title: Napoleon III

text: The court moved with the Emperor and Empress from palace to palace each year following a regular calendar. At the beginning of May, the Emperor and court moved to the Château de Saint-Cloud for outdoor activities in the park. In June and July, they moved with selected guests to the Palace of Fontainebleau for walks in the forest and boating on the lake. In July, the court moved to thermal baths for a health cure, first to Plombières, then to Vichy, and then, after 1856, to the military camp and residence built at Châlons-sur-Marne (nowadays: Châlons-en-Champagne), where Napoleon could take the waters and review military parades and exercises. Beginning in 1856, the Emperor and Empress spent each September in Biarritz in the Villa Eugénie, a large villa overlooking the sea. They would walk on the beach or travel to the mountains, and in the evenings they would dance and sing and play cards and take part in other games and amateur theatricals and charades with their guests. In November, the court moved to the Château de Compiègne for forest excursions, dancing and more games. Famous scientists and artists, such as Louis Pasteur, Gustave Flaubert, Eugène Delacroix and Giuseppe Verdi, were invited to participate in the festivities at Compiègne.


title: Napoleon III

text: At the end of the year the Emperor and Court returned to the Tuileries Palace and gave a series of formal receptions and three or four grand balls with six hundred guests early in the new year. Visiting dignitaries and monarchs were frequently invited. During Carnival, there was a series of very elaborate costume balls on the themes of different countries and different historical periods, for which guests sometimes spent small fortunes on their costumes.


title: Napoleon III

text: Napoleon III had conservative and traditional taste in art: his favourite painters were Alexandre Cabanel and Franz Xaver Winterhalter, who received major commissions, and whose work was purchased for state museums. At the same time, he followed public opinion, and he made an important contribution to the French avant-garde. In 1863, the jury of the Paris Salon, the famous annual showcase of French painting, headed by the ultra-conservative director of the Academy of Fine Arts, Count Émilien de Nieuwerkerke, refused all submissions by avant-garde artists, including those by Édouard Manet, Camille Pissarro and Johan Jongkind. The artists and their friends complained, and the complaints reached Napoleon III. His office issued a statement: "Numerous complaints have come to the Emperor on the subject of the works of art which were refused by the jury of the Exposition. His Majesty, wishing to let the public judge the legitimacy of these complaints, has decided that the works of art which were refused should be displayed in another part of the Palace of Industry."


title: Napoleon III

text: Following Napoleon's decree, an exhibit of the rejected paintings, called the Salon des Refusés, was held in another part of the Palace of Industry, where the Salon took place. More than a thousand visitors a day came to see now-famous paintings such as Édouard Manet's "Le Déjeuner sur l'herbe" and James McNeill Whistler's "". ' The journalist Émile Zola reported that visitors pushed to get into the crowded galleries where the refused paintings were hung, and the rooms were full of the laughter and mocking comments of many of the spectators. While the paintings were ridiculed by many critics and visitors, the work of the avant-garde became known for the first time to the French public, and it took its place alongside the more traditional style of painting.


title: Napoleon III

text: Napoleon III also began or completed the restoration of several important historic landmarks, carried out for him by Eugène Viollet-le-Duc. He restored the flèche, or spire, of the Cathedral of Notre-Dame de Paris, which had been partially destroyed and desecrated during the French Revolution. In 1855, he completed the restoration, begun in 1845, of the stained glass windows of the Sainte-Chapelle, and in 1862, he declared it a national historical monument. In 1853, he approved and provided funding for Viollet-le-Duc's restoration of the medieval town of Carcassonne. He also sponsored Viollet-le-Duc's restoration of the Château de Vincennes and the Château de Pierrefonds, In 1862, he closed the prison which had occupied the Abbey of Mont-Saint-Michel since the French Revolution, where many important political prisoners had been held, so it could be restored and opened to the public.


title: Napoleon III

text: From the beginning of his reign, Napoleon III launched a series of social reforms aimed at improving the life of the working class. He began with small projects, such as opening up two clinics in Paris for sick and injured workers, a programme of legal assistance to those unable to afford it, as well as subsidies to companies that built low-cost housing for their workers. He outlawed the practice of employers taking possession of or making comments in the work document that every employee was required to carry; negative comments meant that workers were unable to get other jobs. In 1866, he encouraged the creation of a state insurance fund to help workers or peasants who became disabled and help their widows and families.


title: Napoleon III

text: To help the working class, Napoleon III offered a prize to anyone who could develop an inexpensive substitute for butter; the prize was won by the French chemist Hippolyte Mège-Mouriès, who in 1869 patented a product he named oleomargarine, later shortened simply to margarine.


title: Napoleon III

text: His most important social reform was the 1864 law that gave French workers the right to strike, which had been forbidden since 1810. In 1866, he added to this an "Edict of Tolerance" which gave factory workers the right to organise. He issued a decree regulating the treatment of apprentices and limited working hours on Sundays and holidays. He removed from the Napoleonic Code the infamous article 1781, which said that the declaration of the employer, even without proof, would be given more weight by the court than the word of the employee.


title: Napoleon III

text: Napoleon III and the Empress Eugénie worked to give girls and women greater access to public education. In 1861, through the direct intervention of the Emperor and the Empress, Julie-Victoire Daubié became the first woman in France to receive the baccalauréat diploma. In 1862, the first professional school for young women was opened, and Madeleine Brès became the first woman to enroll in the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Paris.


title: Napoleon III

text: In 1863, he made Victor Duruy, the son of a factory worker and a respected historian, his new Minister of Public Education. Duruy accelerated the pace of the reforms, often coming into conflict with the Catholic Church, which wanted the leading role in education. Despite the opposition of the Church, Duruy opened schools for girls in each commune with more than five hundred residents, a total of eight hundred new schools.


title: Napoleon III

text: Between 1863 and 1869, Duruy created scholastic libraries for fifteen thousand schools and required that primary schools offer courses in history and geography. Secondary schools began to teach philosophy, which had been banned by the previous regime at the request of the Catholic Church. For the first time, public schools in France began to teach contemporary history, modern languages, art, gymnastics and music. The results of the school reforms were dramatic: in 1852, over 40 percent of army conscripts in France were unable to read or write, yet by 1869, the number had dropped to 25 percent. The rate of illiteracy among both girls and boys dropped to 32 percent.


title: Napoleon III

text: At the university level, Napoleon III founded new faculties in Marseille, Douai, Nancy, Clermont-Ferrand and Poitiers and founded a network of research institutes of higher studies in the sciences, history, and economics. These also were criticized by Catholic ecclesiastics. The Cardinal-Archbishop of Rouen, Monseigneur Bonnechose, wrote, "True science is religious, while false science, on the other hand, is vain and prideful; being unable to explain God, it rebels against him."


title: Napoleon III

text: One of the centerpieces of the economic policy of Napoleon III was the lowering of tariffs and the opening of French markets to imported goods. He had been in Britain in 1846 when Prime Minister Robert Peel had lowered tariffs on imported grains, and he had seen the benefits to British consumers and the British economy. However, he faced bitter opposition from many French industrialists and farmers, who feared British competition. Convinced he was right, he sent his chief economic advisor, Michel Chevalier, to London to begin discussions, and secretly negotiated a new commercial agreement with Britain, calling for the gradual lowering of tariffs in both countries. He signed the treaty, without consulting with the Assembly, on 23 January 1860. Four hundred of the top industrialists in France came to Paris to protest, but he refused to yield. Industrial tariffs on such products as steel rails for railways were lowered first; tariffs on grains were not lowered until June 1861. Similar agreements were negotiated with the Netherlands, Italy, and France's other neighbors. France's industries were forced to modernize and become more efficient to compete with the British, as Napoleon III had intended. Commerce between the countries surged.


title: Napoleon III

text: By the 1860s, the huge state investment in railways, infrastructure and fiscal policies of Napoleon III had brought dramatic changes to the French economy and French society. French people travelled in greater numbers, more often and farther than they had ever travelled before. The opening of the first public school libraries by Napoleon III and the opening by Louis Hachette of the first bookstores in Napoleon's new train stations led to the wider circulation of books around France.


title: Napoleon III

text: During the Empire, industrial production increased by 73 percent, growing twice as rapidly as that of the United Kingdom, though its total output remained lower. From 1850 to 1857, the French economy grew at a pace of five percent a year and exports grew by sixty percent between 1855 and 1869.


title: Napoleon III

text: French agricultural production increased by sixty percent, spurred by new farming techniques taught at the agricultural schools started in each Department by Napoleon III, and new markets opened by the railways. The threat of famine, which for centuries had haunted the French countryside, receded. The last recorded famine in France was in 1855.


title: Napoleon III

text: During the Empire, the migration of the rural population to the cities increased. The portion of the population active in agriculture dropped from 61 percent in 1851 to 54 percent in 1870.


title: Napoleon III

text: The average salary of French workers grew by 45 percent during the Second Empire, but only kept up with price inflation. On the other hand, more French people than ever were able to save money; the number of bank accounts grew from 742,889 in 1852 to 2,079,141 in 1870.


title: Napoleon III

text: Despite the economic progress the country had made, domestic opposition to Napoleon III was slowly growing, particularly in the "Corps législatif" (Parliament). The liberal republicans on the left had always opposed him, believing he had usurped power and suppressed the Republic. The conservative Catholics were increasingly unhappy, because he had abandoned the Pope in his struggle to retain political control of the Papal States and had built up a public education system that was a rival to the Catholic system. Many businessmen, particularly in the metallurgical and textile industries, were unhappy, because he had reduced the tariffs on British products, putting the British products in direct competition with their own. The members of Parliament were particularly unhappy with him for dealing with them only when he needed money. When he had liberalized trade with England, he had not even consulted them.


title: Napoleon III

text: Napoleon's large-scale program of public works, and his expensive foreign policy, had created rapidly mounting government debts; the annual deficit was about 100 million gold-francs, and the cumulative debt had reached nearly 1,000 million gold-francs (1 billion in US readings). The Emperor needed to restore the confidence of the business world and to involve the legislature and have them share responsibility.


