It was a great weekend for horror, fantasy, and science fiction, as ALICE IN WONDERLAND scored an easy victory at the box office this weekend, earning more than the rest of the Top Ten releases combined. The fantasy film, directed by Tim Burton and starring Johnny Depp, sold over $116-million in tickets while playing in over 3, 700 theatres.
Last week”s #1 film, SHUTTER ISLAND, dipped to third place, behind BROOKLYN’S FINEST. The ominous Gothic thriller SHUTTER added $13-million to its $95-million total, making it one of the biggest hits of director Martin Scorsese’s career.
AVATAR slipeed from fourth to fifth place with $7.7-million, adding up to a $720-million total.
THE CRAZIES fared less well: after its third-place debut last weekend, it feLl to #6 with $7-million, yielding a two-week total of $27-million.
The adolescent-themed PERCY JACKSON & THE OLYMPIANS: THE LIGHTNING THIEF landed in 5th place, down two slots, with $5-million, for a $78-million total.
Dropping out of the Top Ten were TOOTH FAIRY with $2.8-million ($56-million total) and THE WOLF MAN with $1.6-million ($60-million total).
It’s nice to finally see a Terry Gilliam film on the big screen again. It’s been a long time since the back-to-back box office debacles of BRAZIL (1985) and THE ADVENTURES OF BARON MUNCHAUSEN (1988) sent him scurrying to prove that he could turn a profit by working more as a hired gun than an auteur, directing other people’s screenplays or adapting other people’s books instead creating his own original scenarios. The results have been sometimes satisfying (THE FISHER KING and 12 MONKEYS were not only entertaining; they also connected thematically with his own work), sometimes frustrating (FEAR AND LOATHING IN LAS VEGAS caught the ups and downs of a drug-fueled perspective but didn’t necessarily make us care about that perspective), and sometimes disappointing (THE BROTHERS GRIMM feels like an attempt to cram Gilliam’s usual concerns into the format of a commercial Hollywood film, with results that are not only dire but also dull). Good, bad, or indifferent, none of these titles quite qualifies as a genuine “Terry Gilliam Film” despite the possessory credit he managed to maintain on screen. (There was one near-miss: the aborted THE MAN WHO KILLED DON QUIXOTE, with a screenplay co-written by Gilliam, would have been a return to form, but it was felled by numerous disasters, as depicted in the documentary LOST IN LA MANCHA.)
After this long history of frustration and disappointments, the release of THE IMAGINARIUM OF DOCTOR PARNASSUS (which opens today in limited Oscar-qualifying engagements before widening next year) is a moment worth celebrating. This is an authentic Terry Gilliam film, written with long-time collaborator Charles McKeown (who co-scripted BRAZIL and MUNCHAUSEN), which traffics in themes that characterize Gilliam’s best work: It’s about the importance of imagination over pragmatism, about the capacity of fantasy to enrich souls deadened by the weight of too much reality. Or put another way, this is a film that celebrates the all important “Sense of Wonder” that is at the heart of the best cinefantastique.
It would be supremely satisfying, therefore, to announce that THE IMAGINARIUM OF DOCTOR PARNASSUS is a triumphant return to form for Gilliam; unfortunately, the film represents a return of both the strengths and weaknesses inherent in his work. For all his extolling of the virtues of imagination and wonder, Gilliam often finds it difficult to capture that wonder on screen; the result is a little bit like listening to someone deliver a lecture on the benefits of humor, without being able to actually tell a funny joke. The silent, immobile stage presentation of Doctor Parnassus (Christopher Plummer) understandably fails to excite his audience.
Gilliam dramatizes his theme in the opening sequence: In modern day England, outside a night-club frequented by drunken dullards, an ancient traveling sideshow – the titular “Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus” – roles out its wares for an unappreciative public. We immediately know that we are supposed identify with Parnassus (Christopher Plummer) and his traveling troup of performers, including the handsome young Anton (Andrew Garfield), the diminutive Percy (Verne Troyer, Mini-Me in the AUSTIN POWERS movies), and Parnassus’ daughter Valentina (Lily Cole); however, their performance is so dull that one easily understands the derisive reaction it receives. The show consists mostly of Parnassus sitting in an immobile trance, and things only get interesting when one obnoxious club-goer storms the stage and disappears through a mirror that takes him into an alternate reality. Confusion then ensues when Parnassus admonishes his daughter that this is never supposed to happen. (What? Parnassus expects his audiene to take his word for the wonders on the other side of the mirror?)
