Corpse Bride (2005)
Directed by Tim Burton
In a 19th-century European village, a young man about to be married is whisked away to the underworld and wed to a mysterious corpse bride, while his real bride waits bereft in the land of the living.
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17 films that influenced Corpse Bride
What critics say influenced Corpse Bride
The piano Victor plays is labeled "Harryhausen," a tribute to the great and still- living animator auteur of Jason and the Argonauts, who visited the Corpse set, and the film's many dueling skeletons march in the footsteps of Ray Harryhausen's bony brigades.
That would be Burton's tribute to Ray Harryhausen, the man who brought stop-motion animation to the level of artistry ("Jason and the Argonauts," "The Golden Voyage of Sinbad").
That would be Burton's tribute to Ray Harryhausen, the man who brought stop-motion animation to the level of artistry ("Jason and the Argonauts," "The Golden Voyage of Sinbad").
Selick was not involved in the production (Mike Johnson, who previously worked on the animation teams of both The Nightmare Before Christmas and James and the Giant Peach, fills the gap), which supposedly took ten years to complete, but you would never know it.
After producing The Nightmare Before Christmas and James and the Giant Peach , he has finally taken the reins and perfected what looks like a very cumbersome but amazing way of doing animation.
The same affliction mars “Tim Burton’s Corpse Bride” as well; it’s visually stunning, leaps and bounds beyond both “Nightmare” and 1995’s “James and the Giant Peach.”
Burton's prior stop motion animations, 1993's "The Nightmare Before Christmas" and, to a lesser extent, 1996's "James and the Giant Peach," both of which he produced (Henry Selick directed), were far more memorable works, with "Nightmare's" songs worthy of Broadway.
In technical terms, Corpse Bride is a big advance on The Nightmare Before Christmas and James and the Giant Peach, the stop-motion movies he produced with co-director Henry Selick.
He achieved success with his own first animated film, the six-minute award-winning short, Vincent, modeled after and narrated by his childhood hero, Vincent Price.
It could be a fan's thesis-tribute, if it weren't so clearly the heartfelt follow-up to Vincent, the auteur's debut short, and his maiden journey into the transcendently freakish.
One of Burton's first short films was "Vincent," an ode to his childhood hero, Vincent Price (later a "Scissorhands" star), and he's carried such otherworldly sensibilities into each project.
As fairy tale, it rivals his Edward Scissorhands, as underworld fantasia, his Beetlejuice, and as classic studio-bound horror, his Sleepy Hollow --in many ways, in fact, Burton's return to the stop-motion of his breakthrough short Vincent (and his co-produced The Nightmare Before Christmas ) feels like a figurative homecoming to the technique that suits him best.
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Existing in another realm entirely, and bearing only one huge movie reference (to Gone With the Wind), the film has the charm and uncanniness of an antique toy.
Since the release of his popular collaboration with Henry Selick, The Nightmare Before Christmas, fans have been clamoring for a sequel.
More than a decade ago, Burton conceived and produced his first stop-motion venture, the delightfully ghoulish "The Nightmare Before Christmas," directed by Henry Selick.
Corpse Bride doesn't have the meat on its bones (pun intended) that Tim Burton's stop-motion masterpiece, The Nightmare Before Christmas, did.
After producing The Nightmare Before Christmas and James and the Giant Peach , he has finally taken the reins and perfected what looks like a very cumbersome but amazing way of doing animation.
Those who are fans of the director and his wonderfully realized tales in The Nightmare Before Christmas and James and the Giant Peach are sure to join us in singing praises to this enchanting movie.
We feel for her in a way which wasn't quite possible with the spooks from Burton's last foray into stop-motion animation, The Nightmare Before Christmas.
In particular, you'll notice that much of the rigidity prone to stop motion films is gone with the exception of the skeletons gleefully performing "The Skeleton Dance" in unbending fervor.
Meant for the kiddie market, the film struck certain critics with its originality, visual inventiveness, and an eye for the absurd, qualities that became Burton’s hallmarks and were strongly evident in his next three films: the box-office sleeper Beetlejuice, the blockbuster hit Batman, and the widely acclaimed adult fairy tale Edward Scissorhands.
He has starred in four Burton films - Edward Scissorhands, Ed Wood, Sleepy Hollow and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.
His recent efforts, particularly "Planet of the Apes" and "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory", have had little of the wide-eyed wonder that made "Edward Scissorhands" and even "Pee-wee's Big Adventure" such fun.
It's made by a gang of frequent Burton collaborators: screenwriters John August ("Charlie and the Chocolate Factory," "Big Fish") and Caroline Thompson ("Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas," "Edward Scissorhands"), along with Depp, Bonham Carter, Albert Finney and Christopher Lee.
Whether they are his own stories (Edward Scissorhands) or his take on other work (Charlie and the Chocolate Factory), Burton consistently delivers eye candy with originality.
A passion for a bicycle ("Pee-wee's Big Adventure"); an obsession with a man who dresses up like a bat ("Batman" and "Batman Returns"); an attraction to an android with stainless-steel shears in place of fingers ("Edward Scissorhands"); an unnatural fondness for angora sweaters ("Ed Wood").
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While there have been some good-looking corpses on film and TVLaura Palmer or the victim in River's Edgemaybe it took Tim Burton to fully illuminate the urge to consort with the dead.
As studios close their traditional hand-drawn animation departments, we'll need more movies like this, like Sylvain Chomet's The Triplets of Belleville, like the Nick Park films Chicken Run and the upcoming Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit.