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supporter of montage or heavy editing, because such things would take away from this
goal of reproducing reality so perfectly that the viewer would not be able to distinguish it
from everyday life. To Basin, Tim Burton, would be missing the point of cinema
completely. Burton never strays completely away from reality, but instead he blurs the
line between fact, fiction, reality, and fantasy to create a very surreal experience. He
seems to have no interest in making films that are “perfectly real,” as Bazin defines it.
After all, Bazins theory does not take into account that there is no clear definition of what
reality is. Reality is a matter of perception, because every person chooses what
information to intake and/or filter out. People will often describe movies in completely
different ways, despite the fact that the same images were on the screen. People bring
themselves into a film –their ideals, beliefs, and experiences, and will find ways to
identify and find themselves in the film. Reality is therefore constructed in our own
lost cause. This essay will focus on Burtons approach toward reality in his films, and how
Tim Burtons films take a very surrealist approach, speaking of the movement in
literature and the visual arts that centered on Freudian theories about the
unconscious mind and dreams. Stylistically, Burton tends to exaggerate and distort
common objects, people, and forms in the distinct style of Salvador Dali: a “poster-child”
painter of the surrealist movement. The most obvious examples of this can be found in
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Burtons animated movies, such as “The Nightmare Before Christmas,” where the main
character, Jack Skellington, has the elongated limbs of the animals in Dali’s popular
unconscious mind are behind Burtons choice to stylize his films in this manner. In Metz
essay “On the Impression of reality,” he comments that “…the word “real” is forever
playing tricks on us- between two different problems: on the one hand, the impression of
reality produced by the diegesis, the universe of fiction, what is represented by each art,
and, on the other hand, the reality of the representation in each art. On the one hand, there
is the impression of reality; on the other, the perception of reality, that is to say, the whole
question of the degree of reality contained in the material available to each of the
representative arts” (Metz, 12-13). Burtons films take on the belief that the perception of
reality is reality itself, since reality is an individual experience and is not some type of
constant variable. Burtons films then take the leap that, the truest form of reality must
take place in the unconscious mind- in our dreams. But Burtons films do not take place
in a restrictively dreamlike state, unlike a Salvador Dali painting. Burtons films do follow
a clear narrative, and have some identifiable relation to the physical world, whereas a
dream may not. This is because reality is not detached from the physical world around us,
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and that is not what Burton is trying to show us. He instead is trying to dispute that the
physical world is reality. Burtons films show us the physical world around us in a
dreamlike state. The physical world is physically there and cannot be denied, but what
makes it “real” is how we see it, which is in this dreamlike state. We can see the dream
state presented not only in Burtons visual style, but also in his narratives.
contrasting worlds. These worlds are presented as a dream versus a nightmare, both
visually and in the narrative. The nightmare world is visually very black and frightening
distorted, while the dream world is bright and fairytale-like. These two worlds usually
being represented are the "normal" world, and the “bizarre” world. The “normal” world is
often unattractive, and void of individuality, fun, or charisma, while the "bizarre" world is
presented as the exact opposite. Despite logic, the unattractive “normal” world is not
always visually presented in the nightmare state, but still comes off as such. In “Edward
Scissorhands” the normal world is visually a dream, but this world is judgmental, unfair,
and cruel. Meanwhile it is the dark castle that looks over the town, the bizarre world,
which becomes a safe haven for our protagonist. In this film, our protagonist lives outside
dream, so he has idealized this world into the dreamlike state in which we are viewing it.
On the other hand, in “The Corpse Bride” our protagonist is a part of society, and
knows how truly dreadful it is. In this film, the two worlds are broken up into the land of
the living: the normal, and the land of the dead: the bizarre. The land of the living is
based on a very aristocratic Old English restrictive society. The characters are
judgmental, angry, and mean. Our protagonist realizes this, and so he sees his life as a
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living nightmare. Visually the characters in this world look very lifeless. The color palette
used here is mostly black and white, with some dull blue tonality to it. The land of the
dead is a strong contrast to this, and plays off of the idea that after you die, you are freed
from all of the restrictive social vices of the world. The colors here are vibrant reds,
yellows and greens, while the characters sing and dance, and are full of life and spirit.
