The Dark World of Tim Burton-III
This is the 3rd in my series on Tim Burton’s movies.
For earlier posts check here and here. This post is primarily to take a look at Burton’s landmark 1993 movie The Nightmare Before Christmas, which was done using a stop motion effect.
What is Stop Motion Effect?
The basic concept of Stop Motion effect is to give the appearance of an object moving on it’s own. So what we effectively have here is, if say i were to capture the motion of a coin. So Frame 1 would have the coin at a particular spot, in Frame 2 i would move the coin to another spot, not too far from it, so when you play the frames as a continous sequence, you get the illusion of movement.
Tim Burton first experimented with this idea in a 1982 short Vincent, which he made as a homage to his idol Vincent Price, the actor famous for the B Movie Horror flicks.
If you take a look at the above video, you can see tha Tim Burton had begun to develop his style there, the frizzy look, the weird nature of the lead character, his fascination with horror.
The Nightmare Before Christmas was actually a poem written by Burton, when he was an animator with Disney. However when Disney saw the final product, they felt it was too dark and scary for kids, and so they released it under Touchstone Pictures in 1993.
The movie is about the inhabitants of Halloween Town, a fictional world, populated with zombies, monsters, ghosts, goblins, witches, vampires and werewolfs. Jack Skellington is the resident ruler of that town.
Jack Skellington
Jack is a skeleton, also nicknamed as “Pumpkin King” , is totally bored with the annual Halloween festivities, which he finds repetititive. One day Jack stumbles on Christmas Town, and totally impressed, presents the Christmas culture to his town folk. However they are unable to comprehend it’s beauty, and begin to compare everything to their ideas of Halloween. Neverthless they still agree to celebrate Christmas, with Jack taking the role of Santa Claus. Jack asks 3 bratty kids Lock,Shock,Barrel to abduct Santa to Halloween town, who in turn kidnap him and deliver him to Oogie Boogie, a bogeyman and Jack’s enemy. The movie is primarily about what happens to Jack’s attempt to do a Santa Claus. We also have a romantic track of Jack with Sally, a rag doll.
This is truly one of the best animation flicks one has seen. Also a sort of commentary, on the mismatch between the normal world and those whom we don’t consider normal. Burton plays a full hand tribute to the horror genre with his characters, Dr.Finklestein, a crazy scientist, who comes up with the skeletal reindeer sled, Zero a ghost dog who becomes Jack’s conscience, Cyclops, Mr.Hyde, Melting Man.
One of the best scenes is here, when Jack falls into Christmas Town, and is impressed by the beauty of it.
And the song by Oogie Boogie when he kidnaps Santa Claus, and holds him in captivity, fabulous. The den, filled with flourescent bats, dancing skeletons is eerie. Great animation here.
Also the conflict between Jack and Oogie Boogie when he rescues his love Sally and Santa Claus, is another brilliant scene. Watch it here. And not to be missed is the fabulous sound track by Danny Ellfman, who also voiced the character of Jack, and sang most of the songs.
Compared to the other animated movies of that time, Nightmare was the odd man out. While the standard Disney animated feature had a bright sunny look, and most dealt with a young person growing up, Nightmare had a darkish look throughout. Jack is a weary,cynical character, and his skeletal appearance is not too appealing either. In effect Jack Skellington was more like a Travis Bickle in animation. And horror of horrors, it shows Santa being tortured and kidnapped. Yet the movie was a runaway success with both critics and audiences alike. I think the main factor could be that, Halloween is as much a big festival as Christmas in the US. This was a movie that was as anti Disney as it could be, and yet it was funded by a Disney Studio, yeah Touchstone was started by Disney’s Eisner, to release more adult mature themes.
Along with Toy Story, Finding Nemo, The Nightmare Before Christmas would be another landmark in animation. And Burton would repeat that feat later in 2005 with Corpse Bride, of which we will be seeing later.
Tags: Halloween, Halloween Town, Jack Skellington, Nightmare Before Christmas, Oogie Boogie, Stop Motion Animation, tim burton
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Ratnakar,.
you rock man,..
nobody in India,review such a stuff,..
you should educate people about this kind of film making
Nice Post !!!
great post… art is truly omnipotent….
So guruji, I finished reading the whole Burton series, rushed through Hitchcock and have booked Scorsese for a little later. Well written and researched pieces, all of them. Burton, you have mentioned mostly all the important things. I would add my love for Big Fish. May be because I am unable to find the original DVD’s for his other films, but the film was truly superb, and might I say, less dark. Love Batman Returns, for Penguin & Pfeiffer. Love the last scene, with the penguins, a touch of pathos. I have Pee Wee, a fun film, less dark again. I need to get back to Nightmare and Sleepy Hollow soon. Loved Sweeney Todd. Burton is like a text book for me, I keep going back to his vast repertoire and the dark themes always help. :-)
Hey Tushar,.
watch “Frankenweenie ” ,Burton’s short movie ,.
Take on classic Black & White films like “Frankenstien”
Sure Shekhar. BTW, about time you put some fresh stuff on your blog. Or better, send us a post or two will ya. :-)
Tushar,.
lot of stuff to put in the blog,.
need to be ‘organize’
Sure man. wink wink
Travis Bickle: I should get one of those signs that says “One of these days I’m gonna get organezized”.
Betsy: You mean organized?
Travis Bickle: Organezized. Organezized. It’s a joke. O-R-G-A-N-E-Z-I-Z-E-D…
Betsy: Oh, you mean organezized. Like those little signs they have in offices that says, “Thimk”?
you said it !!!
@ Shekar
Well i am a big time fan of Burton, and just felt like sharing my views on him. Nice to know there are other fans like you too.
@ Sanjay
Yes bhai, ur right, art is omnipotent.
@ Tushar
I will be comming to Big Fish soon, thoda wait karna padega. I am going in a sequential order for Burton’s movies, and i guess maybe u will have to wait for a couple of posts more. Matter of fact,would love to see a post from you on Big Fish. Have not seen Pee Wee, heard it was a comedy. Sleepy Hollow is another classic for me.
Shekar, as Tushar says, would love to see some more stuff on your blog.
Sure Ratnakar, take your time. I love your Burton series and the detail gone into it.
Saw Nightmare today. I couldn’t finish it as it took me 2 hrs to just finish 45 mins. You know the reason. :-)
I am in love with tim burton! was running through alice in wonderland trailers when I stumbled upon your blog, the nightmare scenes that you have mentioned are my favorites too!!