After this awkward opening, we go into a long stretch filling in the back story. Doctor Parnassus, we learn, is immortal, or at least very long-lived; he has spent decades if not centuries of millenia matching wits in an on-going contest with the devilish Mr. Nick (an excellent Tom Waits). The latest challenge involves who can be the first to save or damn a certain number of souls, with Valentina as the prize. Complicating matters is the fact that the young Valentina, who is about to become of age, yearns to leave behind the wonders of her father’s Imaginarium, in favor of a simple domestic life – one which the smitten Anton would love to bestow upon her, if only she would return his ardent love.
The set-up is rich with possibilities, presenting us with interesting variations on characters seen in previous Gilliam films. The aging Doctor Parnassus, with his tall tales of fantastic adventures, is another version of Baron Munchausen; as embodied by Plummer, he also bears a strong resemblance to the romantic idealist Don Quixote – a semblance further underlined by the presence of Troyer in what is essentially the “Sancho Panza” role – the voice of ironic pragmatism that calls Parnassus back to practical matters that he might overlook from having his head too far in the clouds. Likewise, Parnassus’s daughter Valentina is an older, post-adolescant version of the young girl from MUNCHAUSEN – the latest incarnation of a recurring character in Gilliam’s work, the next generation charged with taking up the baton from the old teller of wild tales. The ancient monastary where Doctor Parnassus first met the devilish Mr. Nick
Unfortunately, the story construction is delivered in the form of leaden exposition lacking any spark of creative life (even flashbacks of the first encounter between Parnassus and Mr. Nick do little to galvanize the tedious first act). The love story between Anton and Valentina is written in generic terms, and the performers, though appealing, are unequal to the tast of making us feel the desire, yearning, and passion that the script has not supplied. Consequently, THE IMAGINARIUM OF DOCTOR PARNASSUS begins to feel abstract and distant, a film about wonder without any actual wonder in it.
Fortunately for all concerned, the troop discovers a body hanging by his neck from a bridge. The not-quite-dead man turns out to be Tony (Heath Ledger), who has no memory of how he came to be in that near-fatal position – although the presence of a small metal tube in his throat, which prevented his wind pipe from being closed by the noose, suggests he escaped a murder attempt. By virtue of the mystery surrounding him, Tony is more interesting than the other characters; he has an ambiguity the others lack. He is also performed by an actor with the skill to take over the screen and breathe some life into the lethargic proceedings. Once Ledger appears, THE IMAGINARIUM OF DOCTOR PARNASSUS almost turns into another movie: What had seemed dry and academic up to this point becomes fun, entertaining, and even, at times, wonderful.
Tony immediately sees what has been obvious to the audience from the opening scene: the Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus is badly in need of an update for the 21st century. He radically revamps the presentation, easily luring in new customers who are enthralled and beguiled by their brief visits to the wonderland residing behind the magical irror. This leads to several sequences in which Gilliam shows off his patented visual flair for fantasy; although in this case the old hand-made style makes way for modern computer-generated effects, much of the old charm retains intact. The mysterious Tony, played by Heath Ledger in the "real" scenex and by Johnny Depp, Jude Law, and Collin Farrell in the fantasy scenes
These are also notable because they involve the three other actors as Tony: Johnny Depp, Jude Law, and Colin Farrell. Although THE IMAGINARIUM OF DOCTOR PARNASSUS should right be viewed as an auteur piece that resides comfortably within the context of of Terry Gilliam’s previous work, it will inevitable be regarded through the prism of the unfortunate circumstance of its creation: Heath Ledger died after completing all of the “reality” scenes, forcing Gilliam to recast Tony. Although certainly unusual, this is not a unique strategy; Luis Bunuel did something similar in THAT OBSCURE OBJECT OF DESIRE (1977), with similar results: namely, making the character more abstract, more of a mystery, someone who presents more than one face to the world, leaving you to wonder which, if any, represents the reality of the identity within.
