Tim Burton: Director, Producer, Animator, and Godfather of Hot Topic is known for gothic fantasy films that are drenched in quirk. Since the beginning, he has been fascinated by delicate people who have a dangerous component. These delicate people in Burton’s mind, are all artists, even if they do not physically make art. These artists are people who want nothing to do other than enjoy their lives and perfect their craft. Their untapped danger is relative to how the antagonists of Burton’s films react to the artists. The non-artists are envious of the work and either try to destroy or exploit them. He harks on this explicitly in his most recent film, Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children, as the protagonist, Jake, not only discovers his hidden potential via a group of other artists, but finds out there are monsters trying to destroy him. Burton has been telling this same story since his masterpiece, Edward Scissorhands, in 1990. The story of an artist who has suffered and copes by doing what they do best. When non-creatives come into the picture, they try and stop or rob the artist of their ideas for their own selfish gain. But when a non-creative disrupts the art, that’s when it can become dangerous and hostile. Only in the delicate hands of an artist can the danger be held at bay and crafted into a wonderful work of art.
The Artist’s Work
Since Edward Scissorhands is Burton’s magnum opus, it will set as a template for Burton’s Artist. His protagonists are artists who feel isolated from the rest of the world. They are a completely original individual with a peculiar set of skills. The skill can vary from something artistic (Willy Wonka, Margret Keane), something imaginative (Alice, Ed Bloom, Pee Wee), or a trade that helps others first hand. (Sweeney Todd, Batman). It isn’t always something that someone does, but simply the existence of that person in general. In a film like Beetlejuice, the peculiar skill is simply that the Maitlands are ghosts. Their art could be something they are compromising with on their own. Bruce Wayne is an eccentric billionaire that secretly dresses like a Bat in order to battle his inner demons. I will get into Ed Wood in depth later, but he fits into this construct as well. In Mars Attacks, Burton gives us an entire swatch of human beings that represent the entire world. The human skill is to live in our own unique cultures. The Artist wants only to be able to live their life doing what they do best. When non-creatives come into the picture, this is when things start to go awry.
The Exploitation by the Inept
The Artist is met with opposition. This opposition is an envious figure that either wants to destroy what the artist makes, or exploit it for their own gain. Let’s call this opposition “the inept”. The Inept are often people who wish to take what the artist has and make it their own. They are hack creators (Deetz’ in Beetlejuice, Pirelli in Sweeny Todd, kids in Frankenweenie), people who’s attempts at art are phony and they are envious of the artist. Someone who seeks to discredit or destroy the artist (Kids in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, The Martians, Alice, Will Bloom, Walter Keane). When the Deetz’ in Beetlejuice find out their house is haunted, they immediately find ways of making money off of the ghosts. At times they want to make the art their own, but most of the time, they just want it gone. Each child in Charlie in the Chocolate Factory is an opposition creatives come across at one point or another. Augustus Gloop is the gluttonous consumer who wants nothing but more and more product, even before it’s ready. Violet Beauregard is the competition aspect of art with the needless awards and recognition given to pointless endeavors such as gum chewing. Veruca Salt is the money aspect that tries to put a price on art, regardless of how priceless something is. Mike Tevee is the analytic criticism that takes away any enjoyment of the product. (I’ve always identified with Mike).
At times, the artist is dealing with their own ineptitude. Bruce Wayne is his own Ineptitude. He knows that the only reason his villains exist is because Batman exists, but for him to be competent person, he must be Batman. But he can’t be Batman forever. The threat of no Batman is his biggest opposition. The Martians in Mars Attacks are a strange bunch of creatures that all talk and look the same that do nothing but destroy the wonderfully vast culture of the entire world. Will Bloom in Big Fish resents his father for his creatively wild stories and spends the whole film trying to confirm the lies he told. Judge Turpin in Sweeney Todd takes away Joanna from Todd, and Todd is completely offended by the show boating Pirelli. Alice from Alice in Wonderland keeps getting told that her dreams are nothing but illusions and is constantly being controlled by people who think they know better. This is directly reflected when she revisits her childhood dream that has become a nightmare controlled by a woman with a giant head and no ideas. Burton has no sympathy for the Inept. When they get their comeuppance, they get it hard. And It’s always the art that comes back to bite them in the ass.
The Art’s Catharsis
At a point where the Artist feels compromised and lost, what comes back to save them, is their own art. Once they are backed into a corner they cannot get out of, that’s when they feel compelled to make a move they’ve never made before. This move is often deadly (Edward, Sweeney) and used as a last case scenario when things get too out of hand (Beetlejuice). Other times, the move is a deterrent that wards off the Inept when unleashed (Alice, Willy Wonka). At its most optimistic, it’s used to bring about an awakening for the Inept and bring them to the artist’s side (Ed Bloom, Batman revealing himself to Catwoman) but this is also at the cost of a life. Bruce Wayne finally finding someone who he can relate to allows him to unload the baggage of his secret onto someone with similar issues, but once the baggage is gone, so are they.
