Dupuis: Frankenweenie

Weird Girl

Choosing between a live action film and a stop-motion animated film is not hard when it comes to the content of the film. When it comes to Tim Burton’s Frankenweenie, I think he makes the right choice by re-making it in stop-motion. The 1984 version of Frankenweenie is limited by the emotions and laws of nature whereas the 2012 stop-motion animated Frankenweenie can be anything it wants to be. The basis of film I think screams for stop-motion. The 1984 film seemed restricted by the normality of life, when the film is based on a larger than life element; I think it just makes sense for the film to be outside the boundaries of life. The stop-motion allows for there to be other monsters but also allows the characters to be how I think Burton imagined them to be, considering Staring Girl was a member of the animated cast. Personally I did not like the live action 1984 short film. I had other problems with it other than the live actors and the effect that had on the characters. First off, the film was too short and did not allow for much context about the relationship between Victor and Sparky. Second, the short film does not deal with death in any way. After Sparky is killed, the town brings him back and he is revived right away. The 2012 at least had a little break between when Sparky died again to when he was revived that allowed a little self-reflection and acceptance of death. My final problem with the 1984 film was, of course, the live-action element. Going into the movie I expected animation but when it was not and the actors came out, it felt forced. I did not feel like this is what Burton wanted the film to be, and that caused me to lose interest and dislike the film. But when I saw the 2012 Frankenweenie I knew it was Burton, I could feel it. The emotions were in it more than the 1984. Knowing about Burton’s passion for making stop-motion films, it made the film more like this was Tim Burton’s baby. The stop-motion made the characters more intense. The weird girl could look as weird as Burton wanted her to look. And Edger could have be the strangest, creepiest thing that Burton could imagine. Burton would never have been able to find a character that looked as weird as he wanted Edger to look. These odd characters add to the effect of the film, like the science teacher. Burton got to exaggerate his look because he used stop-motion. Also the monsters that the kids created made the film’s action scene at the end more intense than the 1984 short film. The plot line of the film also makes more sense to have in stop-motion. Victor is bringing his dog back to life because he loves him so much; it sounds more like a bedtime story. The stop-motion gives the effect that this film is a bedtime story coming to life. 

Dupuis: Sweeney Todd

Sweeney Todd

I was surprised how much I felt for Sweeney Todd even though he was killing people and feeding the bodies to other people. It reminded me the TV show Dexter which has a serial killer as the main character; it seems messed up at first but after you watch an episode you are rooting for Dexter to be able to kill and not get caught. I think Burton overcomes the moral revulsion and murder by showing us why Sweeney is angry with the upper class of London before he starts killing people. The audience sees Sweeney’s background of being taken from his family by an upper class-men which shows why he is sad, but the audience is hopefully he can be reunited with his family until he learns that his wife is dead and his daughter was taken. After learning what happened to his family the audience feels angry with Sweeney and they want revenge as much as he does. But after the judge gets away before he is able to kill him, Sweeney is in a very delicate state which Mrs. Lovett takes advantage. Sweeney has all this stored up anger which he cannot do anything with until Mrs. Lovett presents him with an idea to kill more people for meat as a way to get back at the upper class. Sweeney accepts the deal because it is a way for him to get back at the upper class and allows him to release some of his anger. But also, killing others connects him to life, which is the same for Dexter. I think the audience recognizes this in the beginning of the movie which contributes to them being able to connect to Sweeney and see past the murder and cannibalism. Sweeney even fulfills the archetype of a good father and a murder; he is the shadow and the hero. His wanting to kill the judge can be seen as him wanting to protect his daughter from the judge’s unnatural desire to marry Sweeney’s daughter. Sweeney is a sad, murderous, but a relatable character. Everyone feels cheated by life at some time and wants to get back at the people that cheated them. Sweeney just takes people’s buried desires and brings them to the surface.

