Using Jonathan Miller's Alice in Wonderland in other curriculum subjects
This film lends itself to a range of cross-curricular activities and in the context of studying the film in English your students could be invited to:
Art
- Research and study some Victorian photographs and photographers: eg Fox-Talbot, Julia Margaret-Cameron and Frank Meadows Sutcliffe, and some Pre-Raphaelite paintings. Analyse how both of these have influenced Miller's film.
- Try to recreate a film still or a photograph: draw or paint it. Students could try to emulate the style of one of the photographers or a Pre-Raphaelite painter.
- Take a photograph or painting and use it as the basis for a short film sequence.
History
- Research Victorian values and culture.
- Research the values and culture of the 1960s. Compare the two.
- Analyse how Miller's film is a product of its day.
- Analyse how the 1903 Alice in Wonderland (on the DVD) reflects its society.
Science
- Study the eye and the camera lens. Look at how you can deceive the eye. Use the camera lens to make things look bigger and smaller than they are.
- Study what happens to the body when we sleep. Find out how and why we dream.
- Using ideas from Miller's film, make an information film based on one of the above points.
- Use the 'eat me' and 'drink me' section in the film as a springboard for teaching the effects of drugs on the body.
Design and Technology
- Explore the technology of film from 1903, the 1960s and the 21st century.
- Take a sequence from Miller's film and plan a re-shoot using the technology available today.
Geography
- Use Miller's film to study the representation of the countryside. Discuss how and why this might be idealised.
- Produce a film sequence that shows the reality of the countryside today.
Music
- Analyse the relationship between the music and the images used in a section of the film.
- Compose a music soundtrack to the 1903 Alice in Wonderland.
ICT
- Design some opening titles for the film. Produce them as a PowerPoint display.
PE/Dance
- Choreograph the lobster quadrille.
Drama
- Produce a drama based upon a dream sequence.
- Take a section of the novel that is not included in the film, eg the crying and swimming sequence. Write a script for that section and perform it.
- Film the drama; analyse the film to evaluate it, and see how it could be improved.
RE/Citizenship/PSHE
- Discuss what is suitable and unsuitable for children in the film.
- Classify the film, giving reasons.
- Discuss how and why childhood is thought of as precious.
- Discuss what is real, surreal and idealised in the film.
- Discuss how ideas about sanity and madness are represented in the film.
- Use the caucus-race as a starting point for studying Victorian high-church religion.
GCSE Media studies
- Produce a biography of Jonathan Miller.
- Analyse the style of his films.
- Produce a film sequence in the style of Miller.
