This past Tuesday, I released a long gestating project called "From Pee-wee to Peregrine: Why Tim Burton Still Matters." This essay was created as a personal challenge for me to create a full length analysis of one filmmaker. Considering that his most recent film Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children is currently playing in theaters, I felt that it would be appropriate to look at the eclectic work of Tim Burton, who I maintain is one of the most visually singular directors of the late 20th century. It is currently available on Amazon and Smashwords for $1.99. For those still curious, I have provided an excerpt from the essay called "What is Burton-esque?" Please check it out and feel free to check out the essay's other chapters on his cultural impact and why he continues to resonate.
Chapter
1:
What
is Burton-esque?
In the latter half of the
20th century, who would you say is the most distinguishable movie director?
This isn’t an argument of quality so much as the capability to pick out a film
from a line-up of still frames. A distinguishing feature is something so
explicitly unique to that artist’s voice that its influence can be read from
any director who imitates them. With this question, still in the forefront of
your mind, now ask yourself a harder question: who is the most successfully
distinguishable movie director?
The answer begins to turn
into a facet of ideas about what art truly is. Great art doesn’t often top the
weekly box office. Likewise, being distinguishable is itself akin to being your
own brand; as if you wear a logo on a shirt that is as noticeable as Nike’s
swish logo, or Frosted Flakes’ Tony the Tiger. The easy shortcuts for a movie
director is to latch onto franchises, or reinvent period pieces in their image.
It’s essentially turning every film into their version of the runway from
Milan’s Fashion Week.
As of September 2016,
these are the most successful movie directors in history, with box office
totals appearing in parenthesis:
1.
Steven Spielberg ($9.246 billion)
2.
Peter Jackson ($6.518 billion)
3.
James Cameron ($6.139 billion)
4.
Michael Bay ($5.776 billion)
5.
David Yates ($4.310 billion)
6.
Christopher Nolan ($4.222 billion)
7.
Robert Zemeckis ($4.062 billion)
8.
Chris Colombus ($3.815 billion)
9.
Gore Verbinski ($3.728 billion)
10.
Tim Burton ($3.653 billion)
While the order may be
surprising for some, it’s predominantly the usual suspects of modern cinema. To
varying degrees, these are the innovative voices that have defined summer
blockbusters as well as intellectual dramas. Both David Yates and Chris
Colombus appear on this list largely thanks to contributions that they’ve made
to the highly successful Harry Potter
franchise, based on the books by J.K. Rowling (considering that Fantastic Beats and Where to Find Them
is also directed by Yates, expect his total to rise significantly before 2016
is over). For most everyone else, they have signature franchises, such as James
Cameron’s The Terminator series,
Michael Bay’s Transformers and Bad Boys series; and even Gore Verbinski
has The Pirates of the Caribbean series.
These are all directors
whose names need very little introduction. Their films have essentially
burrowed into pop culture and have become their own beast. While there’s no
arguing that the critical success of Steven Spielberg’s popcorn adventure
flicks and moody dramas make him the most successful both with audiences and
critics; can someone blindly recognize what a Spielberg film looks like?
This is very easy for
most people, especially if you’ve seen the catchall list of E.T.: The Extra Terrestrial, Jurassic Park, and Raiders of the Lost Ark. These are iconic characters and moments
seared onto the collective consciousness of anyone who has watched a movie in
the past 30 years. Yet can one truly be able to distinguish the unifying visual
aesthetic between his classics and the less acclaimed films like Always, Hook, Amistad, The Adventures of Tintin, and The BFG? There may be a familiar
earnestness to the films, thanks in large part to John Williams-composed
scores, but the issue becomes problematic when you notice that tonally,
Spielberg has a wide sensibility and his aesthetic often is used to compliment
the scene. Basically, there’s an inconsistent pattern to recognizing
Spielberg’s films, even if he’s the most successful and influential director in
history.
There are others that may
be easier to notice but don’t often get the acclaim for their aesthetic. Bay
often gets accused of making mindless action movies. He’s even satirized this
in Pain & Gain. There’s an
overwhelming sense of destruction and ugliness that is seen more obviously in
the four Transformers movies, but
also is prevalent in his less financially successful works. Likewise, Verbinski
owes a large amount of his success to his ability to revitalize pirate movies
with The Pirates of the Caribbean by
turning the swashbuckling lore into riveting action. It also helps that the
films produced actor Johnny Depp’s most famous character: Captain Jack Sparrow,
a drunken pirate who flies by the seat of his pants. To go even further, Yates’
success largely feels like an attribute of being an obedient studio director
who could deliver consistently engaging Harry
Potter movies, which would make money on name recognition alone.