Dupuis: Big Fish

Edward and Carl

Tim Burton merges the sunny character of Edward Bloom with the darker grotesque characters of the film by using humor. When Edward meets Carl, the giant, the first thing Ed says to the giant is that he is here, before the giant, as a human sacrifice. This is obviously a joke and brings humor to the fact that Ed is standing in front of someone that could crush him if he wanted to. But instead of eating him, Ed tells the giant that he is just too big for this small town and convinces him to go in search for bigger and better things. Edward likes these darker grotesque characters like Carl because they, like Edward, need something more from life. On their search of bigger things, Ed and Carl come across a circus, which brings Ed to another unusual character, the circus owner, Amos Calloway, who happens to be a werewolf. As Ed stands before the werewolf that could eat him any minute, Ed picks up a stick and throws it into the forest, causing the werewolf to go chasing after it like a house dog. This aspect of humor again brings light to this dark scene. Amos Calloway sees Ed as a hard-working man and respects that about him. Ed views Amos Calloway as a man-to-his-word which he also respects about him. People are drawn to people with similar aspects of their life, which Burton shows in Big Fish. Edward is on a search for his life, which brings him on the same path as the giant and the werewolf. The giant is always too big for everything, until he finds the circus, where he fits in perfectly. The werewolf just needs someone to play with, which Edward provides when he plays fetch with him. Everyone is one the search for something, which they may not know until they find it. Edward is on the search for love, he realizes this when he sees his wife for the first time. He did not know he was on the search for love until he saw her. After that, he did everything he could just to get closer and closer to her, including shoveling elephant poop. 

Dupuis: Sleepy Hollow

Sleepy Hollow

The film Sleepy Hollow by Tim Burton takes the original short story, “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow,” by Washington Irving and puts a new spin to it, well, a few spins to it. I like both versions of the story of Ichabod and the headless horseman. I think Burton takes the elements of the story individually and creates a whole new story with those elements. He takes the character of Ichabod Crane and gives him a back story that we do not get in the story, which I like. By changing that Ichabod’s mother was a witch and that she died before his eyes, it created a whole new story for that character. In the story we assume that Ichabod had a normal childhood considering there is no special attention given to it in the story. He creates a Batman-like character by adding the element of Ichabod’s mother dying before his eyes in his vivid dreams of his mother. After that he clings to science and technology. There has to be a logical explanation for everything, and there is a reason behind everything. Those are two philosophies of the two characters: Batman and Ichabod. They are both absent of greed, which is unlike the character of Ichabod from the short story, because they know what greed does to the soul.

In the short story, it is not stated directly if Ichabod was in fact chased by the headless horseman, and whether or not the horseman even exists, which I like. But I like Burton’s version of this legend better. He made the horseman real, but he is controlled by someone else, a soul greedy for vengeance. I like how Burton incorporated Irving’s original idea of the greedy soul in the villain, giving the horseman a greedy soul also. The themes of the short story are still there, just in different ways. Both stories have a happy ending, in which the unclean soul is expelled and the people of Sleepy Hollow live on in peace. I do not think Burton just uses the character names to enhance a horror story because the themes of story are still there, just in a different way that, I think, is more accessible to film. If Burton would have kept the original plot the movie would not be as enjoyable I think because I feel the main character is flat. He does not seem to change in the story whereas in the film he leaves Sleepy Hollow with a new outlook on the supernatural and love seeing as he falls in love with the beautiful Katrina Van Tassel, and not for her money.

