|
Author
|
Comment
|
clairebear212
Registered User
(11/11/05 2:51 pm)
|
Tim Burton,orality,and the father/son dynamic
Hi Everyone,
I am currently attempting to write my thesis on Tim Burton.While looking for recurring themes in his films one couldn't avoid his use of fairy tales.I began to get interested even more after reading some of Jack Zipe's Happily Ever After ,how he speaks about Disney and Shelley Duvall and it made me wonder has Burton moved beyond Disney and Shelley Duvall's Fairytale Theatre(the fact he was involved with both)
I began to focus on three films "Edward Scissorhands," "Big Fish,"and "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory".While looking at these three movies I noticed that Burton always frames them in a storyteller setting,no one is reading from a book,but they are always sitting telling the stories,i.e Winona Ryder as the grandmother,etc.,and the storyteller is always placed insidethe story.I want to look at why Burton is interested in the actual telling of tales.IS he trying to reintroduce traditional values,is he trying to build relationships within the family unit. Any suggestions of where I might look regarding this topic.
Ialso began to get interested in the father/son dynamic in all three of these movies,and especially how in Big Fish when the father takes on the storyteller role it creates an unstable relationship with his son,but in Edward Scissorhands and Charlie and the Chocolate factory the grandparents are allowed be the storytellers without affecting their relationship with their grandchildren.
I hope this makes sense and any help would be greatly appreciated,i am extremely new to the subject of fairytales and am beginning to understand how vast an area it is.Iwould be delighted with any guidance.
Thank you,
Claire
PS Hope this makes sense
|
midori
snyder
Registered User
(11/12/05 3:14 pm)
ezSupporter
|
Re: Tim Burton,orality,and the father/son dynamic
This is a really interesting idea...though I must first confess when I read the word "orality" my first thought was swallowing monsters! (and I guess I immediately saw those huge stripped sand snakes in "Beetlejuice"!).
Ok...so I am on track now. I am not so sure that the father's storytelling is ultimately the cause of the rift between father and son...more that the world of the storyteller (a world of wonder, of awe, of the accessiblity of the fantastic) is threatening to the son who insists on living a real/normal (ordinary) life. Part of the charm of the story is when the son recognizes the power of his father's storytelling and the fantastic world which beckons. I haven't seen the film in a while, but I think in the end doesn't the son reconcile with his father and in a sense accept the gift of wonder and magic realism? If this is how it ends, then the film in many ways speaks to the power of the storyteller's life to create and make manifest (by word, imagination and creative will) the fantastic world. For Burton, a highly independent and quirky filmmaker, this archetype of trickster/hero/storyteller seems to serve as an extension of his own passionate view, which he wrestles to life in film.
|
Chris Peltier
Registered User
(11/14/05 1:59 pm)
|
Re: Tim Burton,orality,and the father/son dynamic
The father/son dynamic has run through a number of Burton's films besides Big Fish, most notably Edward Scissorhands and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. In the latter film Burton veers from the original material in order to insert a new subplot concerning Wonka's relationship with his estranged father, played by Christopher Lee.
For Burton's fans, familiar with his love for aging horror actors, this is not problematic - it is a theme that goes all the way back to the beginning of his carrer with the short film, Vincent. Narrated by Vincent Price, it is about a young boy's secret belief that he is in reality Edgar Allan Poe. Burton more fully ackowledges Price as a kind of spiritual father in Edward Scissorhands.
Although the Price character dies before he can give Edward his new hands, and make him "normal", it is Edward's scissor "hands" that make him unique, and capable of creating the beautiful topiary forms in an otherwise bland, suburban landscape. Burton is as different and as gifted as the characters that he creates, the child of the stories and the cinema that he grew up on.
|
clairebear212
Registered User
(11/15/05 9:50 am)
|
Re: Tim Burton,orality,and the father/son dynamic
hi
thank you both so much for your discussion,its nice just to discuss it more.To be honest i always felt that the father andson dynamic seemed problematic in Burton's films(notto his fans but father to son)My tutor asked me who i thought represented Burton in Big Fish.Ifelt like this was a trick question as I feel Big Fish allows Burton to be self critical of himself,the son critical of the storyteller role his father always thinks.(Burton questioning his own role as a storyteller)
I now feel that the father,most certainly in Edward Scissorhands and Big Fish are almost the facilitators to the story world or to the other world Burton wishs to create.The father in Big Fish is constantly pulling his son into the other world and end up suceeding in th end,by the inventor dying before finishing Edward he does allow him to be different but only through death,if he finished him Edward would have been quite normal as the inventor was already training him in manners.how does the father figure facilitate anything in Charlie and the Chocolate factory?does the grandfather count?especially when Charlies own father is present?or how does Willy Wonka's father facilitate him?
Is Burton obsessed with dramatising narration as a means to deal with reality?
What effect does storytelling havewithin the family unit?
Does Burton dramatise storytelling to build relationships within the family unit?
Does he use storytelling to allow him more felxibility with his story?
I know my mind is going a mile a minute and im finding it hard to find my structure,my tutor recommended i read vladimir propp's morphology of the folktale but im finding it hard to get a grip on it and to find a relevance.Should i keep going with it?thanks again for your help
Claire
|
|
