Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory
While the film itself may fail to mesmerize me today as it did as a child, Gene Wilder’s impressively nuanced turn as the mad man in the purple cap has only grown more substantial as I’ve grown. He is the embodiment of enigmatic as the entrepreneur, both a villain and hero to the story depending on which part of the film you’re at. Is he the cipher of nightmares or the builder of dreams? It’s the ambiguity that Wilder sells so phenomenally in his role, from his feigned entrance to his closing sweeping moments, that makes him so utterly untouchable. Young Frankenstein may have been the better movie and Blazing Saddles finds Wilder at his funniest but as Willy Wonka he is iconic. His voice soothes in “Pure Imagination” and there’s no forgetting his increasingly hysterics in the psychedelic train sequence. He’s warm, he’s conniving and he’s a great thinker, all of which plays out beneath the surface of his eyes. For what could have been an air light role, he made it the work of a master. -Allyson Johnson
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