The director Wes Anderson has said finished works of art should not be touched up or modified after recent attempts to remove offensive language from Roald Dahl’s books.
The director’s latest adaptation of Dahl’s work, The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar, premieres out of competition at Venice film festival on Friday, and follows Anderson’s previous adaptation of Dahl’s Fantastic Mr Fox in 2009.
Asked at a press conference about his opinion on the recent move by Dahl’s publishers to edit now-offensive language out of his work, Anderson said: “I’m probably the worst person to ask about this because if you ask me if Renoir should be allowed to touch up one of his pictures, I would say no. It’s done.
“I don’t even want the artist to modify their work. I understand the motivation for it, but I’m in the school where when the piece of work is done we participate in it. We know it. So I think when it’s done, it’s done.”
He added: “And certainly, no one who is not an author should be modifying somebody’s book. He’s dead.”
It was revealed earlier this year that hundreds of changes had been made to Dahl’s original texts, including James and the Giant Peach, Matilda, The Twits, and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. A statement at the time from Puffin Books said the changes were made so the books could “continue to be enjoyed by all today”.
Henry Sugar, based on a story in a 1977 Dahl short story collection, is about a rich man who learns about a guru who can see without using his eyes, and sets out to master the skill in order to cheat at gambling. The 40-minute short stars Benedict Cumberbatch as the titular character alongside Ralph Fiennes, Ben Kingsley, Dev Patel, Rupert Friend and Richard Ayoade.
It is one of many Dahl stories being produced by Netflix after the company bought Dahl’s estate. But the streamer is one of several big studios at the centre of the ongoing Hollywood strikes over residual pay and the threat of AI technology, which meant Anderson appeared alone at the press conference without his A-list cast.
“I can’t say I have answers or real suggestions,” Anderson said about the strikes. “An equitable deal has got to be reached for anybody to go forward. People are suffering.”
The film-maker also confirmed that his Henry Sugar anthology would eventually include three more short films of the author’s stories.
“There’s another one that’s in the Henry Sugar collection that’s called The Swan, we’ve done that with Rupert Friend. We did a very old one called Poison, which is one I always loved. And then we’ve also done a very strange one called Ratcatcher, which is from a book called Claud’s Dog, a kind of obscure Dahl book set in the eastern part of England. It’s a really rural one, it’s a peculiar story. And they’re all strange.”
Questioned on the “Wes Anderson style”, which famously includes symmetry, whimsical shots and quirky costume designs, Anderson said he didn’t feel like these were conscious choices.
“I know there are so many things that link what I’m drawn to, and I guess you can see it’s me. But I hope I’m always changing and finding new ideas and ways to tell a story. I guess it’s all going to be a bit limited by being filtered by my own brain.”
