There aren't too many movies that I can watch over and over without ever getting sick of them. Almost every movie I've ever seen has at least one part that I go "meh...we can skip that." But of the 10 or so films that I can watch without ever tiring of them...two of them star Gene Wilder.
I can't remember how old I was the first time I ever saw Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, but I do remember that I almost shut the TV off when Violet Beauregard turned into a blueberry. I'd begged to stay up past my 9:00 bedtime to watch the movie on ABC Family, and then promptly regretted it when Augustus Gloop went up the chocolate pipe. But I do remember my first look at Gene Wilder--how much I liked his purple Wonka coat, how reassuring his low voice was, how much I wanted to pet his soft, curly hair, how his blue eyes reminded me of my dad's. I'll never forget that first look, because for the rest of the movie I was alternately fascinated and scared--except for my first look at the chocolate room. To this day, I still tear up at the sound of the opening notes of "Pure Imagination," and until today, I couldn't for the life of me have told you why.
Looking back, that was one of the defining moments for me as an artist. I'd never read the book, so that was my introduction to Willy Wonka, and that movie, to me, was exactly what I wanted to make--again, I couldn't have told you that at the time, but now I know. It was a little quirky, a little weird and a bit scary, but there was so much beauty there, so much mystery and so much hope. And at the center of it all, a weirdo, a most lovable weirdo, who I could love and be a little afraid of at the same time.
Years later I read the book and could not picture anyone else, any other actor in the world, as Mr. Wonka. Gene Wilder, with his perfect combination of calm and excitement, of threatening discipline and loving reassurance, with all his quirks and secret little smiles and perfectly straight-faced delivery of lines like "If the good Lord had intended us to walk, He wouldn't have invented roller skates," he was Wonka, plain and simple. I love Tim Burton--you all know I do--but no one, not least of all Johnny Depp, could ever embody Willy Wonka as Gene Wilder did, and no movie could ever replace Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory.
As is the case with most of the people and things I now love, it took me a while to recognize the genius of Gene Wilder and the movies he chose to be in. Young Frankenstein and Willy Wonka scared me; Blazing Saddles and Silver Streak went over my head. But over time, I learned to love him. The first time I saw Young Frankenstein, I cried before the opening credits were even over, but by the time we moved to the suburbs when I was twelve, Halloween season wasn't complete without it. When I got to Interlochen, I got teased more than once for preferring "funny" versions of movies that everyone else thought were classics, being called "immature" for preferring, for instance, Stir Crazy to The Shawshank Redemption. I didn't mind. Wilder's humor appealed to me a lot, far more than the dramatics that everyone else referred to as the only quality cinema.
I've always had particular taste when it came to comedy. Again, if you show me something like Stir Crazy, I will laugh myself sick; put on Superbad or This is the End, I'm bored in five minutes. I've sat stone-faced through movies that had my friends in stitches--but I have yet to see a Gene Wilder film that failed to make me laugh at least once. Am I picky? Old-fashioned, when it comes to humor? Undoubtedly, but I don't care.
Mr. Gene Wilder, you have made me laugh more times than I can count. I spent so much of my childhood and adolescence learning humor from your films. You were a brilliant actor, but more importantly you were, as far as I'm concerned, a genius and a sweetheart. You deliberately kept your illness a secret to protect the kids who grew up loving your movies. And for that, you will forever have my admiration. Thank you, thank you for being the kind of person a kid could look up to, for giving the world so much joy and for living such a great life. You so deserved your fame--and now you deserve your rest. Thank you for everything. You will not be forgotten.
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