Corpse Bride
| Corpse Bride | |
|---|---|
 Promotional Poster For Corpse Bride | |
| Written by | John August Caroline Thompson Pamela Pettler |
| Produced by | Tim Burton Allison Abbate |
| Starring | Johnny Depp Helena Bonham Carter Emily Watson Albert Finney Richard E. Grant Joanna Lumley |
| Distributed by | Warner Bros. |
Release dates |  September 23, 2005 |
Running time | 75 mins |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $40,000,000 |
Tim Burton's Corpse Bride is a 2005 Academy Award-nominated stop-motion-animation film based loosely on a 19th century Russian-Jewish folktale version of an older Jewish story and set in a fictional Victorian era England. It was directed by Tim Burton and Mike Johnson, and filmed at 3 Mills Studios in London. It stars Johnny Depp as the voice of Victor and Helena Bonham Carter (for whom the project was specially created) as the voice of the Corpse Bride. This is the first animated film in which Johnny Depp has been a voice actor. The film was nominated in the 78th Academy Awards for Best Animated Feature. It lost to another stop-motion animated feature, Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit.
The movie exhibits Burton's trademark style and recurring themes (the complex interaction between light and darkness, and of being caught between two irreconcilable worlds). The movie can be particularly compared to The Nightmare Before Christmas , Burton's previous stop-motion feature project (directed by Henry Selick and based on a Tim Burton poem, which Corpse Bride director Mike Johnson worked on as an animator) and Beetlejuice, especially in the scenes depicting the underworld and its deceased denizens. The studio intentionally emphasised the links, as some commercials for Corpse Bride were accompanied by songs from The Nightmare Before Christmas (specifically, "What's This"), and in an issue of Disney Adventures, Emily, the title character was compared to TNBC's Sally.
Summary
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The story is set in a cold, gloomy Victorian era town, a parody of aristocratic England. A nervous young man by the name of Victor Van Dort (Johnny Depp), son of rich fishmongers Nell and William Van Dort (Tracey Ullman and Paul Whitehouse), is due to be wed to beautiful young Victoria Everglot (Emily Watson), daughter of bankrupt (as well as ugly and unpleasant) aristocrats Maudeline and Finis Everglot (Joanna Lumley and Albert Finney). Victor isn't too keen on the idea of an arranged marriage until he meets the charming Victoria face-to-face. But after botching the wedding rehearsal (and accidentally setting Victoria's mother on fire in the process), Victor is banished by Pastor Galswells (Christopher Lee) to learn his wedding vows.
Victor wanders through the forest practicing his vows, consistently blundering them. Finally he gains confidence and successfully recites them, and upon spying a tree root that resembles a human hand, places his bride's wedding ring on it. No sooner has he done so than the hand (for it really is a human hand) grabs him by the arm and Emily the Corpse Bride (Helena Bonham Carter) emerges from beneath the earth dressed in a moldy, flowing wedding dress and declares Victor her husband. She was mysteriously killed on her wedding day and has been waiting for her groom to come and claim her ever since. She whisks Victor away to the surprisingly colourful, vibrant, and musical Land of the Dead.
At first, Victor deceives Emily, convincing her and the elderly Elder Gutknecht (Michael Gough) to return them both temporarily to the Land of the Living via Ukrainian Haunting Spell (returning only if either one says "Hopscotch") under the pretense of introducing her to his parents. Once back, however, Victor goes to see Victoria instead to confess his love for her, but a betrayed Emily discovers them and spirits him away while Victoria watches helplessly. While Victoria tries unsuccessfully to convince the pastor and her parents that Victor needs help, Maudeline and Finis lock her in her room and plan to match up their daughter with the presumed rich drifter "Lord Barkis Bittern" (Richard E. Grant) instead. Unbeknownst to the others, Barkis intends to kill Victoria and make off with her fortune, which he mistakenly believes is still viable.
A newly-deceased friend of Victor, Mayhew, delivers the news of Victoria's engagement to Victor himself. Victor, thinking that Victoria is marrying Barkis willingly, decides to make the best of his situation below and agrees to drink poison as part of an above-ground ceremony that will make his marriage to Emily official. As Victoria and Barkis are married, the residents of the Land of the Dead busy themselves preparing for a wedding of their own, storming the town and marriage "celebration" on their way to the church. In the ensuing chaos, the newly-wed Lord Barkis learns (to his horror) that Victoria is penniless.
Victoria heads for the church as well, and discovers Victor in the midst of the ceremony that will kill him. Emily sees Victoria watching them and, realizing that she is cheating Victoria out of a happy life, stops Victor from drinking the poisoned wine. She gives Victor back to Victoria, but the reunion is interrupted by Lord Barkis, who reminds the crowd that she is still his wife, and moves to kidnap her at swordpoint. Emily recognizes Barkis as the man who both jilted and murdered her long ago. A battle ensues, ending when an overconfident Barkis drinks the poisoned wine in a mock-toast to Emily, and the rest of the deceased, except for Emily, surround (and presumably dismember) his still-fresh corpse.