While Christopher Nolan
may be the closest that the 21st century has come to bringing a
distinguishable director that balances original films (Inception) with franchise titles (The Dark Knight trilogy), the point of this essay is to talk about
directors who had success along with a distinguishable look in the 20th
century. It is easy to get hung up on quality, especially if one wants to count
directors known more for critical acclaim than box office; such as Martin
Scorsese, Wes Anderson, or Stanley Kubrick. However, I choose to argue that
broader influence is just as essential to being a distinguished director. For
that reason, I am arguing that Tim Burton is the most distinguished director from
the latter half of the 20th century.
This may sound absurd,
even given the critical backlash that he has faced over the past decade. Yet it
must be reminded that to be distinguished isn’t to have a flawless record. It
means that in the contribution to cinema, Burton’s look has shifted how others
perceive cinema. It’s about how he turned goth culture into hot properties that
grossed hundreds of millions internationally. Considering that Burton has only
directed one sequel (Batman Returns),
it’s amazing that he is as financially successful as he is. His films deal with
outsiders that never look like conventional movie stars. They have morphed into
looking like live action cartoons with eccentric costumes, set designs, and
humor. So, why is he so successful then?
The reason is simple. His
cinema created its own style of filmmaking called “Burton-esque.” He has
managed to establish himself as a brand that has a predictable, reliable troupe
that frequently includes actors Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter; as well
as composer Danny Elfman who has worked on all except three of Burton’s 18
films (as of September 2016). The subsequent players may come and go, but
Burton films have a built-in anticipation, even if audiences have no idea what
the story is. This remains true as of 2016 with Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children topping the box office
on opening weekend.
There is a lot to
understand how being “Burton-esque” has impacted the modern cinematic landscape
– most of which will be explored in this essay. One can piece it together by
noticing it in the pale make-up, uncombed hairstyles, and the drab costume
designs that often falls somewhere between grey and black (or sometimes black
and white stripes). His look is so distinct that College Humor once made an
accurate criticism of Burton’s work in a skit called “Tim Burton’s Secret
Formula,” which suggested turning every set design black while having Elfman
play a series of redundant “bom-bom-bom” patterns. While it’s indicative of how
tired his style has become, it still is reflective of how influential his style
is in ways that Spielberg’s masterpieces could never be. He has inspired
YouTube videos where film classics are remade in his style, and often the
recognizable look is part of the joke.
With the release of Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children
on September 30, 2016, Burton seems just as viable as ever. With a story that
very few people likely will know going in, it seems like a perfect time to do
as he has done repeatedly throughout his career: introduce audiences to his
vision. While it may not have Depp or Carter by his side, it does have a lot of
the familiar themes of outsiders and dark yet eccentric set designs. Considering
that he’s coming off one of his most personal films, Big Eyes, one could only wonder how self-reflection will influence
the next decade of his career.
Until that happens, it’s
time to look back on the 30 years that changed cinema forever. His work has
changed not just how horror is perceived, but also how we see superheroes,
classic literature adaptations, Johnny Depp as an actor, cinematic color
pallets, and even reboot culture in general. The following will attempt to make
sense of everything, plus how he has influenced fashion and merchandise culture
thanks in part to retail chain Hot Topic. Many could argue that he isn’t the
best director to ever live, but there’s no denying that without him, the modern
American mainstream cinematic landscape would be totally unrecognizable and
possibly free of movies that unabashedly pay homage to B-Movies, Universal
Horror, and even dark and gritty superhero tales.
What is Burton-esque? It
is cinema that embraces eccentric outsider culture through pale, gothic colors
and stories told through a macabre and sarcastic sense of understanding.
Yet there’s so much more
to his work that makes him so distinguishable. Join in as I explore the many
facets that not only make up a Burton movie, but how it has impacted everything
after the fact. Many, like Quentin Tarantino, have come close to being equally
singular, but none have the towering financial success to back it up quite like
Burton has. It’s not always an indicator of quality, but it counts for why he
still matters after 30 years while many of his contemporaries (Joe Dante, Sam
Raimi, etc.) are great directors often left at the wayside. He found a formula
that worked and perfected it, maybe even to a repetitive and lazy degree. Yet
he made a genre of film that works as a still image as well as in action.
Burton-esque is inescapable, and that’s a good and bad thing.
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