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Alice in Wonderland
An adaptation of the 1886 musical "Alice in Wonderland: A Dream Play for Children" by Henry Saville Clark and Walter Slaughter, Fotopoulos' feature length film propels the Clark/Slaughter score into the 21st century digital age. Sculptures, drawings, text, and original music are used to explore the late 19th century's evolution of painting, literature, and theatre into early photography and moving pictures.
The piece probes the interplay of art and science and in exploring these ideas certain lives and themes are touched upon - the relationship between John Ruskin and Lewis Carroll, Ruskin's theories on drawing, Thomas Eakins' painting and his use of photography, the burgeoning of early cinema with Eadweard Muybridge and Etienne-Jules Marey, notions of amateurism and professionalism in art and the archetype of the condemned artist. The work is presented in two acts, remaining faithful to the musical's original construction based upon Carroll's narratives.
"Alice is a multimedia opera presented in the form of a single-screen movie...At the center of the proceedings is a medium close-up of a very beautiful young woman who appears in two guises...Although her face almost never changes its expression, it seems very much alive, thanks to the talent of the actress and Fotopoulos's filmmaking. One fully believes that the drawings (most of them charcoal-shaded outlines on a coral ground), which cross-fade seemingly in front of her face and behind her head, are projected from her psyche."
- Amy Taubin, ArtForum
2010, high-definition video, 99min, color, sound stereo
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