title: Napoleon III

text: On 24 December 1861, Napoleon III, against the opposition of his own ministers, issued a decree announcing that the legislature would have greater powers. The Senate and the Assembly could, for the first time, give a response to the Emperor's program, ministers were obliged to defend their programs before the Assembly, and the right of Deputies to amend the programs was enlarged. On 1 February 1861, further reforms were announced: Deputies could speak from the tribune, not just from their seats, and a stenographic record would be made and published of each session. Another even more important reform was announced on 31 December 1861: the budget of each ministry would be voted section by section, not in a block, and the government could no longer spend money by special decree when the legislature was not in session. He did retain the right to change the budget estimates section by section.


title: Napoleon III

text: The Deputies quickly took advantage of their new rights; the Emperor's Italian policy was bitterly condemned in Parliament, and anti-government amendments by the pro-Catholic deputies were defeated by votes of 158 to 91 in the "Corps législatif" and 79 to 61 in the Senate.


title: Napoleon III

text: In the legislative elections of 31 May 1863, the pro-government candidates received 5,308,000 votes, while the opposition received 1,954,000 votes, three times more than in the previous elections. The rural departments still voted for Napoleon III's candidates, but in Paris, 63 percent of the votes went to anti-government republican candidates, with similar numbers in all the large cities. The new Assembly contained a large opposition block ranging from Catholics outraged by the Papal policies to Legitimists, Orléanists, protectionists and republicans, armed with new powers given to them by the Emperor himself.


title: Napoleon III

text: Despite the opposition in the legislature, Napoleon III's reforms remained popular in the rest of the country. A new plebiscite was held in 1870, on this text: "The people approve the liberal reforms added to the Constitution since 1860 by the Emperor, with the agreement of the legislative bodies and ratified by the Senate on April 20, 1870." Napoleon III saw this as a referendum on his rule as Emperor: "By voting yes," he wrote, "you will chase away the threat of revolution; you will place the nation on a solid base of order and liberty, and you will make it easier to pass on the Crown to my son." When the votes were counted, Napoleon III had lost Paris and the other big cities but decisively won the rest of the country. The final vote was 7,336,434 votes yes, 1,560,709 votes no, and 1,900,000 abstentions. Léon Gambetta, the leader of the republican opposition, wrote in despair, "We were crushed. The Emperor is more popular than ever."


title: Napoleon III

text: Through the 1860s, the health of the Emperor steadily worsened. It had been damaged by his six years in prison at Ham; he had chronic pains in his legs and feet, particularly when it was cold, and as a result, he always lived and worked in overheated rooms and offices. He smoked heavily, distrusted doctors and their advice and attributed any problems simply to "rheumatism", for which he regularly visited the hot springs at Vichy and other spas. It became difficult for him to ride a horse, and he was obliged to walk slowly, often with a cane. From 1869 onwards, the crises of his urinary tract were treated with opium, which made him seem lethargic and apathetic. His writing became hard to read and his voice weak. In the spring of 1870, he was visited by an old friend from England, Lord Malmesbury. Malmesbury found him to be "terribly changed and very ill".


title: Napoleon III

text: The health problems of the Emperor were kept secret by the government, which feared that, if his condition became public, the opposition would demand his abdication. One newspaper, the "Courrier de la Vienne", was warned by the censors to stop publishing articles which had "a clear and malicious intent to spread, contrary to the truth, alarms about the health of the Emperor".


title: Napoleon III

text: At the end of June 1870, a specialist in the problems of urinary tracts, Germain Sée, was finally summoned to examine him. Sée reported that the Emperor was suffering from a gallstone. On 2 July, four eminent French doctors, Nélaton, Ricord, Fauvel and Corvisart, examined him and confirmed the diagnosis. They were reluctant to operate, however, because of the high risk (gallstone operations did not become relatively safe until the 1880s) and because of the Emperor's weakness. Before anything further could be done, however, France was in the middle of a diplomatic crisis.


title: Napoleon III

text: In the 1860s, Prussia appeared on the horizon as a new rival to French power in Europe. Its chancellor, Otto von Bismarck, had ambitions for Prussia to lead a unified Germany. In May 1862, Bismarck came to Paris on a diplomatic mission and met Napoleon III for the first time. They had cordial relations. On 30 September 1862, however, in Munich, Bismarck declared, in a famous speech: "It is not by speeches and votes of the majority that the great questions of our period will be settled, as one believed in 1848, but by iron and blood." Bismarck saw Austria and France as the main obstacles to his ambitions, and he set out to divide and defeat them.


title: Napoleon III

text: In the winter and spring of 1864, when the German Confederation invaded and occupied the German-speaking provinces of Denmark (Schleswig and Holstein), Napoleon III recognized the threat that a unified Germany would pose to France, and he looked for allies to challenge Germany, without success.


title: Napoleon III

text: The British government was suspicious that Napoleon wanted to take over Belgium and Luxembourg, felt secure with its powerful navy, and did not want any military engagements on the European continent at the side of the French.


title: Napoleon III

text: The Russian government was also suspicious of Napoleon, whom it believed had encouraged Polish nationalists to rebel against Russian rule in 1863. Bismarck and Prussia, on the other hand, had offered assistance to Russia to help crush the Polish patriots.


title: Napoleon III

text: In October 1865, Napoleon had a cordial meeting with Bismarck at Biarritz. They discussed Venetia, Austria's remaining province in Italy. Bismarck told Napoleon that Germany had no secret arrangement to give Venetia to Italy, and Napoleon assured him in turn that France had no secret understanding with Austria. Bismarck hinted vaguely that, in the event of a war between Austria and Prussia, French neutrality would be rewarded with some sort of territory as a compensation. Napoleon III had Luxembourg in mind.


title: Napoleon III

text: In 1866, relations between Austria and Prussia worsened and Bismarck demanded the expulsion of Austria from the German Confederation. Napoleon and his foreign minister, Drouyn de Lhuys, expected a long war and an eventual Austrian victory. Napoleon III felt he could extract a price from both Prussia and Austria for French neutrality. On 12 June 1866, France signed a secret treaty with Austria, guaranteeing French neutrality in a Prussian-Austrian war. In exchange, in the event of an Austrian victory, Austria would give Venetia to France and would also create a new independent German state on the Rhine, which would become an ally of France. At the same time, Napoleon proposed a secret treaty with Bismarck, promising that France would remain neutral in a war between Austria and Prussia. In the event of a Prussian victory, France would recognize Prussia's annexation of smaller German states, and France, in exchange, would receive a portion of German territory, the Palatinate region north of Alsace. Bismarck, rightly confident of success due to the modernization of the Prussian Army, summarily rejected Napoleon's offer.


title: Napoleon III

text: On 15 June, the Prussian Army invaded Saxony, an ally of Austria. On 2 July, Austria asked Napoleon to arrange an armistice between Italy, which had allied itself with Prussia, and Austria, in exchange for which France would receive Venetia. But on 3 July, the Prussian army crushed the Austrian army at the Battle of Königgrätz in Bohemia. The way to Vienna was open for the Prussians, and Austria asked for an armistice. The armistice was signed on 22 July; Prussia annexed the Kingdom of Hanover, the Electorate of Hesse-Kassel, the Duchy of Nassau and the Free City of Frankfurt, with a combined population of four million people.


title: Napoleon III

text: The Austrian defeat was followed by a new crisis in the health of Napoleon III. Marshal Canrobert, who saw him on 28 July, wrote that the Emperor "was pitiful to see. He could barely sit up in his armchair, and his drawn face expressed at the same time moral anguish and physical pain.


title: Napoleon III

text: Napoleon III still hoped to receive some compensation from Prussia for French neutrality during the war. His foreign minister, Drouyn, asked Bismarck for the Palatinate region on the Rhine, which belonged to Bavaria, and for the demilitarization of Luxembourg, which was the site of a formidable fortress staffed by a strong Prussian garrison in accordance with international treaties. Napoleon's senior advisor Eugène Rouher increased the demands, asking that Prussia accept the annexation by France of Belgium and of Luxembourg.


title: Napoleon III

text: Luxembourg had regained its de jure independence in 1839 as a grand duchy. However, it was in personal union with the Netherlands. King William III of the Netherlands, who was also Grand Duke of Luxembourg, desperately needed money and was prepared to sell the Grand Duchy to France. Bismarck swiftly intervened and showed the British ambassador a copy of Napoleon's demands; as a result, he put pressure on William III to refuse to sell Luxembourg to France. France was forced to renounce any claim to Luxembourg in the Treaty of London (1867). Napoleon III gained nothing for his efforts but the demilitarization of the Luxembourg fortress.


title: Napoleon III

text: Despite his failing health, Napoleon III could see that the Prussian Army, combined with the armies of Bavaria and the other German states, would be a formidable enemy. In 1866, Prussia, with a population of 22 million, had been able to mobilize an army of 700,000 men, while France, with a population of 26 million, had an army of only 385,000 men, of whom 140,000 were in Algeria, Mexico, and Rome. In the autumn of 1867, Napoleon III proposed a form of universal military service similar to the Prussian system to increase the size of the French Army, if needed, to 1 million. His proposal was opposed by many French officers, such as Marshal Randon, who preferred a smaller, more professional army; he said: "This proposal will only give us recruits; it's soldiers we need." It was also strongly opposed by the republican opposition in the French parliament, who denounced the proposal as a militarization of French society. The republican deputy, Émile Ollivier, who later became Napoleon's prime minister, declared: "The armies of France, which I always considered too large, are now going to be increased to an exorbitant size. Why? What is the necessity? Where is the danger? Who is threatening us? ...If France were to disarm, the Germans would know how to convince their governments to do the same." Facing almost certain defeat in the parliament, Napoleon III withdrew the proposal. It was replaced in January 1868 by a much more modest project to create a "garde mobile", or reserve force, to support the army.


title: Napoleon III

text: Napoleon III was overconfident in his military strength and went into war even after he failed to find any allies who would support a war to stop German unification.


title: Napoleon III

text: Following the defeat of Austria, Napoleon resumed his search for allies against Prussia. In April 1867, he proposed an alliance, defensive and offensive, with Austria. If Austria joined France in a victorious war against Prussia, Napoleon promised that Austria could form a new confederation with the southern states of Germany and could annex Silesia, while France took for its part the left bank of the Rhine River. But the timing of Napoleon's offer was poorly chosen; Austria was in the process of a major internal reform, creating a new twin monarchy structure with two components, one being the Empire of Austria and the other being the Kingdom of Hungary.


