Tim Burton
Jan. 3rd, 2010 06:38 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
poliphiloTim Burton is an auteur. He doesn't do anonymous studio hack-work. All his films announce themselves as his. Even when he takes on a very commercial, kiddy-friendly project like Willy Wonka the outcome is unmistakeably Burtonesque- even if- as happens in this instance- it's also quite atrocious.
Auteurism is no guarantee of quality- only of characterfulness. Even Ingmar Bergman made stinkers- in fact quite a lot of them. Burton's record is very mixed. Edward Scissorhands is a little too emo for me and Beetlejuice too busy and hyperactive. I'm not fond of superheroes, so don't expect me to be much of a fan of the Batman movies. Mars Attacks- which the critics were lukewarm about- amuses me greatly.
Burton's talent is for telling small, strange, piquant stories- he's an Edward Gorey of the big screen- and very big budgets do him no favours; his ideas get swamped by the scenery. Sleepy Hollow, good as it is, would have been even better if it had been cheaper and shorter. His masterpieces are small films: Ed Wood and the Corpse Bride- both of them as close to perfection as a film can be. I saw The Corpse Bride for the first time last night. What a charmer! Who'd have thought decomposition could be so funny, or the reunion of a little boy with his grandfather's corpse so moving?
Next up is the new Alice in Wonderland. This is a sacred text for me and I'm nervous. Putting Burton and Carroll together might seem like a marriage made in heaven - but the same could have been said about Burton and Dahl- and look what a mismatch that turned out to be. Yoke Burton to a writer with an imagination as strong and quirky as his own and he fights for dominance. I've seen the trailer. It looks amazing, but the story- something about the Red Queen taking over Wonderland- sounds really, really stupid. We'll see. One thing's certain; even if it's a very bad film it will be bad in a way only one man could possibly have achieved.
Auteurism is no guarantee of quality- only of characterfulness. Even Ingmar Bergman made stinkers- in fact quite a lot of them. Burton's record is very mixed. Edward Scissorhands is a little too emo for me and Beetlejuice too busy and hyperactive. I'm not fond of superheroes, so don't expect me to be much of a fan of the Batman movies. Mars Attacks- which the critics were lukewarm about- amuses me greatly.
Burton's talent is for telling small, strange, piquant stories- he's an Edward Gorey of the big screen- and very big budgets do him no favours; his ideas get swamped by the scenery. Sleepy Hollow, good as it is, would have been even better if it had been cheaper and shorter. His masterpieces are small films: Ed Wood and the Corpse Bride- both of them as close to perfection as a film can be. I saw The Corpse Bride for the first time last night. What a charmer! Who'd have thought decomposition could be so funny, or the reunion of a little boy with his grandfather's corpse so moving?
Next up is the new Alice in Wonderland. This is a sacred text for me and I'm nervous. Putting Burton and Carroll together might seem like a marriage made in heaven - but the same could have been said about Burton and Dahl- and look what a mismatch that turned out to be. Yoke Burton to a writer with an imagination as strong and quirky as his own and he fights for dominance. I've seen the trailer. It looks amazing, but the story- something about the Red Queen taking over Wonderland- sounds really, really stupid. We'll see. One thing's certain; even if it's a very bad film it will be bad in a way only one man could possibly have achieved.
no subject
Date: 2010-01-03 07:15 pm (UTC)I haven't yet seen Ed Wood, but The Corpse Bride was lovely.
This is a sacred text for me and I'm nervous.
I've been dubious since Comic-Con, where Burton declared in re prior versions of Alice in Wonderland that "It was always a girl wandering around from one crazy character to another, and I never really felt any real emotional connection," at which I decided he had completely missed the point. Also if you want a film about Alice's complicated emotional relationship with Wonderland, what you want is Dennis Potter's Dreamchild (1985); it's not yet on DVD (at least in this country) and it has a weak B-plot, but the stuff with Alice Liddell and Carroll and her aging hallucinations of mad tea parties and sobbing turtles is perfect. And I have always liked the Mad Hatter, but he's never looked like Johnny Depp to me.
no subject
Date: 2010-01-03 07:37 pm (UTC)Ah well, he's an artist I respect.
I've seen Dreamchild- but it was a long time ago. My favourite version of Wonderland is the one Jonathan Miller made for the BBC- with John Gielgud and Michael Redgrave and Peter Sellers and Peter Cook and Alan Bennett- and all sorts of wonderful people. It has a very potent atmosphere of summery, high Victorian strangeness- and a soundtrack by Ravi Shankar.
no subject
Date: 2010-01-04 05:20 am (UTC)Okay; I'll watch that.