1985. 45 – 48.
ONLINE VIDEOS
Dreamchild 1985 Trailer, 2013. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ef9ghnxZTQ
FILM
Millar, Garth, Dreamchild. UK/US: Pfh Ltd, Thorn EMI, 1985. https://www.worldcat.org/title/dreamchild/oclc/921297099&referer=brief_results