title: Napoleon III

text: Napoleon's attempt to install the archduke Maximilian, the brother of the Austrian Emperor, in Mexico was just coming to its disastrous conclusion; the French troops had just been withdrawn from Mexico in February 1867, and the unfortunate Maximilian would be captured, judged and shot by a firing squad on 19 June. Napoleon III made these offers again in August 1867, on a visit to offer condolences for the death of Maximilian, but the proposal was not received with enthusiasm.


title: Napoleon III

text: Napoleon III also made one last attempt to persuade Italy to be his ally against Prussia. Italian King Victor Emmanuel was personally favorable to a better relationship with France, remembering the role that Napoleon III had played in achieving Italian unification, but Italian public opinion was largely hostile to France; on 3 November 1867, French and Papal soldiers had fired upon the Italian patriots of Garibaldi, when he tried to capture Rome. Napoleon presented a proposed treaty of alliance on 4 June 1869, the anniversary of the joint French-Italian victory at Magenta. The Italians responded by demanding that France withdraw its troops who were protecting the Pope in Rome. Given the opinion of fervent French Catholics, this was a condition Napoleon III could not accept.


title: Napoleon III

text: While Napoleon III was having no success finding allies, Bismarck signed secret military treaties with the southern German states, who promised to provide troops in the event of a war between Prussia and France. In 1868, Bismarck signed an accord with Russia that gave Russia liberty of action in the Balkans in exchange for neutrality in the event of a war between France and Prussia. This treaty put additional pressure on Austria, which also had interests in the Balkans, not to ally itself with France.


title: Napoleon III

text: But most importantly, Prussia promised to support Russia in lifting the restrictions of the Congress of Paris (1856). "Bismarck had bought Tsar Alexander II’s complicity by promising to help restore his naval access to the Black Sea and Mediterranean (cut off by the treaties ending the Crimean War), other powers were less biddable".


title: Napoleon III

text: Bismarck also reached out to the liberal government of William Gladstone in London, offering to protect the neutrality of Belgium against a French threat. The British Foreign Office under Lord Clarendon mobilized the British fleet, to dissuade France against any aggressive moves against Belgium. In any war between France and Prussia, France would be entirely alone.


title: Napoleon III

text: In 1867, French politician Adolphe Thiers (who became President of the French Republic in 1871) accused Napoleon III of erroneous foreign policy: "There is no mistake that can be made". Bismarck thought that French vanity would lead to war; he exploited that vanity in the Ems Dispatch in July 1870. France took the bait and declared war on Prussia, which proved to be a major miscalculation. This allowed Bismarck and Prussia to present the war to the world as defensive, although Prussia and Bismarck had aggressive plans, and they soon became known in relation to the annexation of the French provinces of Alsace and Lorraine.


title: Napoleon III

text: In his memoirs, written long after the war, Bismarck wrote, "I always considered that a war with France would naturally follow a war against Austria... I was convinced that the gulf which was created over time between the north and the south of Germany could not be better overcome than by a national war against the neighbouring people who were aggressive against us. I did not doubt that it was necessary to make a French-German war before the general reorganization of Germany could be realized." As the summer of 1870 approached, pressure mounted on Bismarck to have a war with France as quickly as possible. In Bavaria, the largest of the southern German states, unification with (mostly Protestant) Prussia was being opposed by the Patriotic Party, which favoured a confederacy of (Catholic) Bavaria with (Catholic) Austria. German Protestant public opinion was on the side of unification with Prussia.


title: Napoleon III

text: In France, patriotic sentiment was also growing. On 8 May 1870, French voters had overwhelmingly supported Napoleon III's program in a national plebiscite, with 7,358,000 votes yes against 1,582,000 votes no, an increase of support of two million votes since the legislative elections in 1869. The Emperor was less popular in Paris and the big cities, but highly popular in the French countryside. Napoleon had named a new foreign minister, Antoine Agenor, the Duke de Gramont, who was hostile to Bismarck. The Emperor was weak and ill, but the more extreme Bonapartists were prepared to show their strength against the republicans and monarchists in the parliament.


title: Napoleon III

text: In July 1870, Bismarck found a cause for a war in an old dynastic dispute. In September 1868, Queen Isabella II of Spain had been overthrown and exiled to France. The new government of Spain considered several candidates, including Leopold, Prince of Hohenzollern, a cousin of King Wilhelm I of Prussia. At the end of 1869, Napoleon III had let it be known to the Prussian king and his Chancellor Bismarck that a Hohenzollern prince on the throne of Spain would not be acceptable to France. King Wilhelm had no desire to enter into a war against Napoleon III and did not pursue the subject further. At the end of May, however, Bismarck wrote to the father of Leopold, asking him to put pressure on his son to accept the candidacy to be King of Spain. Leopold, solicited by both his father and Bismarck, agreed.


title: Napoleon III

text: The news of Leopold's candidacy, published 2 July 1870, aroused fury in the French parliament and press. The government was attacked by both the republicans and monarchist opposition, and by the ultra-Bonapartists, for its weakness against Prussia. On 6 July, Napoleon III held a meeting of his ministers at the château of Saint-Cloud and told them that Prussia must withdraw the Hohenzollern candidacy or there would be a war. He asked Marshal Leboeuf, the chief of staff of the French army, if the army was prepared for a war against Prussia. Leboeuf responded that the French soldiers had a rifle superior to the Prussian rifle, that the French artillery was commanded by an elite corps of officers, and that the army "would not lack a button on its puttees". He assured the Emperor that the French army could have four hundred thousand men on the Rhine in less than fifteen days.


title: Napoleon III

text: King Wilhelm I did not want to be seen as the instigator of the war; he had received messages urging restraint from Emperor Alexander II of Russia, Queen Victoria, and the King of the Belgians. On 10 July, he told Leopold's father that his candidacy should be withdrawn. Leopold resisted the idea, but finally agreed on the 11th, and the withdrawal of the candidacy was announced on the 12th, a diplomatic victory for Napoleon. On the evening of the 12th, after meeting with the Empress and with his foreign minister, Gramont, he decided to push his success a little further; he would ask King Wilhelm to guarantee the Prussian government would never again make such a demand for the Spanish throne.


title: Napoleon III

text: The French Ambassador to Prussia, Count Vincent Benedetti, was sent to the German spa resort of Bad Ems, where the Prussian King was staying. Benedetti met with the King on 13 July in the park of the château. The King told him courteously that he agreed fully with the withdrawal of the Hohenzollern candidacy, but that he could not make promises on behalf of the government for the future. He considered that the matter was closed. As he was instructed by Gramont, Benedetti asked for another meeting with the King to repeat the request, but the King politely, yet firmly, refused. Benedetti returned to Paris and the affair seemed finished. However, Bismarck edited the official dispatch of the meeting to make it appear that both sides had been hostile: "His majesty the King," the dispatch read, "refused to meet again with the French ambassador, and let him know, through an aide-de-camp of service, that His Majesty had nothing more to say to the Ambassador." This version was communicated to governments, and the next day was in the French press.


title: Napoleon III

text: The Ems telegram had exactly the effect that Bismarck had intended. Once again, public opinion in France was inflamed. "This text produced the effect of a red flag to the Gallic bull," Bismarck later wrote. Gramont, the French foreign minister, declared that he felt "he had just received a slap." The leader of the conservatives in parliament, Thiers, spoke for moderation, arguing that France had won the diplomatic battle and there was no reason for war, but he was drowned out by cries that he was a traitor and a Prussian. Napoleon's new prime minister, Émile Ollivier, declared that France had done all that it could humanly and honourably do to prevent the war, and that he accepted the responsibility "with a light heart". A crowd of 15,000–20,000 persons, carrying flags and patriotic banners, marched through the streets of Paris, demanding war. On 19 July 1870, a declaration of war was sent to the Prussian government.


title: Napoleon III

text: When France entered the war, there were patriotic demonstrations in the streets of Paris, with crowds singing "La Marseillaise" and chanting "To Berlin! To Berlin!" But Napoleon was melancholic. He told General Lepic that he expected the war to be "long and difficult", and wondered, "Who knows if we'll come back?" He told Marshal Randon that he felt too old for a military campaign. Despite his declining health, Napoleon decided to go with the army to the front as commander in chief, as he had done during the successful Italian campaign. On 28 July, he departed Saint-Cloud by train for the front. He was accompanied by the 14-year-old Prince Imperial in the uniform of the army, by his military staff, and by a large contingent of chefs and servants in livery. He was pale and visibly in pain. The Empress remained in Paris as the Regent, as she had done on other occasions when the Emperor was out of the country.


title: Napoleon III

text: The mobilization of the French army was chaotic. Two hundred thousand soldiers converged on the German frontier, along a front of 250 kilometers, choking all the roads and railways for miles. Officers and their respective units were unable to find one another. General Moltke and the German army, having gained experience mobilizing in the war against Austria, were able to efficiently move three armies of 518,000 men to a more concentrated front of just 120 kilometers. In addition, the German soldiers were backed by a substantial reserve of the Landwehr (Territorial defence), with 340,000 men, and an additional reserve of 400,000 territorial guards. The French army arrived at the frontier equipped with maps of Germany, but without maps of France—where the actual fighting took place—and without a specific plan of what it was going to do.


title: Napoleon III

text: On 2 August, Napoleon and the Prince Imperial accompanied the army as it made a tentative crossing of the German border toward the city of Saarbrücken. The French won a minor skirmish and advanced no further. Napoleon III, very ill, was unable to ride his horse and had to support himself by leaning against a tree. In the meantime, the Germans had assembled a much larger army opposite Alsace and Lorraine than the French had expected or were aware of. On 4 August 1870, the Germans attacked with overwhelming force against a French division in Alsace at the Battle of Wissembourg (German: Weissenburg), forcing it to retreat. On 5 August, the Germans defeated another French Army at the Battle of Spicheren in Lorraine.


title: Napoleon III

text: On 6 August, 140,000 Germans attacked 35,000 French soldiers at the Battle of Wörth; the French lost 19,200 soldiers killed, wounded and captured, and were forced to retreat. The French soldiers fought bravely, and French cavalry and infantry attacked the German lines repeatedly, but the Germans had superior logistics, communications, and leadership. The decisive weapon was the new German Krupp six pound field gun, which was breech-loading, had a steel barrel, longer range, a higher rate of fire, and was more accurate than the bronze muzzle-loading French cannons. The Krupp guns caused terrible casualties in the French ranks.