Emily explains to Victor and Victoria that they belong together. When Victor protests, saying that he "made [Emily] a promise," Emily explains that already he kept it by setting her free. She leaves the church. As she reaches the threshold, Emily transforms into hundreds of butterflies, which soar towards the moon. Victor and Victoria look on together, happy to be finally reunited.
Characters
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Emily, the Corpse Bride
Emily, or, as her title says, Corpse Bride, is portrayed as being kind, sweet natured and trusting, and even though she is a corpse, that is, having skeletal features, her pure good-hearted nature make her more lovable and spirited to be with. Emily is rather shy, but nevertheless giddy, and has a unique persona. Emily will almost always be seen in a good mood, but she is also very emotional and can break easily if hurt.
Emily is a rather tall young woman, and has long dark, blueish hair, a pale cut away face from being a corpse, and wears a dirty torn old wedding gown, which we assume she was buried in. She has moderately large lips, which are a dark wine like color, and large dark eyes, with long black thick eyelashes.
Victor Van Dort
Victor is a handsome, if not somewhat shy, young man that hails from a family of "nouveaux riches" (literally snobs). His family has arranged for him a wedding with Victoria Everglot in the sole purpose of elevating their family to the rank of aristocracy. Victor seems to have a talent for art and piano but lacks the skills to engage in a hand-to-hand combat.
Bonejangles the Skeleton
His name is an obvious parody of the dancer Bill Robinson. Bonejangles isn't much to look at. He's a semi realistic looking skeleton with one eye that rolls between his two sockets, depending on which way he is leaning. He sports a gray bowler hat and is extremely large jawed. He seems to be the owner of the "Ball and Socket" pub, for his name appears on the sign. He sings the movie's second song, Remains of the Day, with his fellow skeletons in the pub. He seems to know all about the Corpse Bride's past. He also has an incredibly raspy voice.
Voice cast
- Johnny Depp as Victor Van Dort
- Helena Bonham Carter as Emily the Corpse Bride
- Emily Watson as Victoria Everglot
- Tracey Ullman as Nell Van Dort/Hildegarde
- Paul Whitehouse as William Van Dort/Mayhew/Paul the Head Waiter
- Joanna Lumley as Maudeline Everglot
- Albert Finney as Finis Everglot
- Richard E. Grant as Barkis Bittern
- Christopher Lee as Pastor Galswells
- Michael Gough as Elder Gutknecht
- Jane Horrocks as Black Widow/Mrs. Plum
- Enn Reitel as Maggot/Town Crier
- Deep Roy as General Bonesapart
- Danny Elfman as Bonejangles
- Stephen Ballantyne as Emil
- Lisa Kay as Solemn Village Boy
Filming techniques
Corpse Bride is the first movie to be shot with still cameras. Previous stop-motion movies (such as Aardman Animations' Chicken Run) were shot on modified Mitchell film cameras, the same old cameras used to shoot King Kong. The camera chosen for the production of Corpse Bride was Canon EOS-1D Mark II, a digital single-lens reflex camera, which also makes it the first stop-motion feature to be shot in digital. Additional work was required to develop systems to permit precise camera positioning, the mounting of Nikon optical lenses, and previewing a scene in camera. Corpse Bride was the first stop-motion animated film to use Apple's Final Cut Pro as well. To give the film the traditional look of movie film stock, each image was processed with a color profile based on a type of film used in feature length movies.
The film was the first stop-motion animated movie to use the new "gear and paddle" technique for the maquette's heads. This new system involved the maquettes being built with a complex gear system inside of the main character's heads. The various gears were attached to external paddles. A soft skin-like material, mainly made of silicone and foam, was placed over these paddles to create the head and then painted. By adjusting the gears, done by inserting an allen wrench into small holes located on the maquette's head and in the ears, the paddles would move, therefore adjusting the facial expression of the character. This allowed for a much more smooth system of emotion change and lip-sync than the old style of replacing heads. The soft "skin" also gave the characters a much more natural look.
The puppets were made in Altrincham, near Manchester, England, by the leading puppet manufacturers Mackinnon and Saunders. They were also responsible for a major contribution to another Tim Burton film (Mars Attacks), as well as numerous British animated series like Bob the Builder (Hit Entertainment), Andy Pandy (Cosgrove Hall) and Pingu (Hit Entertainment).
