Wes Anderson’s new short film, The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar, marks the second time the director has made an adaptation of a work by the celebrated author Roald Dahl. So, it’s no surprise that when he held a press conference at the Venice Film Festival for the premiere on Friday, September 1st, he was asked about his thoughts on the edits publishers made to Dahl’s books for a recently released collection meant for kids, which included rewrites intended to remove “offensive” language.
“Certainly no one who is not an author should be modifying somebody’s book,” he said at the press conference. “I don’t even want the artist to modify their work… I understand the motivation for it, but I’m in the school where, when the piece of work is done, we participate in it. The audience participates in it. We know it. So, I think when it’s done, it’s done.”
Watch the full video of Anderson’s response below.
Announced by Penguin last February, the new Dahl collection aims to make the writing less offensive by removing words like “fat” and “ugly,” or adding additional context on sensitive issues. For example, a disclaimer in The Witches explains that, though the witches are bald beneath their wigs, there are “plenty of other reasons why women might wear wigs and there is certainly nothing wrong with that.”
Besides Anderson, the edited series also got pushback from people like British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and Judy Blume (who knows a thing or two about controversial books). Penguin then announced shortly after the initial reveal that they would also release a “The Roald Dahl Classics Collection,” which would keep the original text.
Anderson’s previous adaptation of Dahl was 2009’s Fantastic Mr. Fox, based on Dahl’s 1970 book by the same name. In the press conference on Friday, Anderson revealed that he has even more adaptations of Dahl in the works, including The Swan from the Henry Sugar collection, and two more short stories, Poison and The Ratcatcher.
The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar premiered at the Venice Film Festival on Friday, but won’t receive a wider release until later this month. It’ll be available to stream on Netflix on September 27th. In 2021, Netflix purchased The Roald Dahl Story Company, giving them the rights to his beloved books.
Wes Anderson talks about the recent news about Roald Dahl’s books being rewritten to remove language deemed offensive, saying that, while he understands the motivation, he believes when a piece of art “is done, it’s done” and nobody should be modifying it. pic.twitter.com/OlszsTKbNC
— Alex Ritman (@alexritman) September 1, 2023