Tim Burton

[poliphilo]

Tim 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.

Comments

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I can forgive Burton anything for Ed Wood and Corpse Bride. Those are two very remarkable movies.

They shouldn't have let him loose on Roald Dahl, but I can see why it might have seemed like a good idea at the time. Here are two guys with quirky, dark imaginations- they're bound to get on. Only they didn't. Charlie must be one of the dullest, most lifeless movies for children ever made. And allowing Depp to turn in a performance based on Michael Jackson was a terrible misjudgement- because it introduced a subtext of paedo creepiness that was entirely inappropriate.

Ah well, the Gene Wilder version is still available.

[jfs.livejournal.com]

For me, the fault in Burton's Wonka isn't the paedophilia (horrible though that is) - it's the destruction of Charlie.

In Wilder's version, Charlie is offered temptation and turns it down. Even though he could have made his family's fortune by stealing, and even after Wonka has treated him horribly, he still turns around and gives back the sweet that he's purloined. He was tempted, but he pulls through. And Wonka recognises that, and gives him the keys to the Kingdom.

I actually think that's a stronger ending that Dahl's original. And far, far stronger than Burton's "My Daddy never loved me!".

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

That Daddy stuff annoys me deeply. Characters like Willy Wonka don't need explanation- they just are.

It's hard to know where to start critiquing Burton's movie. Almost everything about it is wrong.