This move is never something the artist wants to do. Burton often ends his films with this moment in a big show stopping scene (Beetlejuice, Batman, Mars Attacks, Big Fish, Alice in Wonderland) but sometimes, he begins the film with the artist already having faced the Inept and ready to take back control (Sweeney, Willy). Willy Wonka and Sweeney Todd dealt with their traumas before the film started and are now taking revenge on the their transgressors. In the case of Ed Wood, an artist who’s art is already dangerous because of all the compromises he’s forced to make, he learns that his happiness lies in his own hands. It’s only after his talk with Orson Welles where he says “Visions are worth fighting for. Why Spend your life making someone else’s dreams?” when he decides that he’s not going to compromise his vision, he finishes Plan 9 completely his own way. The film is a disaster, but not compromising leads to the film’s happy ending.
Conclusion
Burton has made some Plan 9’s in his career, but that’s what makes every single one of them special, they are uncompromised visions of an artist on the fringe. He has a piece of himself in every film. Edward Scissorhands is his undisputed autobiography. An artist who is discovered by an artist who has compromised. He does good work when he is given the freedom under supervision, but when the wrong hands take control, well…(Planet of the Apes, Dark Shadows). His bad work feels like a cathartic endeavor to make room for a wildly entertaining film like Miss Peregrine. Movies like Dark Shadows feel like a living embodiment of the end of Mars Attacks in which the evil martians are destroyed by a terrible yodeling country song. I don’t think he’s necessarily given us the beautiful snow Edward gives Kim for her entire life at the end of the film, but I do believe each film is inherently his story. The story of a Delicate Artist.
Hey! My friend and I started a podcast where we compare movie remakes with their originals and talk about whether or not remakes are valid in Hollywood today! We’ve talked about Planet of the Apes, The Jungle Book, Oldboy, and so much more! (2 more)
We’re 5 episodes deep and we’re finally starting to figure some stuff out so now is a good time to get up on this before we get too professional!
Message movies tend to err on the long side of 2 hours with not very much happening that doesn’t serve the heavy handed ideas they’re trying to shed light on. So when a movie dealing with Wall Street with this title comes along, you have to imagine you know what to expect. Fortunately, Money Monster is a tight hour and half crime drama that maintains tension and still throws some well earned surprises at you. Also, Wall Street is bad.
Directed by Jodi Foster, this film stars George Clooney, Julia Roberts, and Jack O’Connell and deals with a Mad Money type of tv personality (Clooney) who gets held hostage on the air by an angry working class guy (O’Connell) and all of this is being contained by the show’s director (Roberts). For most of the film we don’t see Roberts and Clooney together, but they are constantly communicating a la After Earth. Their chemistry is wonderful and it’s just really nice to see superstar actors just be themselves in a movie again. O’Connell is fine for a part the requires him to be the antagonist in the film and simultaneously, the emotional center.
When it comes to the film’s ideas, it’s baby food. They’re lobbing ideas at the audience like #occupywallstreet wasn’t a thing and something they’re saying will teach them who’s REALLY the bad guys here. It’s constantly shifting the focus of who we should really blame for everyone’s money issues, but never really lets a different idea settle for too long before just showing us that, “no yeah, Wall Street is bad.”
This film’s cement fists of heavy handedness somehow still do not detract from the genuine tension that Foster builds as something is always happening. We are always moving forward as Giancarlo Esposito as a Police Sargent finds a way to enter the building safely and Caitriona Baife is investigating her own employer’s possible involvement in the glitch that started the whole mess. Each one of these cutaways to different characters heightens the plot (minus one about erectile cream). Foster likes to tease a moment as if we’re not about to see it happen, and then it just happens, which I found refreshing. The lack of cliffhanger moments is crucial to a film that relies to heavily on time.
The best scenes of the film are when Julia Roberts realizes that there is a way to give information to either Clooney or O’Connell by simply running the show according to plan. She asks the camera guy to change position so she get a better angle on O’Connell. She cues up bells and whistles that Clooney likes to play with. The mastermind behind the board allowing a crazy person with a gun do what he wants as long as she’s able to mic him is such a fascinating thing. The entire cast that makes up the crew of the show display a dedication to their jobs that Foster wanted to showcase. The director isn’t just someone who yells action and cut. They control whether or not a crazy man blows up an entire studio. Kudos.
