Wes Anderson Speaks Out Against Roald Dahl Book Censorship in Venice
Nobody — outside of maybe Henry Selick — can adapt a Roald Dahl story quite like Wes Anderson, whose 2009 stop-motion animated Fantastic Mr. Fox remains a high watermark. Well, the Texas auteur is back at this year’s Venice Film Festival with another take on Dahl, this time taking on his short story The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar, about a wealthy man (played by Benedict Cumberbatch) who encounters a mystical guru (Ben Kingsley) who can see without using his eyes and endeavors to take adopt this superpower so he can make a killing at gambling. The 39-minute short film, which also stars Dev Patel, Rupert Friend, Richard Ayoade, and Ralph Fiennes as Dahl himself, will be released theatrically on Sept. 20 and stream on Netflix Sept. 27.
During the film’s Venice press conference, Anderson was asked by yours truly about his feelings toward the decision by U.K. publisher Penguin Books to hire “sensitivity readers” to remove colorful passages from Dahl’s deliciously dark canon, which often crossed lines of so-called “political correctness.”
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“You know, I’m probably the worst person to ask about this because if you ask me, ‘Should Renoir be allowed to touch up one of his pictures and modify it?’ I would say, ‘No. It’s done. Somebody bought it. It’s in a museum.’ I don’t even want the artist to modify their work,” Anderson explained. “I understand the motivation for it, but I’m from the school where when the piece of work is done, and we participate in it — the audience participates in it, we know it — and so I think when it’s done, it’s done. And certainly, somebody who’s not an author shouldn’t be modifying his books. He’s dead!
Later on during the presser, Anderson was asked about the Director’s Guild of America’s decision to strike a deal with the studios, aka the Association of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP), ahead of them settling with the Writers Guild of America (WGA), who are about to enter their fifth month of striking. (The actors’ guild, SAG-AFTRA, has been striking since July 14.)
“I’m a member of both the Writers Guild and the Directors Guild for twenty years, or something like that, and I can’t say that I have answers or real suggestions,” said Anderson. “I think that an equitable deal has got to be reached for anyone to go forward. People are suffering. I think the Directors Guild had different issues to solve. There are things we are facing, the writers and in particular the actors, that really don’t apply to the directors. So, I think it was less challenging for them to make that deal. Somebody might tell me, ‘Oh, you don’t know what you’re talking about,’ but that’s my feeling and impression about it.”
While his The Wonderful World of Henry Sugar is adapted from Dahl’s collection of seven short stories titled The Wonderful World of Henry Sugar and Six More, Anderson said he’s also adapted the Dahl short stories “The Swan,” “Poison,” and a more obscure one called “The Ratcatcher.” After those, however, he said he’s done with Dahl for a while.
“I don’t really have any other ones in mind,” he offered. “I have some things brewing, but that might be it for Dahl for the moment.”
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