title: Napoleon III

text: When news of the French defeats reached Paris on 7 August, it was greeted with disbelief and dismay. Prime Minister Ollivier and the army chief of staff, Marshal Edmond Le Boeuf, both resigned. The Empress Eugénie took it upon herself as the Regent to name a new government. She chose General Cousin-Montauban, better known as the Count of Palikao, seventy-four years old and former commander of the French expeditionary force to China, as her new prime minister. The Count of Palikao named Marshal François Achille Bazaine, the commander of the French forces in Lorraine, as the new military commander. Napoleon III proposed returning to Paris, realizing that he was not doing any good for the army. The Empress, in charge of the government, responded by telegraph, "Don't think of coming back, unless you want to unleash a terrible revolution. They will say you quit the army to flee the danger." The Emperor agreed to remain with the army. With the Empress directing the country, and Bazaine commanding the army, the Emperor no longer had any real role to play. At the front, the Emperor told Marshal Leboeuf, "we've both been dismissed."


title: Napoleon III

text: On 18 August 1870, the Battle of Gravelotte, the biggest battle of the war, took place in Lorraine between the Germans and the army of Marshal Bazaine. The Germans suffered 20,000 casualties and the French 12,000, but the Germans emerged as the victors, as Marshal Bazaine's army, with 175,000 soldiers, six divisions of cavalry and five hundred cannons, was trapped inside the fortifications of Metz, unable to move.


title: Napoleon III

text: Napoleon was at Châlons-sur-Marne with the army of Marshal Patrice de MacMahon. MacMahon, Marshal Bazaine, and the count of Palikao, with the Empress in Paris, all had different ideas of what the army should do next, and the Emperor had to act as a referee. The Emperor and MacMahon proposed moving their army closer to Paris to protect the city, but on 17 August Bazaine telegraphed to the Emperor: "I urge you to renounce this idea, which seems to abandon the Army at Metz... Couldn't you make a powerful diversion toward the Prussian corps, which are already exhausted by so many battles? The Empress shares my opinion." Napoleon III wrote back, "I yield to your opinion." The Emperor sent the Prince Imperial back to Paris for his safety, and went with the weary army in the direction of Metz. The Emperor, riding in an open carriage, was jeered, sworn at and insulted by demoralized soldiers.


title: Napoleon III

text: The direction of movement of MacMahon's army was supposed to be secret, but it was published in the French press and thus was quickly known to the German general staff. Moltke, the German commander, ordered two Prussian armies marching toward Paris to turn towards MacMahon's army. On 30 August, one corps of MacMahon's army was attacked by the Germans at Beaumont, losing five hundred men and forty cannons. MacMahon, believing he was ahead of the Germans, decided to stop and reorganize his forces at the fortified city of Sedan, in the Ardennes close to the Belgian border.


title: Napoleon III

text: The Battle of Sedan was a total disaster for the French—the army surrendered to the Prussians and Napoleon himself was made a prisoner of war. MacMahon arrived at Sedan with one hundred thousand soldiers, not knowing that two German armies were closing in on the city (one from the west and one from the east), blocking any escape. The Germans arrived on 31 August, and by 1 September, occupied the heights around Sedan where they placed artillery batteries, and began shelling the French positions below. At five o'clock in the morning on 1 September, a German shell seriously wounded MacMahon in the hip. Sedan quickly came under bombardment from seven hundred German guns. MacMahon's replacement, General Wimpffen, launched a series of cavalry attacks to try to break the German encirclement, with no success. During the battle and bombardment, the French lost seventeen thousand killed or wounded and twenty-one thousand captured.


title: Napoleon III

text: As the German shells rained down on the French positions, Napoleon III wandered aimlessly in the open around the French positions. One officer of his military escort was killed and two more received wounds. A doctor accompanying him wrote in his notebook, "If this man has not come here to kill himself, I don't know what he has come to do. I have not seen him give an order all morning."


title: Napoleon III

text: Finally, at one o'clock in the afternoon, Napoleon emerged from his reverie and ordered a white flag hoisted above the citadel. He then had a message sent to the Prussian King, who was at Sedan with his army: "Monsieur my brother, not being able to die at the head of my troops, nothing remains for me but to place my sword in the hands of Your Majesty."


title: Napoleon III

text: At six o'clock in the morning on 2 September, in the uniform of a general and accompanied by four generals from his staff, Napoleon was taken to the German headquarters at Donchery. He expected to see King William, but instead he was met by Bismarck and the German commander, General von Moltke. They dictated the terms of the surrender to Napoleon. Napoleon asked that his army be disarmed and allowed to pass into Belgium, but Bismarck refused. They also asked Napoleon to sign the preliminary documents of a peace treaty, but Napoleon refused, telling them that the French government headed by the Regent, Empress Eugénie, would need to negotiate any peace agreement. The Emperor was then taken to the Chateau at Bellevue near , where the Prussian King visited him. Napoleon told the King that he had not wanted the war, but that public opinion had forced him into it. That evening, from the Chateau, Napoleon wrote to the Empress Eugénie:


title: Napoleon III

text: The news of the capitulation reached Paris on 3 September, confirming the rumors that were already circulating in the city. When the Empress heard the news that the Emperor and the army had been taken prisoner, she reacted by shouting at the Emperor's personal aide, "No! An Emperor does not capitulate! He is dead!...They are trying to hide it from me. Why didn't he kill himself! Doesn't he know he has dishonored himself?!" Later, when hostile crowds formed near the palace and the staff began to flee, the Empress slipped out with one of her entourage and sought sanctuary with her American dentist, who took her to Deauville. From there, on 7 September, she took the yacht of a British official to England.


title: Napoleon III

text: On 4 September, a group of republican deputies, led by Léon Gambetta, gathered at the Hôtel de Ville in Paris and proclaimed the return of the Republic and the creation of a Government of National Defence. The Second Empire had come to an end.


title: Napoleon III

text: From 5 September 1870 until 19 March 1871, Napoleon III and his entourage of thirteen aides were held in comfortable captivity at Schloss Wilhelmshöhe near Kassel, Germany. Eugénie traveled there incognito to visit Napoleon.


title: Napoleon III

text: General Bazaine, besieged with a large part of the remaining French Army in the fortification of Metz, had secret talks with Bismarck's envoys on 23 September. The idea was for Bazaine to establish a conservative regime in France, for himself or for Napoleon's son. Bazaine's envoy, who spoke to Bismarck at Versailles on 14 October, declared that the army in Metz was still loyal to Napoleon. Bazaine was willing to take over power in France after the Germans had defeated the republic in Paris. Because of the weakening of the French position overall, Bismarck lost interest in this option.


title: Napoleon III

text: On 27 November, Napoleon composed a memorandum to Bismarck that raised the possibility that the Prussian King might urge the French people to recall him as Emperor after a peace treaty was signed and Paris surrendered. But by this time, Metz had already fallen, leaving Napoleon without a power base. Bismarck did not see much chance for a restored empire, as the French people would consider Napoleon a mere marionette of the enemy. One last initiative from Eugénie failed in January, because of the late arrival of her envoy from London. Bismarck refused to acknowledge the former empress, as this had caused irritations with Britain and Russia. Shortly afterwards, the Germans signed a truce with the Government of France.


title: Napoleon III

text: Napoleon continued to write political tracts and letters and dreamed of a return to power. Bonapartist candidates participated in the first elections for the National Assembly on 8 February, but won only five seats. On 1 March, the newly elected assembly officially declared the removal of the emperor from power and placed all the blame for the French defeat squarely on him. When peace was arranged between France and Germany, Bismarck released Napoleon; the emperor decided to go into exile in England. Having limited funds, Napoleon sold properties and jewels and arrived in England on 20 March 1871.


title: Napoleon III

text: Napoleon, Eugénie, their son and their entourage, including the American Colonel Zebulon Howell Benton, settled at Camden Place, a large three-story country house in the village of Chislehurst, Kent, a half-hour by train from London. He was received by Queen Victoria, who also visited him at Chislehurst.


title: Napoleon III

text: Louis-Napoleon had a longtime connection with Chislehurst and Camden Place: years earlier, while exiled in England, he had often visited Emily Rowles, whose father had owned Camden Place in the 1830s. She had assisted his escape from French prison in 1846.


title: Napoleon III

text: He had also paid attention to another English girl, Elizabeth Howard, who later gave birth to a son, whose father (not Louis-Napoleon) settled property on her to support the son, via a trust whose trustee was Nathaniel Strode. Strode bought Camden Place in 1860 and spent large sums of money transforming it into a French château. Strode had also received money from the Emperor, possibly to buy Camden Place and maintain it as a bolt hole.


title: Napoleon III

text: Napoleon passed his time writing and designing a stove which would be more energy efficient. In the summer of 1872, his health began to worsen. Doctors recommended surgery to remove his gallstones. After two operations, he became very seriously ill. His final defeat in the war would haunt the dying former emperor throughout his last days. On his deathbed, he was attended by Henri Conneau, one of his servants. He asked him “were you at Sedan?” To which Conneau assured him that he was. Napoleon III then replied saying "Isn't it true that we weren't cowards at Sedan?” They were his last words. He was given last rites and died on 9 January 1873.


title: Napoleon III

text: Napoleon was originally buried at St Mary's, the Catholic church in Chislehurst. However, after his son, an officer in the British Army, died in 1879 fighting against the Zulus in South Africa, Eugénie decided to build a monastery and a chapel for the remains of Napoleon III and their son. In 1888, the bodies were moved to the Imperial Crypt at St Michael's Abbey, Farnborough, Hampshire, England.


title: Napoleon III

text: Louis Napoleon has a historical reputation as a womanizer, yet he said: "It is usually the man who attacks. As for me, I defend myself, and I often capitulate." He had many mistresses. During his reign, it was the task of Count Felix Bacciochi, his social secretary, to arrange for trysts and to procure women for the Emperor's favours. His affairs were not trivial sideshows: they distracted him from governing, affected his relationship with the empress, and diminished him in the views of the other European courts. Among his numerous lovers and mistresses were:


title: Napoleon III

text: His wife, Eugénie, resisted his advances prior to marriage. She was coached by her mother and her friend, Prosper Mérimée. "What is the road to your heart?" Napoleon demanded to know. "Through the chapel, Sire," she answered. Yet, after marriage, it took not long for him to stray as Eugénie found sex with him "disgusting". It is doubtful that she allowed further approaches by her husband once she had given him an heir.


