Andrew Sarris in his “Notes on the
Auteur Theory 1962” states that an auteur has three facets: “the outer circle
is technique: the middle circle, his personal style; and the inner circle,
interior meaning.” The director’s three
roles are interchangeable and inherently dynamic: he is not just the author of the film, but
the illustrator. Tim Burton, one of a handful of visionaries whose style is
instantly recognisable, draws upon German Expressionism’s filmmaking techniques
for each of these facets in his work. Their
use of the technique of high contrast between light and darkness, the embrace
of outlandish sets and characters, and the theme of an outsider struggling
against a restrictive and judgmental world are evident in two of Burton’s
earliest films for Disney Studios, Vincent
(1982) and Hansel and Gretel
(1983). While German Expressionism didn’t
result in many films, those that were produced, like Nosferatu and The Cabinet of
Dr. Caligari, were so striking that they influenced the visual style of
filmmakers for the 60 years preceding Burton’s emergence in the cinema. (Langford, 2005) (Wojik-Andrews, 2002) (Coghlan, 2010)
Borrowing from the art wing of the
movement, German Expressionism in film favours abstraction and the “distortion
of bourgeois reality.” It was a
revolution against what they considered the false values of cultural boors and
the strictures of realism in art. This
method of calling reality into question was characterised by the heavy use of
shadows, distortions and darkness to create mood and atmosphere as the theme of
outsider condemned by society was explored. F.W. Murnau’s Nosferatu (1922), full of visual and thematic tension between
monster and human, went on to influence one of Tim Burton’s favourite childhood
films, Universal’s Frankenstein by
James Whale. In practice, the filmmakers
aesthetic relied on de-emphasizing the sets and aimed to fuse the actor with
them, eschewing the classical convention of separation between actor and set
relied upon by naturalistic films.
Forced perspectives and miniatures, as well as houses and streets
painted on flat surfaces like those in Caligari,
gained favour in Hollywood as studios sought to reduce construction costs but
still keep up the illusion of mass. Seeing wasn’t only believing, however, as directors
such as Fritz Lang and Ernst Lubitsch immigrated to America to escape the
rising tide of Nazism and brought the Expressionist point of view to new films
made for Hollywood. (Von Klemperer, 2001) (Badley, 2005)
(Thompson, 2005) (He, 2010)
Stills from Frankenstein
and Nosferatu
Burton’s
influences are often referred to as a pastiche of sources: he refers to movies
adapted from the work of Edgar Allan Poe, Mary Shelley and Bram Stoker and
admits that while Caligari influenced
his short Vincent, it was only through
posters and stills from magazines. The influences
of German Expressionism, while gained second or third-hand, are still present
in Vincent both in theme and
visuals. Thematically, Burton identifies
with Frankenstein and other monsters, like Nosferatu, who are both feared and
rejected by conventional society. In Vincent,
a little boy from the suburbs longs to BE Vincent Price, star of horror films
and scenes in a young Tim Burton’s imagination.
Vincent’s mother scolds, “you’re seven years old, and you’re my son/ I
want you to get outside and have some real fun” after she finds him hiding in
his room pretending that he has been possessed by the house as his wife lies
buried alive under the flower bed. Visually, Vincent is full of references to
the German Expressionist aesthetic. We
can see the angled rooftops and spindly stairs of Caligari in the shot of Vincent sulkily climbing the stairs to his
room, and the extreme angles and shadows of Nosferatu
in his tortured Edgar Allen Poe fantasies.
Disney tends to portray children as docile and innocent, which is an
idealisation that Burton rejects. Disney
didn’t know what to do with Vincent, or
with Tim Burton. The House of Mouse tried to collaborate
with him again on 1983’s Hansel and
Gretel, with equally artistic, if commercially ambivalent, results. (Bitoun, 2014) (Mills, 2015)
(Greenhill, 2010) (Frierson, 1996)
Stills
from The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari,
Nosferatu compared to Vincent
Typically, when Burton borrows images
and concepts from other films, or story telling constructs like fairy tales, he
does so with a degree of creative freedom that can be mistaken for lack of
attention. The three factors of German
Expressionism that he had employed, albeit unconsciously, in Vincent are present in Hansel and Gretel: outsiders struggling against
uncomprehending, even cruel, authority, shadows and silhouettes, and bizarre
set pieces. Two children and their
father are forced by their mannish stepmother to build toys they can’t play
with, then ultimately led to their doom in the forest. Sets that are exaggerated in scale and
proportion share space with humans in nightmarish combinations. Light and shadows are so extreme that only
silhouettes are recognisable. Hansel and Gretel only aired once on the
fledgling Disney Channel 31 October, 1983 and receded into legend. Disney wasn’t ready to embrace Tim Burton’s
aesthetic and cut him loose after Frankenweenie was deemed “too scary for
children” in 1984. As ground-breaking as
his work was, he would have to explore his dark vision and striking aesthetic
with other projects like the Batman films for Warner Bros. before he and Disney
(through Touchstone films) could make and release Nightmare Before Christmas in 1993.
(Priebe, 2010) (Greenhill, 2010)
Tim Burton spent his
childhood drawing monsters to escape conformity and the suburban ennui of
Southern California. Encouraged by an art
teacher, he developed his own style and started to feel a true aversion for
authority and categorisation. His
drawings often comment on the culture he sees around him, as do his films. It is no surprise that he scooped up the
nuggets he found in pop culture and brought them together to form a body of
work as memorable as that of the German Expressionists. (Mills, 2015)
(Greenhill, 2010)
Word
Count:906
Reference
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