Originally published 9/20/2005
Corpse Bride
Directors: Tim Burton and Mike Johnson
Writers: Story and Characters by Tim Burton, Screenplay by John August and Pamela Pettler and Caroline Thompson
Producers: Tim Burton and Allison Abbate
Featuring the voices of: Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter, Emily Watson, Tracey Ullman, Paul Whitehouse, Joanna Lumley, Albert Finney, Richard E. Grant, Christopher Lee, Michael Gough, Jane Horrocks, Danny Elfman
The fairy tale is an enduring story format because it works with those simple broad tropes that resonate from the moment we start making sense of the world: Life and death. Doing what our parents want or growing into our own desires. The virtues of being poor and in love, and finding the right reason to marry someone. And how our sins always come back to haunt us.
And yet filmmaker Tim Burton seems to be the only storyteller working interested in creating new fairy tales rather than riffing off the old ones. Edward Scissorhands easily counts, as does his previous stop-motion animated feature The Nightmare Before Christmas. In a way it seizes control of the form for the misfits of the world – the popular people can have their glistering towers and flowing-haired princesses, Burton is perfectly content to patch together his stories from bugs and bones. And with Corpse Bride, he delivers yet another charming and gruesome fantasia which is not only a visual feast, but a beautifully simple story about how if we take the time to look at that which frightens us, we might find it’s not so bad after all.
It is not that we should be in a hurry to die, but young Victor Van Dort (Johnny Depp), through an unlucky accident, discovers that after you go it’s not so lonely and terrible as you might imagine. His family, newly-rich fish merchants hoping to continue their upward momentum, has arranged his marriage to Victoria Everglot (Emily Watson), the pale and quiet daughter of the noble Everglot family. Just listen to these names and tell me Burton doesn’t revel in their creation – Victoria’s parents are the scowling and rotund Finnis Everglot (Albert Finney) and the imperious Maudeline (Joanna Lumley), whose hair wouldn’t clear most tunnels. Maudeline is so fearsomely addicted to propriety that when Victoria confesses in a panic that she saw Victor in the embrace of a living corpse, Maudeline replies: “Victor was in your room!? The scandal!”
The Everglots have fallen on hard times, not that they will admit it, and need the Van Dorts’ wealth to restore their family name. Victor and Victoria are only just getting to know one another, and kind of like what they see, but family pressures have the spindly, bookish Victor so nervous he keeps blowing his vows at the rehearsal, and flees into the forest to be alone. The absence of a groom with a wedding less than a day away plays right into the plans of Lord Barkis Bittern (Richard E. Grant), who has a superb name and an even better chin, and thinks the Everglots are still rich.
But about that living corpse – fairy tales are driven by fateful coincidence, and in this case Victor is practicing his vows again when suddenly a woman (Helena Bonham Carter) rises from the ground and accepts his ring. There is beauty to her – an ethereal grace in spite of her bluish hue, and the missing skin on an arm and leg, and that eyeball that keeps popping out, and the maggot living in her head who looks and sounds uncannily like Peter Lorre (Enn Reitel). And she has waited a long time to be married.
The Corpse Bride whisks Victor off to the world of the dead, which is noisy and cheerful and colorful, a stark contrast to the pale and cold world of “breathers”. New arrivals are greeted at a raucous bar/club, where host Bonejangles (voiced by composer Danny Elfman, who contributes 5 songs on top of his score) leads a production number which is like the macabre Silly Symphonies classic The Skeleton Dance turned into a showstopping New Orleans cabaret act.
Victor must choose between the promising Victoria and the living world which has so far left him miserable, and the adoring Corpse Bride and the zealous, accommodating dead. And in between we have tragic misunderstandings, the truth about an old murder, a duel, a tall tower filled with dusty books where a wise old skeleton provides potions to resolve your plot difficulties, and all the other stuff we love in our fairy tales. At one point the dead get to plan a wedding themselves, which they do with the same misguided enthusiasm with which the residents of Halloweentown tried to figure out Christmas.
While computer animation is much in vogue and has many qualities (and is used sparingly here to put extra polish on some tricky bits), the weight of these moldable puppets has an appeal of its own. They seem inherently more cinematic because of their physical reality – they actually exist and are being lit and photographed on real sets on soundstages. Those who know The Nightmare Before Chrsitmas well will still be justifiably stunned by the advances in stop motion sophistication. Everything from the camera’s freedom of movement and focus, to Victor’s piano playing to flying crows to details of water and fabric and fire – there is unimaginable smoothness and confidence to it all. To see it on the big screen is to treat yourself to the chance to truly admire its craft.
In direct comparison, Bride’s story shows a few more rickety parts but also an abundance of gags and timing bits which can only come with greater mastery of the medium. Like Nightmare, it has its frightening moments and might not be appropriate for the smallest of children. But behind each dead body is a playful spirit, the spiders have lovely singing voices, and our dogs still remember and love us even after they have been reduced to bones. That’s comforting at any age.