Origins
The origin of the folktale can be traced back to Rabbi Isaac Luria of Safed, a 16th century mystic. In the original folktale, "The Finger," the "corpse bride" in question is not a deceased woman, but a demon. In the 19th century Russian-Jewish adaptation, a woman is killed on her wedding day and is buried in her wedding gown. Later, a man on his way to his own wedding sees her ring finger poking out of the ground and thinks that it's a stick. As a joke, he puts his bride's wedding ring on the finger and dances around it, singing and reciting his marriage sacrament. The woman's corpse emerges from the ground (with the man's ring on her finger) and declares herself married to the man.
The folktale adaptation was born of the anti-Jewish Russian pogroms of the 19th century, in which young women were said to have been ripped from their carriages and killed on the way to their weddings. The folktale usually ends with the rabbis deciding to annul the corpse's marriage and the live bride swearing that she will live her marriage in the corpse's memory, part of the Jewish tradition of honoring the dead through the lives and good works of the living.
A similar motif has also been used by Prosper Mérimée in his story La Vénus d'Ille [1]. Instead of the corpse bride, the ancient statue of Venus figures in the story.
Trivia
- The film's initial release was two weeks prior to that of Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit, marking the first time that a stop-motion animated film and a claymation animated one were in simultaneous wide theatrical release. Interestingly, both films feature the voice of Helena Bonham Carter in a lead role and a character named Victor.
- The piano that Victor plays is a Harryhausen. This is an in-joke reference to Ray Harryhausen, who is possibly the most famous of all stop-motion animation artists.
- In the Bonejangles musical number, "Remains of the Day", the piano player acts and looks like Ray Charles.
- Near the end of the movie, Victor's suit greatly resembles Jack Skellington's suit during The Nightmare Before Christmas, with the exception of the bat-bowtie and the stripes absent from Victor's outfit.
- The main character, Victor, is named after Victor Frankenstein, a character in one of Burton's earlier works, Frankenweenie.
- A skeletal version of Da Vinci's Vitruvian Man can be seen in Elder Gutknecht's book.
- A sub-plot in LucasArts' "The Curse of Monkey Island" bears great resemblance to the story of Corpse Bride. On Blood Island, Guybrush Threepwood meets Minerva Stronheim (nicknamed Minnie Strone) Goodsoup, who fell in love with a pirate who stole her diamond ring before their wedding and ran off with it. She died a week later and haunts the Goodsoup family crypt, which bears a thematic resemblance to elements from Corpse Bride.
- "Remains of the Day" may have been named after a book that was later made into a movie in which a butler misguidedly pledges his loyalty. This plot resembles that of the story of how Emily became the Corpse Bride.
- Bonejangles is a reference to dancer Bill "Bojangles" Robinson and the song "Mr. Bojangles", originally written by Jerry Jeff Walker and popularized by a variety of performers (see Robinson's article for more details about the name and its cultural history).
- After the reference to Gone With the Wind with the line "Frankly my dear, I don't give a damn" between the skeleton and the old lady, the two swing into the classic pose seen on Gone With The Wind movie posters, and the music changes to play several bars of that movie's main theme.
- The character of Bonejangles looks and acts like Cab Calloway.
- The chef with the long face greatly resembles Vincent, the main character from Tim Burton's first stop animation feature, Vincent.
- Also, Finis Everglot mistakenly calls Victor "Vincent" once.
- Albert Finney was the leading choice to play Grandpa Joe in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory but when Tim Burton was attached he nixed the idea because the only big name he wanted in the movie was Johnny Depp. So Tim cast Albert in this movie to apologise. Tim Burton had reportedly offered a role for Sam Neil, which Sam Neil turned down.
- The film is dedicated to the memory of Joe Ranft.
Literary Antecedents
Disney's Haunted Mansion/Phantom Manor
It is easy to tell that Corpse Bride is very similar to Disney's Haunted Mansion and Phantom Manor story. As in the Haunted Mansion, the bride in many of the stories of the Gracey Manor had been killed, and after death had waited for another love and haunts the mansion. In Phantom Manor there are nuptial mishaps going on. The bride in that story waits for eternity too, not knowing that her groom had been killed by the phantom. In addition to Corpse Bride and Haunted Mansion, the two movies both have a little paranormal humor, and show that even the dead can be light-hearted too. When the skeletons and Bonejangles dance and sing "Remains of the Day," in the movie, it is very similar to the catacomb scene in the ride of Phantom Manor, when the skeletons on the ride dance and sing Grim Grinning Ghosts.
DVD release
January 31, 2006
The DVD was released in the US on January 31, 2006. It was available with only one disc, but a special set at Wal*Mart includes a special behind the scenes book with interviews with Tim Burton and the rest of the crew.
See also
- List of animated feature films
- The Nightmare Before Christmas
- James and the Giant Peach (film)
- The Haunted Mansion (movie)
- Disney's Haunted Mansion
- Phantom Manor