The result works perfectly on screen. If you happen to be one of the few ticket-buyers unaware of the film’s tragic history, the substition of alternate faces seems integral to the story (Tony enters the Imaginarium with different characters; each new appearance of his conforms to what these other characters want to see). For the majority of viewers, who do know the story behind the making of IMAGINARIUM OF DOCTOR PARNASUS, the sight of the late Ledger’s friends – Depp, Law, and Farrell – filling in for him is not only magical but sadly moving, as they channel some essence of inner character, suggesting an underlying continuity hidden behind their different faces. It is really not fair to judge a film’s achievements based on such a matter of necessity, but these moments really will bring a pang to your heart. In the past, Gilliam has spoken of his need to confront challenges in order to achieve his best results; faced with a seemingly insurmountable one, he managed to find a solution that serves both the film and the memory of its late star, acting as a fitting tribute (although the title card “A Film by Heath Ledger and his Friends” borders on exploiting the actor’s death).
In any case, thanks to Tony’s showmanship, Doctor Parnassus is soon reclaiming the souls of enough customers to edge ahead in his contest with Mr Nick – until complications set in. There are hints that Tony may have been involved in raising money for the poor, but a disreputable air hangs around him – the air of a con man. Valentina sees only the charm; Anton is of course suspicious. The love triangle leads to trouble, and in a rather unusual development, Valentina allows herself to be seduced by the mystery man. Her transformation from virginal innocence to post-coital bliss is one of the more striking images in the film, but it exists in a vacuum virtually without consequences (after its plot function is served, it is simply forgotten, with no effect on the character’s ultimate fate).
Eventually, the truth about Tony is revealed; Valentina rebels against her father; and Doctor Parnassus takes action to rescue Valentina from Tony and/or Mr. Nick, leading to the film’s other unusual element (for Gilliam at least): an ending in which conventional, boring, ordinary life is upheld as the ideal of happiness. The thematics are vaguely askew, perhaps just simply vague. The tryst between Tony and Valentine ignites the sparks lacking in the love story between Anton and Valentina, suggesting some schism between love and passion; it’s one step removed from the suggetion that female sexual satisfaction occurs only in a context of tawdry duplicity. Apparently having learned her lesson, Valentina retreats into a domestic life reminiscent of a sexless ’50s television show.
Regardless of whether the thematic threads can be sorted out in a satisfying way, the latter portions of THE IMAGINARIUM OF DOCTOR PARNASSUS retain their appeal, rewarding the audience for sitting through the slow set-up. Plummer brings dignity and an air of sadness to the aging Parnassus, and Troyer’s Percy is the perfect foil for the old wizard. Waits is excellent as the unctuous Mr. Nick, sly and insinuating, always insisting that he enjoys the contest with Parnassus for the sport, not for a chance to win his soul. But above it all, the film is a triumph for Ledger. Although the role is no match for his insanely effective turn as the Joker in THE DARK KNIGHT, his presence illustrates how a star can illuminate material that is otherwise not as bright as it should be. His presence lights up the film and goes a long way toward eclipsing its imperfections. Thanks to him, Gilliam fans in a forgiving frame of mind can leave the theatre feeling that THE IMAGINARIUM OF DOCTOR PARNASSUS was almost everything it should have been. THE IMAGINARIUM OF DOCTOR PARNASSUS (2009). Directed by Terry Gilliam. Written by Terry Gilliam and Charles McKeown. Cast: Christopher Plummer, Andrew Garfield, Lily Cole, Verne Troyer, Tom Waits, Heath Ledger, Johnny Depp, Jude Law, Colin Farrell, Peter Stormare.
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The original DVD, released on July 18, 2000, now out of print Roman Polanski’s diabolical little thriller may not rise to the level of his acknowledged classics in the horror genre; nevertheless, it represents a return to form for the director of such memorable films as Rosemary’s Baby and Repulsion. Decades later, THE NINTH GATE may not be groundbreaking in the way those films were back in the 1960s, but it features the same sure-handed control of cinematic elements.
Unlike modern horror films, THE NINTH GATE takes a more classic approach to its subject matter, slowly and carefully building up and sustaining suspense, with an undercurrent of supernatural dread, while seldom offering overt shocks. The storyline is basically a Satanic variation on Dashiell Hammett’s The Maltese Falcon, with Johnny Depp as Corso, an ethically unscrupulous procurer of rare books. A rich collector named Boris Balkan (Frank Langella) hires Corso to authenticate a Satanic volume in his collection. Once he takes the job, Corso encounters a Satan-worshipping widow (Lena Olin) and an enigmatic motorcycle-riding woman (Emmanuelle Seigner), who turns out to be his guardian angel of sorts — although demon may be the more appropriate designation.
The audience is supposed to respect Corso because because he is a talented professional, good at what he does, regardless of the fact that he behaves without ethics. Yet by the end of THE NINTH GATE, Corso has, like Sam Spade before him, given up on just completing the job and collecting his paycheck; he has become consumed by the mystery, which he wishes to solve for its own sake. The film’s wicked joke is that the character’s spiritual awakening dives in the opposite direction of salvation. Apparently Lucifer’s chosen one (for no apparent reason, except perhaps that the Devil likes his style), Corso puts the pieces together and unravels Lucifer’s mysterious puzzle. When last seen, approaching a castle gate (presumably the ninth gate of the title) from which emanates a blazing, glorious light (recall that “Lucifer” originally meant “bringer of light”), Corso is presumably heading toward—what?
Damnation? If so, THE NINTH GATE’s vision of damnation is a strange one. The Devil-worshippers we see preparing for a black mass are derided mercilessly by Balkan, who interrupts and chastises them for chanting “mumbo-jumbo.” His sentiments echoes those expressed earlier in the film by the owner of another copy of the rare Satanic volume. The film seems to tell us that these Satanists are just in it for the orgies and the kicks; they are not carrying on the true faith. Yet somehow Corso, the non-believer, winds up receiving the Devil’s blessing, and in some way, apparently, we are meant to see this as an achievement. Needless to say, this ending (which lacks the visual and/or dramatic punch it really needs in order to cap the film satisfactorily) did not go down well with audiences in theatres, but it does make a kind of sense in the context of the film.
DVD DETAILS
THE NINTH GATE’s was original released on DVD by Artisan Entertainment on July 18, 2000. That now out-of-print DVD has sinsce been replaced by Lionsgate’s May 22, 2007 DVD, which was followed by Lionsgate’s subsequent Blu-ray disc on August 11, 2009. These later releases essentially recreate the bonus features from the Artisan DVD, while improving upon the Artisan disc’s interminably slow opening menus; the Blu-ray disc also offers a new 1080p high-defintion transfer. The special features include an isolated music score, a featurette, a gallery of satanic drawings, storyboard selections, theatrical trailers and TV spots, cast and crew info, production notes, scene access, and an interactive menu.
The featurette truly puts emphasis on the suffix “ette”—it flashes by in about the length of time one would expect for a commercial, but it does include a nice moment or two (such as Depp’s observation that you begin the film by hating Corso because he’s a bad guy, but by the time you’ve grown to like him near the end, he has in fact grown even worse).
Fortuantely, Roman Polanski’s audio commentary makes up for the disappointing behind-the-scenes featurette. The director is clearly uncomfortable sitting through THE NINTH GATE again; right off the bat he calls the experience “unusual” and emphasizes that he doesn’t go back to his films “unless compelled to.” Later, he explains, “I avoid watching my films because most of the time I feel like I would like to improve certain things. In other moments, I’m straight ashamed of certain things I did, and it just doesn’t do me any good to revisit this.” This discomfort is apparent also in the way that the commentary drops out and returns periodically throughout the film, no doubt indicating various stops-and-starts during the recording process.