title: Napoleon III

text: By his late forties, Napoleon started to suffer from numerous medical ailments, including kidney disease, bladder stones, chronic bladder and prostate infections, arthritis, gout, obesity, and the chronic effects of smoking. In 1856, Dr. Robert Ferguson, a consultant called from London, diagnosed a "nervous exhaustion" that had a "debilitating impact upon sexual ... performance" which he also reported to the British government.


title: Napoleon III

text: With Prosper Mérimée, Napoleon III continued to seek the preservation of numerous medieval buildings in France that had been neglected since the French Revolution, a project Mérimée had begun during the July Monarchy. With Eugène Viollet-le-Duc acting as chief architect, many buildings were saved, including some of the most famous in France: Notre Dame Cathedral, Mont Saint-Michel, Carcassonne, Vézelay Abbey, Pierrefonds, and Roquetaillade castle.


title: Napoleon III

text: Napoleon III also directed the building of the French railway network, which contributed to the development of the coal mining and steel industry in France. This advance radically changed the nature of the French economy, which entered the modern age of large-scale capitalism. The French economy, the second largest in the world at the time (behind the British economy), experienced a very strong growth during the reign of Napoleon III. Names such as steel tycoon Eugène Schneider and banking mogul James de Rothschild are symbols of the period. Two of France's largest banks, Société Générale and Crédit Lyonnais, still in existence today, were founded during that period. The French stock market also expanded prodigiously, with many coal mining and steel companies issuing stocks. Historians credit Napoleon chiefly for supporting the railways, but not otherwise building the economy.


title: Napoleon III

text: Napoleon's military pressure and Russian mistakes, culminating in the Crimean War, dealt a blow to the Concert of Europe, since it precipitated a war that disrupted the post-Napoleonic peace, although the ultimately diplomatic solution to the war demonstrated the continued vitality of the system. The concert was based on stability and balance of powers, whereas Napoleon attempted to rearrange the world map to France's advantage.


title: Napoleon III

text: A 12-pound cannon designed by France is commonly referred to as a "Napoleon cannon" or "12-pounder Napoleon" in his honor.


title: Napoleon III

text: The historical reputation of Napoleon III is far below that of his uncle, and had been heavily tarnished by the empire's military failures in Mexico and against Prussia. Victor Hugo portrayed him as "Napoleon the Small" ("Napoléon le Petit"), a mere mediocrity, in contrast with Napoleon I "The Great", presented as a military and administrative genius. In France, such arch-opposition from the age's central literary figure, whose attacks on Napoleon III were obsessive and powerful, made it impossible for a very long time to assess his reign objectively. Karl Marx, in "The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Napoleon", famously mocked Napoleon III by saying "Hegel remarks somewhere that all great world-historical facts and personages appear, so to speak, twice. He forgot to add: the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce." Napoleon III has often been seen as an authoritarian but ineffectual leader who brought France into dubious, and ultimately disastrous, foreign military adventures.


title: Napoleon III

text: Historians by the 1930s saw the Second Empire as a precursor of fascism, but by the 1950s were celebrating it as leading example of a modernizing regime. However, historians have generally given Napoleon negative evaluations on his foreign policy, and somewhat more positive evaluations of his domestic policies, especially after he liberalized his rule after 1858. His greatest achievements came in material improvements, in the form of a grand railway network that facilitated commerce and tied the nation together and centered it on Paris. He is given high credits for the rebuilding of Paris with broad boulevards, striking public buildings, very attractive residential districts for upscale Parisians, and great public parks, including the Bois de Boulogne and Bois de Vincennes, used by all classes of Parisians. He promoted French business and exports. In international policy, he tried to emulate his uncle, with numerous imperial ventures around the world, as well as wars in Europe. He badly mishandled the threat from Prussia and found himself without allies in the face of overwhelming force.


title: Napoleon III

text: Historians have also praised his attention to the fate of the working classes and poor people. His book "Extinction du paupérisme" ("Extinction of pauperism"), which he wrote while imprisoned at the Fort of Ham in 1844, contributed to his popularity among the working classes and thus his election in 1848. Throughout his reign, the emperor worked to alleviate the sufferings of the poor, on occasion breaching the 19th-century economic orthodoxy of freedom and laissez-faire and using state resources or interfering in the market. Among other things, the Emperor granted the right to strike to French workers in 1864, despite intense opposition from corporate lobbies.


title: Napoleon III

text: His full title as emperor was: "Napoleon the Third, by the Grace of God and the will of the Nation, Emperor of the French".


title: Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (film)

text: Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is a 2005 musical fantasy film directed by Tim Burton and written by John August, based on the 1964 British novel of the same name by Roald Dahl. The film stars Johnny Depp as Willy Wonka and Freddie Highmore as Charlie Bucket, alongside David Kelly, Helena Bonham Carter, Noah Taylor, Missi Pyle, James Fox, Deep Roy, and Christopher Lee. The storyline follows Charlie as he wins a contest along with four other children and is led by Wonka on a tour of his chocolate factory.


text: Development for a second adaptation of "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" began in 1991, which resulted in Warner Bros. providing the Dahl estate with total artistic control. Prior to Burton's involvement, directors such as Gary Ross, Rob Minkoff, Martin Scorsese, and Tom Shadyac had been involved, while actors Bill Murray, Nicolas Cage, Jim Carrey, Michael Keaton, Brad Pitt, Will Smith, Adam Sandler, and many others, were either in discussion with or considered by the studio to play Wonka. Burton immediately brought regular collaborators Depp and Danny Elfman aboard. "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" represents the first musical film directed by Burton and the first time since "The Nightmare Before Christmas" that Elfman contributed to a film score using written songs and his vocals.


text: Filming took place from June to December 2004 at Pinewood Studios in the United Kingdom. Rather than using computer-generated environments, Burton primarily used built sets and practical effects, which he claimed was inspired by the book's emphasis on texture. Wonka's Chocolate Room was constructed on the 007 Stage at Pinewood, complete with a faux chocolate waterfall and river. Squirrels were trained from birth for Veruca Salt's elimination. Actor Deep Roy performed each Oompa-Loompa individually rather than one performance duplicated digitally. Burton shot the film simultaneously alongside the stop-motion animated film "Corpse Bride", which he also directed.


text: Willy Wonka-themed chocolate bars were sold, and a Golden Ticket contest was launched as part of the film's marketing campaign. "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" premiered on July 10, 2005, and was released in the United States on July 15 to positive critical reviews, who commended it for its visual appeal and dark tone. It was also a box office success, grossing US$475 million and becoming the eighth-highest-grossing film worldwide in 2005. The film received a nomination for Best Costume Design at the 78th Academy Awards. It remains the highest-grossing film adaption based on a Roald Dahl novel as well as Tim Burton's second-highest-grossing film to date.


text: Charlie Bucket is a kind and loving boy who lives in poverty with his family near the Wonka Factory. The company's owner, Willy Wonka, has long closed his factory to the public due to problems concerning industrial espionage, which also caused all his employees, including Charlie's Grandpa Joe, to lose their jobs. Charlie's father, meanwhile, has more recently been laid off from his own job at a toothpaste factory, although he does not admit this to Charlie.


text: One day, Wonka announces a contest in which Golden Tickets have been placed in five random Wonka Bars worldwide, and the winners will receive a full tour of the factory as well as a lifetime supply of chocolate, while one will receive an additional prize at the end of the tour. Wonka's sales subsequently skyrocket, and the first four tickets are found by the gluttonous Augustus Gloop, the spoiled Veruca Salt, the arrogant Violet Beauregarde, and the ill-tempered Mike Teavee. Charlie tries twice to find a ticket, but both bars come up empty. After overhearing that the final ticket was found in Russia, Charlie finds a banknote and purchases a third Wonka Bar. The Russian ticket is revealed to be a forgery just as Charlie discovers the real ticket inside the wrapper. He receives monetary offers for the ticket, but the cashier warns him not to trade it regardless, and Charlie runs back home. At home, Charlie initially wants to trade the ticket for money for his family's betterment, but after a pep talk from Grandpa George, he decides to keep it and brings Grandpa Joe to accompany him on the tour.


text: Charlie and the other ticket holders are greeted outside the factory by Wonka, who then leads them into the facility. Individual character flaws cause the other four children to give in to temptation, resulting in their elimination from the tour while Wonka's new employees, the Oompa-Loompas, sing a song of morality after each. Meanwhile, Wonka reminisces on his troubled past and how his dentist father, Wilbur, strictly forbade him from consuming any candy. After sneaking a piece of candy, Wonka instantly became hooked and ran away from home to follow his dreams. When he returned, however, both his father and their house were gone.


text: After the tour, the four eliminated children leave the factory with an exaggerated characteristic or deformity related to their elimination while Charlie learns that Wonka, now approaching retirement, intended to find a worthy heir. Since Charlie was the least ill-behaved of the five, Wonka invites Charlie to come live and work in the factory with him, provided that he leave his family behind. Charlie declines, as his family is the most important thing in his life.


text: As Charlie and his family's life improve, Wonka becomes despondent, causing his company and sales to decline. He eventually turns to Charlie for advice, and he decides to help Wonka reconcile with his estranged father, Wilbur. During the reunion, Charlie notices newspaper clippings of Wonka's success which Wilbur collected, while Wonka realizes the value of family as he and Wilbur finally reconcile. Afterwards, Wonka allows Charlie and his family to move into the factory together.


text: Other cast members include Adam Godley as Mr. Teavee and Franziska Troegner as Mrs. Gloop. The four rotten children, Violet Beauregarde, Veruca Salt, Mike Teavee, and Augustus Gloop, are portrayed by AnnaSophia Robb, Julia Winter, Jordan Fry, and Philip Wiegratz, respectively. Blair Dunlop plays little Willy Wonka. Charlie's remaining grandparents, Grandma Georgina, Grandma Josephine, and Grandpa George, are portrayed by Liz Smith, Eileen Essell, and David Morris. Nitin Ganatra and Shelley Conn appear as Prince and Princess Pondicherry. Geoffrey Holder narrates the film.


