I have watched Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory almost every year for over 25 years.
When I was a little kid, I hardly even noticed Willy Wonka singing…I was so into imagining myself in the chocolate factory eating all those sweets, jealous of the kids’ gluttonous sugar consumption. Especially because as a kid my sweets intake was confined by my parents to one evening a week.
As a teen the music was neat and liked the idea of imagination. Willy Wonka was entertaining at that point.
As a post-collegiate climber – I was told that this movie was a metaphor of drug abuse. A climber named Joe explained Slugworth was a pusher, the fizzy-lifting-drink was nitrous and that the everlasting gobstopper was in fact the everlasting-quaalude. I am not sure I buy all this, but it was an interesting perspective at the time.
A few years ago I watched it and the idea of planning/dreaming/imagining and then building a magical chocolate factory seemed feasible from the song. Imagination being equivalent to constructing a blue print to be built later.
I was just watching this clip/song the other day with my daughter and it hit me full on. Imagination is not the dreaming of the thing. It is the creation of the thing in the here and now. Active manifestation. At a certain level of consciousness – imagination is all that is required to bring something of desire into form or enjoyed in it’s pre-physical-form stage.
Willy Wonka’s melancholy when eating the buttercup at the end of this clip is from the deep understanding that he dwells in a consciousness that no one around him gets and it is lonely, but also that suffering is inherent in all of his creation. It is why he must give it away (eventually to Charlie) – the only pure form of happiness is service to others and sharing of ones merits.
All this in a children’s movie – I am quite moved by the depth inherent in the seemingly superficial things. I look forward to watching it in 5 – 10 or 20 years from now to see what turns up.
Video and Lyrics below – enjoy.
Willy Wonka:
[Spoken]
Hold your breath
Make a wish
Count to three
[Sung]
Come with me
And you’ll be
In a world of
Pure imagination
Take a look
And you’ll see
Into your imagination
We’ll begin
With a spin
Traveling in
The world of my creation
What we’ll see
Will defy
Explanation
If you want to view paradise
Simply look around and view it
Anything you want to, do it
Wanta change the world?
There’s nothing
To it
There is no
Life I know
To compare with
Pure imagination
Living there
You’ll be free
If you truly wish to be
If you want to view paradise
Simply look around and view it
Anything you want to, do it
Wanta change the world?
There’s nothing
To it
There is no
Life I know
To compare with
Pure imagination
Living there
You’ll be free
If you truly
Wish to be