Burtons contrasting worlds simplify life into being either “this-or-that,” leaving
no room for mid-ground, except for in the heart of the protagonist. The protagonist is
constantly searching for this middle ground between worlds- some type of “perfect
reality.” Burtons heroes never find this in the physical world and are usually forced to
create their own perfect reality. This motif is very strong is his film “Big Fish.” The film
is about a son who is looking to find out the reality about his dying fathers life, as his
father is a man that explained everything as if it were some great fable. The father-
Edward Bloom is our protagonist who has created his own reality. The film goes through
Edwards life through his stories where he is this young vibrant hero who could do
anything he put his mind to. This is shown in contrast to the “real world” where Edward
is a frail, bedridden, dying old man. The son eventually comes to the realization that often
staying true to the perceived reality of the situation is not as important as getting the main
ideas across. People will not remember Edward Bloom as that frail bedridden old man,
but they will remember him through his stories- through his reality of himself.
Along with rejecting Bazins concept of reality, Burton has also rejected the
societal structure that that reality has creates. His “normal” world is always seen as this
awful place, and his films often leave the viewer with the message that living outside of
society is a good thing. Despite this message, he still deliverers it through a very white
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male chauvinistic perspective. Minorities, who are truly outside of the society in which he
is commenting on, are presented in Burtons films in a very stereotypical manner or are
eliminated altogether. As far as ethnic minorities go, Burton mostly eliminates them from
his films. Perhaps this is because they directly dispute his message that living outside of
sequence from “Big Fish” where our main character, Edward woes his soon-to-be wife,
The sequence begins with an establishing shot of a Catholic school classroom. We
can tell this by the stained glass windows and large Organ behind the projection screen
the teacher is presenting slides on. We can also see the students on the left and right of
the camera. The lighting is minimal, and natural, as if the only light coming in the room
is from the sun shining through the windows. This adds to the aspect of realism, because
a room would be kept relatively dark when a slide presentation is being shown. Next we
cut to a medium close up of Sandra Templeton sitting amongst the crowd of students.
Aside from the fact that Sandra’s character had been introduced in previous scene, there
are other indicators that tell the audience that she is to be the focus of our attention in this
shot. Firstly she is directly in the center of this shot, and is wearing red lipstick and red
polka dots. Secondly, she is facing a different direction than all the other students. She is
also the only one who has her hand in the shot, and she is holding a pencil. The pencil is
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pointing in the direction of another girl who is wearing red lipstick, and then
perpendicular to her is yet another girl wearing red lipstick. The three girls form a
triangle, which may be a foreshadowing to these characters appearing again later on in the
scene, or it could be alluding to a possible love triangle that has yet to reveal itself. The
lighting in this shot is still relatively dim, but it seems as though Sandra Templeton is
glowing from within! This can be read as a representation of love, or purity, or as though
she has some type of angelic presence about her.
Next we cut back to a medium shot at a low angle of the professor. He is at the
rightmost corner of the frame, and the projection screen is behind him. This low angle
gives us the feeling that he is above us- an authority figure. We are smaller than him, so
we must look up to him, as is the hierarchy between teacher and student. Despite this, the
projection screen takes up most of the frame to the left of him, and this dominance calls
attention to it. On the screen there is a simple line graph, which holds for about a second.
The slide changes leaving the screen blank, forcing the viewer to pay attention to what
the professor is actually saying. Before this, the professors voice was only a background
sound, because we had more intriguing things to focus on. Now it is the only thing that
we can focus on because the screen is blank. Now that we are listening he says, “Take a
look at the next graph, I think the importance of this will be even stronger.” In the middle
of this sentence a new slide comes up that reads: I love Sandra Templeton.
The scene continues on with this theme of Edward sending Sandra love messages
in extravagant/quirky ways. The next day Sandra finds a love message written by a plane
in the sky, and the day after that she wakes up to find that right outside her window
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Edward is waiting for her, standing amongst a bed of daffodils: her favorite flower. The
music remains very soft and sweet, and each time Sandra discovers a love message the
music cues up louder, which adds to the feeling of surprise and endearment. When she
finds her last message, Edward amongst the flowers, the music cues up louder than ever
before indicating that this is the finale. We do not actually see Sandra leave her window
to meet Edward in the bed of daffodils. Instead the camera cuts from her in the window
looking down on the spectacle, to Edward in the flowers (screen left) facing the right side
of the screen and she walks into frame (from stage right). They chat for a while about
how he put all this together and the camera goes back and forth between the two of the in
medium close up shots. They are interrupted by a third voice calling Sandra’s name from
off screen.
The camera quickly cuts to a shot that establishes where the voice is coming from;
there is a man approaching them from the outskirts of the daffodil field. The camera cuts
back to a close up to show Sandra’s worried expression, and the music begins to die out.