text: Author Roald Dahl disapproved of the 1971 film adaptation. Warner Bros. and Brillstein-Grey Entertainment entered into discussions with the Dahl estate in 1991, hoping to purchase the rights to produce another film version of "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory". The purchase was finalized in 1998, with Dahl's widow, Felicity ("Liccy"), and daughter, Lucy, receiving total artistic control and final privilege on the choices of actors, directors and writers. The Dahl estate's subsequent protection of the source material was the main reason that "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" had languished in development hell since the 1990s.


text: Ang Lee, Terry Gilliam, Anthony Minghella, and Spike Jonze were among the Dahl estate's preferred directors for the project. Scott Frank was hired to write the screenplay in February 1999, after approaching Warner Bros. for the job. Frank, a recent Oscar-nominee for the R-rated crime film "Out of Sight", wanted to work on a film that his children could enjoy. As an enthusiastic fan of the book, he intended to remain more faithful to Dahl's vision than the 1971 film had been. Nicolas Cage was under discussions for Willy Wonka, but lost interest. Gary Ross signed to direct in February 2000, which resulted in Frank completing two drafts of the screenplay, before leaving with Ross in September 2001. Both Warner Bros. and the Dahl Estate wanted Frank to stay on the project, but he faced scheduling conflicts and contractual obligations with "Minority Report" (2002) and "The Lookout" (2007).


text: Rob Minkoff entered negotiations to take the director's position in October 2001, and Gwyn Lurie was hired to start from scratch on a new script in February 2002. Lurie said she would adapt the original book and ignore the 1971 film adaptation. Dahl's estate championed Lurie after being impressed with her work on another Dahl adaptation, a live-action adaptation of "The BFG", for Paramount Pictures, which was never made (Paramount distributed the earlier 1971 film version of "Charlie", and later sold the rights to Warner Bros.). In April 2002, Martin Scorsese was involved with the film, albeit briefly, but opted to direct "The Aviator" instead. Warner Bros. president Alan F. Horn wanted Tom Shadyac to direct Jim Carrey as Willy Wonka, believing the duo could make "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" relevant to mainstream audiences, but Liccy Dahl opposed this.


text: In May 2003, Warner Bros. announced that "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" would be one of their tentpole film releases for 2005. Later that month, Tim Burton was hired to direct after receiving enthusiastic approval from the Dahl estate. Burton compared the project's languishing development to "Batman" (1989), which he directed, in how there had been varied creative efforts with both films. He said, "Scott Frank's version was the best, probably the clearest, and the most interesting, but they had abandoned that." Liccy Dahl commented that Burton was the first and only director the estate was happy with. He had previously produced another of the author's adaptations with "James and the Giant Peach" (1996), and, like Roald Dahl, disliked the 1971 film because it strayed from the book's storyline.


text: During pre-production, Burton visited Dahl's former home in the Buckinghamshire village of Great Missenden. Liccy Dahl remembers Burton entering Dahl's famed writing shed and saying, "This is the Buckets' house!" and thinking to herself, "Thank God, somebody gets it." Liccy also showed Burton the original handwritten manuscripts, which Burton discovered were more politically incorrect than the published book. The manuscripts included a child named Herpes, after the sexually transmitted disease.


text: Lurie's script received a rewrite by Pamela Pettler, who worked with Burton on "Corpse Bride", but the director hired "Big Fish" screenwriter John August in December 2003 to start from scratch. Both August and Burton were fans of the book since their childhoods. August first read "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" when he was eight years old, and subsequently sent Dahl a fan letter. He did not see the 1971 film prior to his hiring, and when asking Burton if he should go back to watch it, August recalled "Tim almost leaped across the table and told me not to." In terms of the screenwriting process, August said "I literally went through the book with a highlighter and I would save even like little bits of scene description as much as I could, just so it would be as Roald Dahl-y as possible." "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" took three and a half weeks to write. Burton and August incorporated many parts of the book that were absent from the 1971 film adaptation, including the construction of the Indian Prince's chocolate palace, the inclusion of Charlie's father, and Veruca Salt's attack by squirrels.


text: Despite their intention to remain close to the source material, Burton and August diverged from the book to explore themes of family, and in doing so unearthed Willy Wonka's origin. "We added new elements that aren't in the book," explained Burton, "but I always felt comfortable that everything was in the spirit of the book." In exploring Wonka's upbringing, Burton and August created the character of Dr. Wilbur Wonka, Willy's domineering father. Burton thought the paternal character would help explain Willy Wonka himself and that otherwise he would be "just a weird guy". This element of the film was also personal for Burton. In 2002, Burton, who was somewhat estranged from his own parents, visited his dying mother in Lake Tahoe and discovered she had framed posters of all his films on her walls; this mirroring a scene towards the end of "Charlie" where it's revealed Dr. Wonka has been following his son's career with framed newspaper articles on the walls. Burton would later reflect, "I think all artistic endeavors are a way to resolve things, a form of therapy, a fantasy of resolving something. That's why I chose to resolve it that way." The Dahl estate was conflicted about the addition of Wilbur Wonka but ultimately decided to support Burton's vision.


text: Warner Bros. and the director held differences over the characterizations of Charlie Bucket and Willy Wonka. The studio wanted to entirely delete Mr. Bucket and make Willy Wonka the idyllic father figure Charlie had longed for his entire life. Burton believed that Wonka would not be a good father, finding the character similar to a recluse. Burton said, "In some ways, he's more screwed up than the kids." Warner Bros. also wanted Charlie to be a whiz kid, but Burton resisted the characterization. He wanted Charlie to be an average child who would be in the background and not get in trouble.


text: Prior to Burton's involvement, Warner Bros. considered or discussed Willy Wonka with Bill Murray, Christopher Walken, Steve Martin, Robin Williams, Nicolas Cage, Jim Carrey, Michael Keaton, Robert De Niro, Brad Pitt, Will Smith, Mike Myers, Ben Stiller, Leslie Nielsen, three members of Monty Python (John Cleese, Eric Idle, and Michael Palin), as well as Patrick Stewart, and Adam Sandler. Dustin Hoffman and Marilyn Manson reportedly sought the role as well. Pitt's production company, Plan B Entertainment, however, stayed on to co-finance the film with Warner Bros. Michael Jackson actively sought the role and secretly recorded an original soundtrack for the film at a small studio in Los Angeles. Warner Bros. did not want Jackson for the role, claiming that it would not be marketable for Jackson to be the leading role in a family film. However, they "went nuts" over the soundtrack and offered to acquire the songs in addition to a small role elsewhere in the film. Jackson was upset and shelved the songs.


text: Johnny Depp was the only actor Burton considered for the role, although Dwayne Johnson was Burton's second choice in case Depp was unavailable. This marked the first time Burton did not face pushback from the studio for wanting to cast Depp, as the blockbuster success of "" had Warner Bros. enthused about Depp being in the leading role. It was Depp's intention to portray the character in a completely different way than Gene Wilder did in the 1971 film adaptation. Depp and Burton derived their Willy Wonka from children's television show hosts such as Bob Keeshan from "Captain Kangaroo", Fred Rogers, and Al Lewis from "The Uncle Al Show", and Depp also took inspiration from various game show hosts. Burton recalled from his childhood that the characters were bizarre but left lasting impressions, saying "I used to watch a guy with a sheriff's hat, or a guy who wore a weird leisure suit, or Captain Kangaroo, this guy had a weird haircut and a mustache and sideburns. And you think back and go, 'What the fuck was that?' But they left a strong impression on you." Depp based Wonka's exaggerated bob cut and sunglasses on "Vogue" magazine editor Anna Wintour. According to Depp, "the hair I imagined as a kind of Prince Valiant do, high bangs and a bob, extreme and very unflattering but something that Wonka probably thinks is cool because he's been locked away for such a long time and doesn't know any better, like the outdated slang he uses." Depp also based Wonka's unique voice on how he imagined George W. Bush sounding like while high on drugs.


text: The casting calls for Charlie Bucket, Violet Beauregarde, Veruca Salt, and Mike Teavee took place in the United States and United Kingdom, while Augustus Gloop's casting took place in Germany. Burton said he sought actors "who had something of the character in them", and found Mike Teavee the hardest character to cast. Burton was having trouble casting Charlie, until Depp, who had worked with Freddie Highmore on "Finding Neverland", suggested Highmore for the part. Highmore had already read the book before, but decided to read it once more prior to auditioning. The actor did not see the original film adaptation, and chose not to see it until after Burton's production, so his portrayal would not be influenced. Before Adam Godley was officially cast as Mr. Teavee, Tim Allen, Ray Romano, and Bob Saget were considered for the role. Gregory Peck was reportedly considered for the role of Grandpa Joe but died before being able to accept the role.


text: Production designer Alex McDowell described "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory"s visual aesthetic as "a collision between psychedelic, inflatable pop art and 1960s Russian-American space race". Tim Burton wanted the setting of the film to be ambiguous in an effort to give the film a fable-like quality similar to the book. McDowell scouted several industrial mill towns in Northern England but came to the conclusion that a real place would not look stylized enough for Burton. "It was back to the Pinewood backlot to start building something that looked grim, wet and depressing on the outside but transitioned believably into a magical kingdom inside." The town, whose design was shaped by the black and white urban photography of Bill Brandt, as well as Pittsburgh and Northern England, is arranged like a medieval village, with Wonka's estate on top and the Bucket shack below. As per the film's ambiguous setting, the cars drive down the middle of the roads. The backlot constructed at Pinewood Studios consisted of the factory courtyard, several streets, nearly fifty townhomes, twenty shops, and the Bucket shack. This town was coincidentally constructed on the same backlot Burton had used for Gotham City in 1989's "Batman". The Bucket home was inspired by Roald Dahl's famed writing hut, while the exterior of Wonka's factory was based on fascist architecture, with Burton remarking "for Wonka's factory, we kind of wanted a building with a kind of Hoover Dam-like optimism and strength, but then once it gets dark it looks slightly foreboding."


