From Page to Screen / Vom Buch zum Film. Группа авторов
emphasized in the film. For instance, at some point the film when her father is angry, he tells Matilda the following words to show her inferiority “I’m smart, you’re dumb. I’m big, you’re little. I’m right, you’re wrong and there is nothing you can do about it” (DeVito et al., De Vito, 1996: 16:16). Similarly, and to make more noticeable for children that they are the antagonists, Miss Trunchbull uses almost the same exact words when she is reprimanding Matilda: “I’m big and you’re small and I’m right and you’re wrong and there is nothing you can do about it” (DeVito et al., De Vito, 1996: 50:18).
As Matilda’s parents, Miss Trunchbull also yells instead of speaking, uses abusive language and acts cruelly with those who contradict her, or just stand in her way. Both in the film and in the book Trunchbull is the protagonist of several passages in which she verbally and physically abuses the children in the school. The most notable examples in the novel are the day when Trunchbull throws a student through the window because he is eating licorice, the day she takes a little girl, Amanda, from her plaits because she does not like them and throws her with such a strength that the girl is sent out over the fence and out of the school premises, or when she lifts another student from his ears because he has given a wrong answer to a question. But maybe the most shocking one is the episode with Bruce Bogtrotter and the chocolate cake. The boy has apparently eaten a piece of cake which was Trunchbull’s. Now, she makes him eat an entire huge chocolate cake in front of all the children in the school. The kids’ reaction and the final outcome of this episode is of paramount importance in the story, and it is further discussed in section 4.2.3.
Even though the film reproduces some of these episodes, Miss Trunchbull’s physical violence against children is slightly modified in some cases or omitted in others in what could be seen as an attempt to adjust the tone of the movie to its potential target audience. An example of the former would be the case of “flying Amanda”, which in the film has a more sugar-coated ending: after she is thrown by Miss Trunchbull, the child lands softly in a flower field. While she is sliding on the flowers, she takes a bunch of them which she lifts up to show her partners that she is fine. As for the omissions mentioned before, the book describes more violent scenes that were not included in the film due to their brutality, a decision that helps prevent the shock numerous aggressions against children could cause in an audience watching a PG rated movie. There are two clear examples that were overlooked in the film that can be found in Dahl’s account when Miss Trunchbull visits Matilda’s classroom. Firstly, she lifts a boy by his hair until he gives the correct answer to a maths question and then lets him go so that he ends up hitting the floor. In the second instance, Miss Trunchbull takes another student and holds him aloft by his ears until he is able to spell a word correctly.
Regardless of whether they affect her or some of her classmates, Matilda’s reaction against the outrages committed by her parents or Miss Trunchbull is always the same. Both in the book and in the film, these abuses spark one of the protagonist’s most distinctive features: her role as an avenger who seeks to punish adults’ misbehavior.
4.2.3 Rebellion against power: Children strike back
The previous list of events triggers another pivotal issue in Roald Dahl’s story: kids’ rebellion against adults’ attitudes and grievances. In this section, we will focus on analyzing how Matilda fights back adults’ misbehavior towards her and other children. As the following paragraphs will show, the little girl uses different strategies to fight her parents, especially her father, and Miss Trunchbull. This combative spirit is a central trait of the protagonist’s characterization and is conveyed – with minor differences – both in the book and in the movie,
In the former, the actions Matilda performs to punish her father always come after one of his outbursts towards her. In the book, the reader is presented with the following events: the first time Matilda decides to have her own little victory over her father was when she asked him to have dinner in her bedroom so that she could read a book instead of watching TV. He denies her the possibility and it is then when Matilda first gets tired of being insulted and discredited. So, she puts some superglue on her father’s hat so that it sticks to his hair. When he arrives home, he cannot take it out and the next morning, her mother has to cut his hair to let the hat go.
The second punishment comes when Mr. Wormwood tears off a book from the library that Matilda is reading. Instead of crying, she remembers a boy who has a parrot that can speak. She borrows the parrot, takes it home and hides it in the chimney where no one could see it. In the evening, when they were having dinner, the parrot starts talking and making noise. The family notices a presence but cannot see anything or anybody, so they get so scared they run away from the house.
The last of these actions against her father occurs when Mr. Wormwood is talking with his son about his earnings that day and makes him do some calculations on a piece of paper. Matilda is able to calculate in her head as her father is dictating the numbers to her brother and she immediately tells the result. First, his father tells her to shut up but then he looks at his paper and checks that Matilda’s answer is correct. Instead of congratulating her, he calls her a cheat and tells her she must have seen his paper before as it is impossible for her to have done those calculations on her own. Again, Matilda takes action and puts some of her mother’s platinum blonde hair dye in his father’s hair lotion, so the next morning her father’s hair is blonde.
The film mirrors these scenes with some differences. Only the episodes of the superglue on the hat and the hair dye are presented, but the one involving the parrot is not included. The hat and the superglue scene takes place at Mr. Wormwood garage. He is there with his son and daughter explaining his dark deeds to sell more cars. Matilda considers these practices to be wrong and that is why she puts some glue she finds in the garage in his father’s hat. In a subsequent scene at a restaurant where the family is celebrating the mother’s earnings in the bingo, Mr. Wormwood tries, pathetically and unsuccessfully, to take it out making a fool of himself in front of his relatives and the other customers. The second prank Matilda plays on her father in the film is the hair dying after the calculations sequence; in this case, the events in the movie are rather similar to those narrated in the book.
The last teaching that Matilda gives her parents as a rebellion against their bad actions is her refusal to go with them when they are leaving the country. At the same time this helps to show once again how little Matilda’s parents cared for her. In the book, Matilda tells them she wants to stay with Miss Honey. Mrs. Wormwood’s reaction is “It’ll be one less to look after”, to what the father replies that if she wants to stay: “It’s fine with me” (Dahl, 1988; 2016: 232). In the film, this scene is treated in a slightly different way, probably as a means to pave the way for the less gloomy ending we will describe later. Matilda’s parents go to Miss Honey’s to pick Matilda up and they tell her they are leaving the country. Matilda asks Miss Honey to adopt her, and she takes the adoption papers from her schoolbag —she had them ready just in case something like this might happen— and makes her parents sign them. The adoption is therefore legally made, and we can even see a more emotional reaction on Matilda’s mother: “You’re the only daughter I’ve ever had, Matilda, and I never understood you, not one little bit”, but, as the narrator comments, this was maybe “the first decent thing they ever did for her daughter, the Wormwoods signed the adoption papers” (DeVito et al., De Vito, 1996: 1:30:25).
As for her fight against Trunchbull, Matilda takes action not only as a response to direct attacks towards her but to other children in the book. For instance, in the event described before with Bruce and the chocolate cake, when the child ends up eating the entire cake, all his schoolmates cheer him and this is seen as a victory of all of them over Trunchbull, who gets even more enraged. Even though the scene is repeated in the film, there are small details that are presented differently in the movie. In this particular case, the film shows us Bruce suffering at some points, although in the book he never shows “sign of flagging or giving up” (Dahl, 1988; 2016: 123). When we see the boy feeling he cannot stand it anymore, Matilda stands up and cheers him, which gives him the strength to go on. In the book, this happens when he has almost finished eating, and the narrator refers to “someone”, not Matilda in particular, who encourages him to make it. The ending and the consequences of this event are also slightly different: