Tim Burton Auteur Director Essay

Below is my speech for my Oral presentation, where I convinced my audience that Tim Burton is definitely an auteur director, and showed them visual evidence to back it up. I, personally, didn't enjoy this assignment because I was too excited to get into the practical part of this unit - actually filming in his style! But I figured that it's extremely important to analyse Burton's work in depth and have a very good understanding of his signature styles before I even attempt to create a few scenes/a short film the way he would.

Thursday 9th June 2016

Nicole Hoskins

Tim Burton Auteur Director Essay

Tim Burton is an American film director, producer, and animator. He is considered an auteur because his dark, gothic and quirky style is clearly portrayed through specific techniques throughout all of his films. He uses tools such as mise en scene, cinematography, characters and narratives in order to create and maintain his distinct style and consequently separate himself from other directors in the Hollywood institute. Tim Burton manipulates mise en scene to create a very specific dark, yet quirky visual style which makes his films recognisable as his work. He also very carefully uses lighting and cinematography as a motif for characters and the storyline. In addition, he incorporates creepy characters and uses common narrative conventions throughout his films. Through his certain ways of manipulating mise en scene, lighting combined with cinematography, as well as characters and narrative conventions, it is obvious that Tim Burton is considered an Auteur director for his gothic signature stamp.

Tim Burton manipulates mise en scene to create a very specific dark, yet quirky visual style which makes his films recognisable enough to know it is his work. Burton sets the creepy mood by creating dark gothic settings as a signature style throughout many of his films. This is evident in the movies Batman, Sleepy Hollow, Sweeney Todd and Dark Shadows where there is a very similar colour palette and the overall spine-chilling vibe that the sets portray. To add some quirkiness to his gothic films, he often uses odd props that accentuate the peculiar situations and add to his signature style. He commonly juxtaposes vivid and bright colours, to dark and mysterious colours throughout the costumes and sets. Often the contrast symbolises characters or are relevant to the plot. For example Batman and the Joker. The hero is dressed in predominantly black, with his face covered in a mask, but the villain is colourful and has a rather wacky costume. This colour juxtaposition is also seen in Edward Scissorhands’ grey creepy mansion and jet-black leathery physical appearance when it is put into contrast with everyone else in the town, whose houses are bright pastel block colours and they wear vivid coloured clothing. As well as the dark settings, quirky props and the costume colour contrasts, another recurring aspect in a lot of Burton’s films is that the characters have a physically pale, skinny, and sleep-deprived appearance. This can be seen in the characters Edward Scissorhands, Victor Van Dort, Betelgeuse, Jack Skellington and Barnabas Collins. Burton also likes to either exaggerate or underemphasise physical character traits which add to the quirkiness in his visual style. For example, the Mad Hatter’s widened eyes, the Queen of Heart’s enormous-sized head, the huge creepy smile of the Cheshire cat. In Corpse Bride, Victor’s body is extremely skinny and long, but his head and eyes are big. These disproportionate and non-human physicality's are seen through many of Burton’s films further proving why he is considered an auteur. Auteur directors also often use the same actors throughout their films as their specific acting style is a huge contribution to the mise en scene, which is a very prominent part of the film in regards to maintaining the same signature styles throughout his films. Burton has worked repeatedly with, actor, Johnny Depp in countless numbers of his movies. As well as actress Helena Bonham Carter. Because Burton worked with Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter for a countless number of times, it is clear that he has trust in these particular actors to have the same vision as he does for his films and successfully convey the characters and storyline according to his signature visual style. Tim Burton is an auteur because he purposely uses mise en scene to construct his signature visual stamp, through gothic sets, quirky props, dark costumes contrasted with bright costumes, similar characters and the use of the same actors.

Tim Burton is critical with his lighting and cinematography choices in very specific ways that add to his signature style. He often uses warm and cool colours in his lighting to set moods, and act as a colour motif to distinguish between specific characters. This is seen in movies such as Edward Scissorhands, where Edward is revealed with very cool lighting as a representation of his character, as opposed to the rest of the set. Similarly, in Alice In Wonderland, he represents the white queen with a full wash of lights with a warm undertone, making the audience feel comfortable with her character. Whereas, with the queen of hearts, Burton works with minimal lighting and a very cool undertone, to set a cold and unsettling mood around her character. Throughout many of Burton’s films, he manipulates the use of warm and cool lighting to set moods and add to characterisation. Burton captures these lighting techniques through his signature cinematography techniques, such as his use of establishing shots and point of view shots. He is able to establish the scene with his use of common use of long shots of the set, and this is a technique that Burton uses very often and before almost every scene. Also, he often uses point-of-view shots that reveal what the characters are seeing in front of them. (VIDEO OF EDWARD SCISSORHANDS) Tim Burton manipulates warm and cool colours in his lighting as well as using similar cinematography techniques, and this adds to his particular visual style and therefore proving him as an auteur.

In many of Tim Burton’s films, the twisted and creepy, yet likeable characters combined with similar narrative conventions add to his gothic film style. The characters in his films are often creepy but audiences can still relate and sympathise with their human characteristics. Take, for example, Edward Scissorhands: he has quite a scary appearance with his black leather suit and scissor hands, but, Burton creates him to have this shy, timid and socially awkward nature, and because of this people grow to like his character. Another example is The Mad Hatter and the Corpse Bride who are creepy in appearance but as the story progresses their character and emotions becomes apparent to the audience and then they’re able to feel connected to these creepy and twisted characters. This is definitely something that occurs a lot in Tim Burton’s films. Characters are often creepy or have dark, gothic personalities, but ultimately the audience often builds an genuine appeal to the character and their nonhuman characteristics. Additionally, many of the storylines Burton’s films involve average human characters who delve into an underworld, fantasy world or a dream, where they encounter strange, mostly non-human characters. This is exactly what happens when Alice goes into Wonderland, and when James goes on the wild adventure in that giant peach. Victor in The Corpse Bride is constantly travelling between the two worlds of reality and the underworld. It is obvious that Burton loves to incorporate parallel universes within his films. Through the creepy characters and similar narrative conventions, it is clear that Burton uses many of the same techniques throughout his films proving his reputation as an auteur director.

Therefore, it is entirely evident that director Tim Burton is an auteur because of his distinct gothic and quirky signature style throughout all of his films. This style is portrayed through mise en scene that projects very specific dark, yet quirky visuals which makes his films recognisable just from looking at it. He also carefully uses lighting and cinematography as a motif for characters and the storyline. Also all of his narratives have similar aspects as well as the common creepy twisted character throughout his films. He uses these tools in order to create and maintain his particular gothic but quirky fantasy films, which are what makes his directing style so distinct compared to other directors and separates him from the Hollywood institute.