Right there we know that there is some kind of conflict between the characters. The
emotion has drastically changed, giving off a feeling of suspense. Through dialog we find
out that this is Sandra’s fiancé, Don (this is the love triangle I was alluding to earlier
when talking about the classroom scene). When Don reaches them he angrily begins to
punch Edward around, but Edward doesn’t fight back per Sandra’s wishes. In the middle
of this fight the narrator comes in, which is the elderly Edward who is telling this story to
his daughter in law (which we know from the previous scene). He explains that even
though he was the one taking all the punches, the exertion of the fight caused Don to have
a heart attack later on. While the narrator is saying this, we see a clip of the scene where
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Don has a heart attack. It is actually a repeated scene from the beginning of the movie
where an adolescent Edward and a group of friends go to visit a witch. Legend has it, that
if you look into the witches’ glass eye, you can see your death play out right before you
like a movie scene. One of the boys looks into the eye and sees himself having a heart
attack while sitting on the toilet. This same toilet clip is repeated, which makes the viewer
realize that Don was that child from the witch scene. The clip itself is very stylized to
imitate what Burton interpreted as the “experience” of viewing a moving image within an
eyeball. The actual edges of the frame are rounded, and the whole image is dark and a bit
fuzzy. It has a brown tint to it, perhaps because the witches’ eyes were brown, or maybe
because she had cataracts. Nevertheless, this visual representation definitely gives off the
After the toilet clip, we go back to the fight sequence, which is almost completely
silent aside from the sound of punches and Edwards gasps (which makes it seem all the
more violent). Sandra ends the fight by giving Don back the ring, and refusing to ever
marry him. Don angrily storms out of frame, leaving a bloodied Edward and his wife-to-
be sitting amongst a bed of flattened daffodils, lovingly gazing into each other’s eyes.
The music cues back up, as the camera zooms out to end the scene.
In light of fetishism, Burton has definitely created a spectacle of Sandra. Sandra is
put on a pedestal as this angelic, larger than life, immaterial object. Visually, she even
glows, as though she is only a dream, having no physical presence. Sandras character is
typical of how women are represented in Burtons films. They are bound by a symbolic
order in which man can live out his fantasies, and they are the bearers, not makers, of
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meaning (Mulvey, 15). Women are secondary to the men, and only have some
significance if a man gives her significance. Sandra doesn’t have her own story, or even a
personality. Even her fiancé has more of a background story. Everything that she is in this
film revolves around her relation to Edward and how he sees her. Edward fell in love with
her without ever having spoken to her; He fell in love with her image. She is objectified to
his image of her, which gives him control over her. As Mulvey puts it, “the man controls
the film fantasy and also emerges as the representative of power in a further sense: as the
bearer of the look of the spectator, transferring it behind the screen to neutralize the extra
diegetic tendencies represented by woman as spectacle” (Mulvey, 20). This look, an
identifier of the man being in control, is extremely prevalent in this “Big Fish” scene. We
know Edward is watching her, as are we. He leaves he gifts in places he knows that she
will be, which shows that he is watching from a distance- he knows her every move.
Even though we do not see Edward through the majority of the scene, we know he is
watching. This thought is confirmed in the finale of the scene where we see him watching
her bedroom window, waiting for her to wake up. Mulvey would argue that this
the sexual fear of castration that the woman represents (Mulvey, 21).
The fear of castration is prevalent in most of Burtons films. When a woman is not
controlled by “the look,” she becomes a “castrating bitch.” We can see this in
“Beetlejuice,” where the mother/wife figure controls everyone and everything around her
with no regard for anyone’s emotions but her own. Her husband has obviously been
“castrated,” as he exists only as a compliment to his wife, and is very passive- a quality
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which has been gendered as female. Then there is the rare instance in Burtons films
where a woman gets to be the outsider hero. We can see this once again in “Beetlejuice,”
where the main character, Lydia is our hero. She is void of sexuality, displaying no
characteristics that are specifically gendered. She poses no threat, as she is “sexless,” and
be controlled or else she will become a castrating bitch, and if she is to be seen as
anything other than a creature defined only by her sexuality, then she must forfeit
sexuality altogether.
and in society. To follow such a convention seems unlikely for a director who seems so
conscious of the horrors of society and its debilitating rules and guidelines. His message
about society is seemingly not meant for women to identify with. He appears to be
speaking to a very specific audience: the white male who should presumably fit into
society easily and happily, but does not. Our entire societal structure was constructed for
and by him, and yet he does not fit in. No one will ever understand, or feel sorry for him,
so he is left to retreat into his own world-his own reality. Our societal structure is so
devastating, that it even debilitates those who created it. Whether this point comes more
clearly across by eliminating those who the structure more obviously disadvantages is up
to the viewer. Nevertheless, Tim Burton is offering us new ways to think about film,
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