text: For the set pieces in Wonka's factory, Burton favored using 360 degree enclosed sets because it offered a complete environment and got rid of visitors. The Inventing Room utilized scrap from the aeronautic industry, defunct confectionary machinery, and old car parts. McDowell compared the design of the Nut Room to that of a hospital with its plastic finish and sterile colors. The crew came up with the layout of the Nut Room fairly quickly, while the color scheme took more time to develop. The Nut Room had to be constructed at an elevation to account for the hole Veruca Salt would have to fall down. The all-white design of the TV Room was adapted directly from the book, though "" and "THX 1138" also served as inspirations. The designs of each set would influence the style of music for the Oompa-Loompa songs.


text: Willy Wonka's Chocolate Room was built on Pinewood Studios' 007 Stage, one of the largest soundstages in the world. Sections of artificial grass were laid upon blocks of polystyrene foam that formed the shape of the landscape. For the chocolate river, McDowell insisted on having the river look edible, saying "in the first film, it's so distasteful." According to Tim Burton, "the important thing for me was that we wanted to give the chocolate river a really chocolatey feel, give it a weight, not just brown water. That's why we tried to use a real chocolate substitute, to give it a movement and texture." Joss Williams oversaw the creation of a faux chocolate concoction, taking months to create a non-toxic edible substance with the right consistency. The final mixture, developed by a UK-based chemical company called Vickers, was a mix of water and a thickening agent known as Natrosol, with food dye used to achieve the brown coloring. The river was 270 feet long, six feet deep, and consisted of 192,000 gallons of faux chocolate while 30,000 gallons of the same material made up the waterfall. Wonka's boat, used by the characters to travel down the chocolate river, took 20 weeks to build and incorporated 54 animatronic Oompa-Loompas, along with its own internal rowing mechanism.


text: Colleen Atwood, who served as the costume designer on every live-action Tim Burton film from 1994's "Ed Wood" to 2019's "Dumbo", was set to reprise her position on "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" but ultimately declined citing "personal reasons". Burton then selected Italian costume designer Gabriella Pescucci. Ten different jackets and overcoats were designed to find the right look for Willy Wonka. Pescucci described the film's wardrobe as "contemporary, but with old world styling". Wonka's latex gloves, which Burton added as a symbol of his detachment from society, were provided by a London-based latex fetish BDSM clothing company.


text: Principal photography for "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" started on June 21, 2004. While the main set pieces were filmed on soundstages at Pinewood Studios in England, the crew also shot on several locations across the country, with the toothpaste factory filmed at a CompAir factory in High Wycombe, and Veruca Salt's manor filmed at Hatfield House for the interior shots and Wrotham Park for the exterior. Various establishing shots were filmed in Germany, Yemen, and the United States. Tim Burton shot "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" simultaneously alongside "Corpse Bride". Composer Danny Elfman, screenwriter John August, and production designer Alex McDowell served in the same position for both movies. Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter, Deep Roy, and Christopher Lee provided their vocals to "Corpse Bride" during the filming of "Charlie".


text: Tim Burton avoided using too many digital effects to reflect the original book's emphasis on texture and because he wanted the younger actors to feel as if they were working in a realistic environment. As a result, forced perspective techniques, oversized props and scale models were used to avoid computer-generated imagery (CGI) wherever possible. Matte paintings were used during the Loompaland and Indian palace sequences. However, several scenes were deemed impossible to achieve realistically without CGI. The Moving Picture Company was tasked with creating entire CG environments for sequences such as the boat ride and the glass elevator tour. A practical method was initially used for Violet Beauregarde's inflation; however, Burton was not satisfied by the effects and decided the scene would be accomplished with CGI.


text: Deep Roy was cast to play the Oompa-Loompas based on his previous collaborations with Burton on "Planet of the Apes" and "Big Fish". The actor was able to play various Oompa-Loompas using split screen photography, digital and front projection effects. "Tim told me that the Oompa-Loompas were strictly programmed, like robots—all they do is work, work, work," Roy commented. "So when it comes time to dance, they're like a regiment; they do the same steps." Roy, who played a total of 165 individual Oompa-Loompas in the film, experienced an especially laborious regimen during production. He was required to regularly practice Pilates with a personal trainer and follow a diet in order for his appearance to remain unchanged during filming. With no prior professional dancing experience, each musical number involving Roy took a month to rehearse and six months in total to film. In referencing his workload during production, Burton called Roy the "hardest-working man in show biz".


text: For Veruca Salt's demise at the hands of a hundred squirrels, Burton wanted the animals to be real. He consulted with the film's animal trainer, Mike Alexander, to determine which parts of the sequence would be achievable with live squirrels. Forty rescue squirrels were trained over 19 weeks, the first three of which were spent making the animals comfortable with their crates and their trainers. The squirrels were then given props and taught how to sit upon a bar stool, tap and then open a walnut, and deposit its meat onto a conveyor belt. According to Alexander, the smartest squirrels were assigned to shell, as those who had difficulty with the regiment were placed in a separate group that ran across the floor and attacked Veruca's stunt double. For the shots where the rodents would be in close interaction with Veruca, CG squirrels designed by Framestore CFC were implemented. Several shots called for a hundred animated squirrels, while close-up models required five million computer-generated hairs to look realistic. Animatronic squirrels were also used in the background of shots where a live squirrel would be performing the shelling routine.


text: Several challenges emerged during filming. The delicate landscape of the Chocolate Room posed a challenge for the crew, with cinematographer Philippe Rousselot recalling that "the set was very impractical for shooting because it was all curves and extraordinarily fragile—as soon as you stepped onto the grass, you destroyed it." Rousselot instead utilized a cable-suspended camera system known as Cablecam. On one occasion, the camera was improperly secured to the system and subsequently plunged into the faux chocolate river, destroying the $540,000 camera and delaying production. Another hurdle during filming was the existence of British Equity rules, which state that children can only work four and a half hours a day. Filming for "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" took six months, ending in December 2004. Despite these challenges, Burton claimed production ended ahead of schedule.


text: Danny Elfman, similar to Tim Burton, had no emotional attachment to 1971's "Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory". According to Elfman, "I had no trouble divorcing myself from those [original] songs. I've dealt with that a couple of times. You know you're dealing with something that's going to make a lot of people angry, and you just can't think about it." Because the Oompa-Loompa musical numbers would require complex choreography and be shot on set, Elfman had to compose those songs before filming began. Elfman also composed the songs simultaneously alongside the music from "Corpse Bride". It was decided at an early stage that Elfman would be providing the vocals for all the Oompa-Loompas, a decision justified by the identical nature of the Oompa-Loompas, with pitch changes and modulations to represent different singers. "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" marks the first time since 1993's "The Nightmare Before Christmas" that Elfman contributed to a film score using written songs and his vocals.


text: The first song composed was "Augustus Gloop", being done as a Bollywood spectacle per Deep Roy's suggestion. Elfman recounted, "my original approach was to find a style of music and apply that to all the songs. Tim was like, 'No, no, no, no, no... we're going to completely mix it up!' I said, 'Great, let's go.'" Per Burton's suggestion, the Oompa-Loompa songs would each reflect a different style of music: "Violet Beauregarde" is 1970s funk, "Veruca Salt" is 1960s bubblegum and psychedelic pop, and "Mike Teavee" is a tribute to late-1970s hard rock, particularly Queen, and early 1980s hair bands. All four songs utilize lyrics direct from Roald Dahl's book; as such, the lyrics are credited to Dahl. Rather than using the book's songs in their entirety, Elfman selected specific verses, as he believed using them unabridged would have made each song ten minutes long. "Violet Beauregarde" was the only song that required a partial rewrite, as the song in the book was about a girl who chewed gum rather than Violet Beauregarde herself. The only other song to require vocal performances was "Wonka's Welcome Song", a maddeningly cheerful theme park ditty, which was written in collaboration with the film's screenwriter John August.


text: In addition to the Oompa-Loompa songs, Elfman created an entire underscore for the film being based around three primary themes: a gentle family theme for the Buckets, generally set in upper woodwinds; a mystical, string-driven waltz for Willy Wonka; and a hyper-upbeat factory theme for full orchestra, Elfman's homemade synthesizer samples and the diminutive chanting voices of the Oompa-Loompas. Elfman and Burton differed on their ideas for the main title music, as Elfman imagined something more dreamy while Burton wanted something energetic. Richard Strauss' "Also sprach Zarathustra" plays during a sequence in the film as a direct reference to "". When introducing himself to the golden ticket winners, Wonka quotes "Good Morning Starshine" from the 1967 musical "Hair".


text: The original motion picture soundtrack was released on July 12, 2005, by Warner Sunset Records. The soundtrack received positive reviews, with Doug Adams of "Film Score Monthly" saying of the Oompa-Loompa songs: "Each piece includes something the others don't, rhythms or hooks or harmonies that in Elfman's inimitable way seem like deconstructions and wholly original concepts at the same time." Filmtracks.com called the soundtrack a "rhythmically driven affair" because of the mechanical nature of the factory, a departure from Elfman's penchant for quieter heartbreaking themes. "Wonka's Welcome Song" received a Grammy nomination for Best Song Written for Visual Media. Elfman would later cite "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" as being one of the most fun projects he had been involved with.


text: In 2010, thirteen previously unreleased tracks were included as part of the "Danny Elfman & Tim Burton 25th Anniversary Music Box". In addition to those tracks, instrumentals of "Wonka's Welcome Song" and the Oompa-Loompa songs were included, as well as several demos.


text: "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" had its premiere at the Grauman's Chinese Theatre on July 10, 2005, where money for the Make-a-Wish Foundation was raised. The film was released in the United States on July 15, 2005, in 3,770 theaters, including IMAX theaters. In the United Kingdom, the premiere was held on July 17 at Leicester Square, only ten days after the July 7 London bombings. It was released nationwide on July 29 in 531 theaters.


text: The release of "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" rekindled public interest in Roald Dahl's 1964 book, which appeared on "The New York Times" Best Seller list from July 3 to October 23, 2005. Burton's film also reignited interest in the 1971 film adaptation. According to Michael Böllner, who portrayed Augustus Gloop in "Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory", the first adaptation was largely unheard of in Germany until Burton's version was released.


text: Early in the development of "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" in February 2000, Warner Bros. announced their intention of marketing the film with a Broadway theatre musical after release. The studio reiterated their interest in May 2003; however, the idea was postponed by the time filming began in June 2004. The teaser poster for "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" was released in November 2004, with the teaser trailer premiering the following month in front of showings of "The Polar Express". The longer theatrical trailer was made available in May 2005 exclusively via Moviefone before its theatrical debut alongside screenings of "Madagascar".


