“Charlie and the Chocolate Factory”

Can grown-ups be trusted?

“Charlie and the Chocolate Factory,” directed by Tim Burton (Warner Bros, 2005)

Johnny Depp has denied insinuations by internet bloggers that he was impersonating Michael Jackson in playing Willy Wonka (the oddball candyman with whitened face and long black hair) in Tim Burton’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Depp said he channeled Keith Richards for his role in Pirates of the Caribbean and Ozzy Osbourne for his character in Finding Neverland. But in playing Willy Wonka, Depp insisted, he was not inspired by Michael Jackson but by the late children’s show host Fred Rogers.

That’s quite a choice: between the preternaturally innocent Mr. Rogers and the Michael Jackson found innocent of child molestation charges in a courtroom in Santa Maria, California. But that this question should arise at all — and that it should be framed in such stark alternatives — reveals dark clouds overshadowing our visions of childhood. Burton’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory does little to dispel them. Indeed, it can be seen as just one more recent contribution to the general “darkening” of children’s movies and plays.

Consider the principals behind this film. Its director is Tim Burton, the Edward Gorey of children’s films, the twisted genius behind The Nightmare Before Christmas, Beetlejuice, and Edward Scissorhands. And the film is based on a book by Roald Dahl, an immensely popular…