Dupuis: Planet of the Apes

Planet of the Apes

The way a person reacts to being enslaved says a lot about a person’s character, to fight or not to fight, that is the question. Davidson fights for his freedom because he knows what freedom feels like. In the dinner scene he feels what it is to have your freedom taken away. The apes say that he has no soul. Thade even opens his mouth to look for Davidson’s soul. But is he really fighting to just switch the enslavement back to the apes? Does he really just want to have the power again? If so then, what does that say about his character? When does one cross the line between civil liberties and just fighting for power? Civil liberties in the eyes of the enslaved are freedom, but slavery in the eyes of the slave holders is power over a lesser being. Davidson admits that his world treats animals terribly, just as bad as the humans are treated, but yet he still wants to go back to that world. He is fighting to get back to the world he knows is just as bad as the one he is trapped in. But he cannot stand how he is treated in this world. To be told you do not have a soul is probably the worst feeling in the world, even though Americans said the same things about African Americans in the 1800s. Davidson fights for his soul which makes his character self-righteous. The scene in which the apes are rounding up the humans after violently captured says a lot about the mind-set of the apes and the humans. Judging by the looks on the humans face they definitely do not just accept this, they fight…only to a certain extent though because they know they cannot win. The apes are vicious to the humans because they are afraid of their potential. The humans multiply too quickly and beat the apes in numbers and fighting spirit. The humans want to fight for their freedom, but the apes are too powerful. The humans are involuntarily submissive to the apes because the generations of oppression. The apes want to be powerful, their treatment of the humans demonstrates that, but the humans also want power. They want to be able to live peacefully away from the apes. But history teaches us that the moment anyone gets power, they abuse it. So again, when does granting civil liberties turn into enslavement of the lower species? When does the switch happen? 

Dupuis: Mars Attacks!

Mars Attacking

The movie Mars Attacks by Tim Burton show the president as just a figure-head that does nothing to help the human race. He rarely appears in most of the scenes in which the Martians are attacking to ensure that he stays safe. Mars Attacks almost portrays the president as a coward. The scene in which he dies opens with him crying in the situation room. Also throughout the movie the president is shown to present no ideas about the aliens. He listens to the scientist and just does what the scientist says; whereas, in other science fiction movies the president is seen as the savior through his courage and wisdom. Jack Nicholson counters acts that view by being a coward that just follows what he is told by the person he deems the smartest. In the opening scene of the movie in which the president is talking with all his advisers he gives the scientist all the power in the scene and the president is just seen as a man sitting behind a desk asking “what should we do?” Burton does this to parody the role of the president by showing that the men Americans are supposed to look up to in times of danger are just as scared as the citizens and really have no idea what to do, so they pass the task on to others.

               Burton also parodies the view of American nationalism through Richie’s family. The family is represents the “normal” red-blooded Americans, rednecks, that are not afraid to fight for their land, or in this case a trailer. The manner in which they die also plays a role in Burton making fun of them. They die by the aliens picking up their trailer and running it into another trailer which is meant to show that just because you pick up a shotgun in the science fiction movie does not mean you going to survive it, like it is shown in most typical science fiction movies. Burton uses these stereotypic roles to poke-fun at what Americans see as a sacred institution that will never fail…unless the Martians take over! 

Dupuis: Ed Wood

Johnny Depp as Ed Wood

I think Burton and Wood have many similarities as directors. They both share a passion for the movies they make; they have close relationships with their mentors; and they stay true to their vision even if no one likes it. The major difference between Burton and Wood is that Wood wants to be a part of the main stream Hollywood which Burton despises. This is ironic because Burton is a success and Wood was not. These two men just represent the difference between having talent and not having talent. They both had the drive; Burton just had the talent to go with that drive.

Burton does have an appreciation for Wood’s movies and as a person despite Wood’s failed movies and despite Burton’s movie Ed Wood was a flop. Wood always stayed true to his vision of the movie he wanted to make, even if they were not popular in his time; he did not let his constant failures to change his movies. Burton admires this aspect of Wood’s films which I think he does because Burton feels that sometimes he has to stray from his original vision for the movie for the sake of his audience or because of the people paying for the movie to be made.

Burton relates to Wood in sense that they both have a vision that they are criticized for, but they both have a deep passion for it. Burton was criticized for his strange vision, but when he brings it to life in his movies, the audience falls in love because they are so relatable and unlike anything else they have seen. I think Wood just was not appreciated in his time because he dealt with issues that were new to the world and not ready to be shown on screen, like cross-dressing and sex changes.

I think Burton used original scenes from Wood’s films to show how much Wood loved his films. By using the original scenes Burton shows that Wood’s films were his life, they were not just a job, which is another thing Burton and Wood have in common. Their films are not just films; the films are their lives.