text: The main tie-in for "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" focused on the Willy Wonka Candy Company, a division of Nestlé. A small range of Wonka Bars were launched, utilizing their prominence in the film. Echoing the central storyline of the film, Wonka candies introduced their own Golden Ticket contest in Wonka products, including Wonka Bars, Donutz, Laffy Taffy, Nerds, and SweeTarts. The contest's prizes included a trip to Europe, a tour of an animation studio, a trip to a sports camp, a shopping spree, and $10,000 cash. 60 million packages of candy participated in the sweepstakes. The contest officially began on June 28 following its announcement on the "Today Show", and the first winners were announced on July 8. In addition to Nestlé, Hostess introduced Chocolicious WonkaCakes, and Wendy's released "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory"-themed kids' meal toys. Other partners included Carlson, Penguin Young Readers, Borders, Barnes & Noble, and American Express.


text: In line with the film's theatrical release in the United States, an eponymous tie-in video game was released on the Xbox, PlayStation 2, GameCube, Game Boy Advance, and Microsoft Windows platforms. The film's cast provided their voices for the game, with the sole exception of Johnny Depp who was replaced by James Arnold Taylor. The game received mostly negative reviews from critics, although Winifred Phillips's score received some praise.


text: Although it opened the same day as "Wedding Crashers" and within a week of "Fantastic Four", the film's primary competition for its opening weekend was considered to be the sixth installment in the "Harry Potter" book series. "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" earned $56,178,450 in its opening weekend in the United States, the fifth-highest opening-weekend gross for 2005, and remained the highest-grossing film for two weeks. $2.2 million of the opening weekend gross was from 65 IMAX theaters. At the time of release, the film's opening earnings marked Depp's highest to date, surpassing ""s $46,630,690 opening. "Charlie" also set a record for the best-performing opening in July for a PG-rated film. According to studio exit polling conducted during its opening weekend, 54 percent of the film's audience was under the age of 18 and the majority was female.


text: "Charlie"s debut in the United Kingdom "smashed even the most optimistic industry projections", taking in $37.3 million. The film performed well in France, Spain, Australia, and Mexico. Its performance in Germany was considered less than expected. By the end of its theatrical run, the film had grossed $206,459,076 in the United States and $268,509,687 in foreign countries, coming to a worldwide total of $474,968,763.


text: The film was the 58th-highest-grossing film of all time when released. Worldwide, the film was the eighth-highest-grossing film of 2005, while it was the seventh-highest in the United States and fourth-highest in the United Kingdom. "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" remains the sixteenth-highest-grossing musical film of all time and Tim Burton's second-highest-grossing, behind only 2010's "Alice in Wonderland". It is also the eighth-highest-grossing film of Johnny Depp's career. As of 2021, "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" remains the only "hit" Roald Dahl adaptation, following the underperformances of Wes Anderson's "Fantastic Mr. Fox" and Steven Spielberg's "The BFG". "Forbes" hypothesized that the film's success could be attributed to Depp and Burton being at the height of their popularity in 2005.


text: "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" was released on VHS and DVD on November 8, 2005. The single-disc version of the film included only two special features: an Oompa-Loompa dance tutorial and "Becoming Oompa-Loompa", which documented Deep Roy's experience on the production. A two-disc edition was also released which included six more behind the scenes featurettes: "Chocolate Dreams", exploring the writing and Tim Burton's vision for the film; "Different Faces, Different Flavors", exploring the characters; "Designer Chocolate", detailing the production design and costumes; "Sweet Sounds", how Danny Elfman created the Oompa-Loompa songs; "Under the Wrapper", detailing the film's practical and digital effects; and "Attack of the Squirrels", exploring how real squirrels were utilized for Veruca Salt's demise. The two-disc edition also contained several games and DVD-Rom features. The film's DVD sales underperformed, reaching $16 million by 2010.


text: For the film's HD DVD release in October 2006, all the behind the scenes featurettes from the two-disc edition were included. The HD DVD release also introduced an audio commentary by Burton, a music-only audio track, a "Club Reel", and an in-movie experience titled "Television Chocolate", with trivia and interviews overlayed onto the screen during the film. A Blu-ray release followed in October 2011, followed by a 10th anniversary Blu-ray release in March 2015. Both sets featured the same bonus features as the HD DVD, although the anniversary edition included a personal retrospective by Burton and a photo book.


text: On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, 83% of 230 reviews are positive, and the average rating is 7.2/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "Closer to the source material than 1971's "Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory", "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" is for people who like their "Chocolate" visually appealing and dark." According to Metacritic, which calculated a weighted average score of 72 out of 100 from 40 critic reviews, the film received "generally favorable reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A−" on an A+ to F scale.


text: A. O. Scott of "The New York Times" gave a positive review, writing "in spite of relapses and imperfections, a few of them serious, Mr. Burton's movie succeeds in doing what far too few films aimed primarily at children even know how to attempt anymore, which is to feed—even to glut—the youthful appetite for aesthetic surprise." Scott also praised Alex McDowell's set design, comparing the look of the factory to something out of Fritz Lang's "Metropolis". Mick LaSalle from the "San Francisco Chronicle" found "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" Burton's "best work in years. If all the laughs come from Depp, who gives Willy the mannerisms of a classic Hollywood diva, the film's heart comes from Highmore, a gifted young performer whose performance is sincere, deep and unforced in a way that's rare in a child actor." Peter Travers wrote in "Rolling Stone" magazine that "Depp's deliciously demented take on Willy Wonka demands to be seen. Depp goes deeper to find the bruises on Wonka's secret heart than what Gene Wilder did. Depp and Burton may fly too high on the vapors of pure imagination, but it's hard to not get hooked on something this tasty. And how about that army of Oompa-Loompas, all played by Deep Roy, in musical numbers that appear to have been choreographed by Busby Berkeley on crack."


text: Depp's performance as Willy Wonka received widespread comparisons to Michael Jackson. Roger Ebert was among the critics who made such comparisons, citing Depp's performance as the weak spot in an "otherwise mostly delightful" film and noting "[Willy Wonka's] reclusive lifestyle, the fetishes of wardrobe and accessories, the elaborate playground built by an adult for the child inside" as parallels between the two. Depp was surprised by the comparisons and stated that he did not base his performance on Jackson. Burton dismissed the comparisons and stated that, unlike Jackson, Depp's iteration of the character does not like children. Ann Hornaday of "The Washington Post" criticized Depp's acting: "The cumulative effect isn't pretty. Nor is it kooky, funny, eccentric or even mildly interesting. Indeed, throughout his fey, simpering performance, Depp seems to be straining so hard for weirdness that the entire enterprise begins to feel like those excruciating occasions when your parents tried to be hip." Owen Gleiberman of "Entertainment Weekly" praised Depp's performance, writing "he maintains the paradox, the mystery, of Willy Wonka: a misanthrope who has little patience for children, who can't even utter the word 'parents' without gagging, yet who invents for those same kids the purest and most luscious candies out of the sugar dream of his imagination." Depp received a Golden Globe nomination for his performance.


text: In 2004, during on-set interviews while filming, Burton called the 1971 film "Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory" "sappy", adding, "A lot of people are huge fans of the movie and hold it in awe. I wasn't one of them." Depp paid homage to Gene Wilder, who portrayed Willy Wonka in the first adaptation. Depp considered Wilder's performance "brilliant but subtle". He said to have had "Big shoes [to fill], though. Gene Wilder did such an awesome job in that film in the early '70s." While Wilder was appreciative towards Depp's comments, he was uncharacteristically critical of Burton's production overall stating, "It's just some people sitting around thinking 'How can we make some more money?' Why else would you remake "Willy Wonka"? I don't see the point of going back and doing it all over again." The filmmakers emphasized that the 2005 production of "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" was an adaptation of the 1964 book rather than a remake of the 1971 film. Depp found Wilder's remarks "disappointing", although "I can understand where he's coming from, I guess." Wilder later praised Depp's casting, saying "If I were going to cast the movie, I would cast Johnny Depp as Willy Wonka because I think he is wonderful. Mysterious—always—and magical."


text: In 2013, Wilder made further comments calling Burton's film an "insult". He continued, "It's probably Warner Brothers' insult, I think. I like Warner Brothers for other reasons, but to do that with Johnny Depp, who I think is a good actor and I like him. But I don't care for that director [Burton] and he's a talented man, but I don't care for him for doing stuff like he did."


text: In the years following its release, "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" has been described as "popular but divisive", "love it or hate it", and "everlastingly polarizing". "Entertainment Weekly" and "Variety", respectively, ranked "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" as Tim Burton's third and fourth-best film. Conversely, "Time Out" named it the worst adaptation of a Roald Dahl book, elaborating "there's something so horribly garish about Burton's film that you can't help feeling a little queasy afterwards." Although the 1971 film adaptation is considered the more beloved version, Burton's film is regarded as more faithful to Dahl's text.


text: Guy Lodge of "The Guardian" claimed that the film's reputation was hurt by Depp's "off-puttingly fey, chilly spin on Wonka", even though "Burton's film handily trumps [the 1971 adaptation] for cinematic verve and vibrancy." Korey Coleman of "Double Toasted" echoed Lodge's sentiments about Depp's performance, calling it "unsettling" and "off-putting". Despite not caring for the overall film, Coleman praised Burton for applying his own vision to the story rather than imitating the 1971 adaptation. In a series reflecting on Burton's filmography, Griffin Newman of "Blank Check" praised the film, noting that it had a comic energy that was lacking in Burton's subsequent films such as "Alice in Wonderland" and "Dark Shadows".


text: "Comic Book Resources" noted that the film is popular among those who grew up in the 2000s. In 2020, a cosplayer emulating Depp's portrayal of Willy Wonka went viral on TikTok, with "Nylon" dubbing him "sexy Willy Wonka". During the "Depp v. Heard" trial, "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" was one of the most viewed films on Netflix. The film was mentioned in the courtroom by Depp's attorney, who accused a psychiatrist brought in by Amber Heard's lawyers of using Depp's film portrayals to make official diagnoses about the actor. The doctor's "bizarre" reaction to the inquiry led to the interaction going viral.