Film Spotlight: Tim Burton's "Corpse Bride"

I had the urge to watch this for the better part of last week, so I decided to watch it today and talk about the themes and such within this film. This is my second favorite film by Tim Burton, with my first being "Edward Scissorhands". Let us start with the obvious. Tim Burton, with a majority of his films, uses a color scheme I call "ironic coloring". While "Edward" was a better example of this, "Corpse Bride" also made use of this technique to subtly bring home the main conflicts and ideas presented in the film. One thing to watch for is who receives color and who does not. The dead characters are extremely vibrant while the living ones are a dull monochrome. Even the skeletons have more color then, say, Lord Barcus. We also see that Emily makes use of a single color, blue, throughout the film. This becomes extremely significant when we take into consideration another classic Burton conflict: the organic vs the machine.

Nearly all his movies have this in there in some way, though the results of this skirmish vary widely in my opinion. In this film, the machine seems to have it's way. If you watch the intro credits, you notice that everything in the town runs of a metronome. Everything is moving in time with everything else, even the cat. The only thing that breaks this is the butterfly, the symbol of the organic and of freedom. It's fluttering wings almost mock these poor creatures for being the cogs they are. The dead then, ironically, are organic. They are lively and fun, never hesitating to dance to the beat of their own drum, quite literally in this case.

One final component is the component of exaggeration and caricature. Most of the living are quite comical-looking, often engorged in strange places. Examples of this technique are evident in other Burton films, including, and most recognizably, in "Alice in Wonderland". The dead are a different story. They are, more or less, symmetrical and normal looking.

Now lets bring this all together. What is this film trying to say? Let's start with the living. They are simply bits of clockwork, blown out of proportion by their incongruance with humanity. Their greed turns them into strange looking creatures, showing their faults for all to see. They are bland, colorless, a mockery of what life is supposed to be. Indeed, they are more concerned with their social standing then the lives of others. However, two characters seem to break the mold. Victor and Victoria (must have been popular that year) are rather symmetrical and normal looking. That isn't the only thing they have in common. They are both idealists, and they are both passionate in an immpassionate world. Thus they are more human looking, as they are closer to the ideal human Burton has created in his mind.

Now the dead are vibrant, symmetrical, and very passionate. The trappings and social game is cast away, allowing them to live as they please, with all the passion they could desire. While this is the norm, we are reminded that Emily is clad in not many vibrant colors, but one, a pale blue. She is also trapped by the machine by the bonds of matrimony. Though she represents unrestrained passion, she is still unable to escape the mundane and be truely free.

These are all things to keep in mind when watching or rewatching "Corpse Bride". I could go on and on about it, but I figured I would give your eyes a rest.

I apologize for my absence. Work has taken up quite a bit of my time. I have noticed that my pages have been viewed by people from Germany and Russia. When I talk about foreign film, as I plan to in this post, please understand that I am speaking as an American film maker and thus please excuse me if I say anything offensive. If I do say something rude, it is through ignorance and not malice.

As I stated earlier, I am going to be talking about how an American film student, whether they be a scholar or actually working with cameras, should view international film. Filmmakers should learn from everything and anything, regardless of country of origin. Artists, everyone, is constantly learning and thus having broadened horizons will only make you that much more learned. Granted, we should always take it with a grain of salt. Country of origin does not guarantee quality, good or bad.

Any film school worth it's salt will give you at least a taste of foreign film, if nothing else but to whet your international appetite. I would encourage you to go out and find some for yourself. Often you can find gems that a conventional film school might overlook. Good examples of these are the Japanese "Casshern" and the Spanish "Pan's Labyrinth". Bollywood can be very fun to watch, if a bit melodramatic for my taste. Yasmin Amid's films are true wonders and I would suggest them to anyone with any serious interest in film.

The same goes for animation. Just because something is a cartoon does not mean that a filmmaker can learn nothing from it. Again, granted, your not going to learn a lot from watching "Dora the Explorer" all day. However, I feel that Japanese anime can teach a filmmaker about thinking outside the box. There are at least 3 series' about vampires that I have seen and they are all extremely different. With everyone saying all the narratives have been told, I find it refreshing to see that such is not true and that origional stories can and do get told.

I will go more into detail about my exaamples in later posts, but for now I leave wou with this bit of advice. Learn from everything.