Despite this, Polanski turns out to be a thoughtful and amusing commentator on his own work. His voice is slow, and occasionally he apologizes for his pronunciation, but overall his English is good, and he delivers numerous behind-the-scenes details and philosophical tidbits that make the experience amusing and informative. During one of his many explanations for not wanting to re-view his films and ponder the way he might have improved them, he states that after a certain point, one is no longer improving a film; one has only the illusion of making it better and “better is often the enemy of good.”
Most interesting from a technical point of view is that this deceptively simple film is loaded with hundreds of special effects of the most invisible kind (often to establish settings or enhance live-action effects, sometimes to film tricky bits of action without putting the actors in danger). In an amusing early note, Polanski points out that the opening skyline shot of Manhattan was filmed by a second-unit; he discretely neglects to mention that this had to be the case—not because it’s a shot not involving principal actors, but because the director is a fugitive from justice in this country (since pleading guilty to a rape charge in the 1970s) and cannot legally return to the location. There are other amusing omissions. At one point, the director explains his reasons for casting Emmanuelle Seigner (“I thought Emmanuel had the right looks for the role, and she can be enigmatic”), but he neglects to mention that he’s married to her.
In other interesting asides, Polanski also confirms the film’s debt to the writings of Dashiel Hammet and Raymond Chandler, admitting that the proceedings are almost a parody of the private detective genre. He mentions, “It’s a good thing to make a movie about a book…now that it has competition from the computer.” On the subject of his Satanic subject matter (which he handled before in Rosemary’s Baby), he claims, “I’m not a believer, but the Devil is a good guy to make a film about—even if you don’t see him” (as indeed you don’t, in either film). He adds that Rosemary’s Baby was a more serious take on the subject matter, so he felt compelled to set that film up so that everything could be interpreted without recourse to the supernatural—as a paranoid delusion by Rosemary, brought on by the strain and stress of her pregnancy. THE NINTH GATE, on the other hand, is a “fairy tale for adults,” so he felt no concern about downplaying the supernatural element.
Polanski briefly addresses this element during the film’s closing scenes. After describing Johnny Depps’s character as a “mercenary” who later comes to want “access to the mystery,” he adds a few words about Seigner’s unnamed character “who clearly represents the Devil.” Still, Polanski stops short of clearing up the details: he leaves it up to the viewer to decide whether the character is merely servant of the Devil or the Devil disguised in a form that would appeal to Corso, and he states clearly, “I’m not going to explain the film.”
Commenting on THE NINTH GATE’s existence on DVD, Polanski says he was thinking of adding missing scenes for the disc, but there were none to be had; although some scenes were trimmed or shortened, none were entirely cut out. Later, he mentions that all the insert shots of books (which revel important clues to the mystery) were very carefully planned for the benefit of nitpickers who like to rewind and check details over and over again, looking for cheats and/or continuity errors.
“I challenge anyone to find any lack of logic in this!” the director proudly states.
Near the end, he states that there is no better way of seeing a movie than in a theatre, but viewing one at home is the next best thing, so he is grateful for the invention of DVDs, because the image quality of VHS is poor and Laserdiscs were too heavy and clunky.
Finally, after a cigar and some chocolate to help him through the film, Polanski signs off by sighing, “Well, this was an experience!”
Perhaps a trying experience for him, as a director forced to sit through one of his finished films when he would much prefer to be looking forward t his next work, but for us in the audience, the experience is perfectly enjoyable. THE NINTH GATE may not be a perfect movie (typical of Polanski, the deliberate pace is a bit too deliberate, and the climax could have used something more…climactic maybe?); nevertheless, this is a worthwhile film, and Polanski’s commentary provides a glimpse of a talented mind still capable of applying the craftsmanship necessary to fashion an effective, suggestive horror film without relying on shock effects.
THE NINTH GATE may not appeal to the MTV audience (Polanski himself states that the film’s style is a reaction against flashy contemporary fashions in cinema), but fans of thoughtful, intelligent horror movie-making, with carefully modulated scenes and performances that lull you into accepting the incredible story,will find the subject matter intriguing enough to be worth investigating. Just don’t lose yourself in the mystery as Corso does. THE NINTH GATE (2000). Directed by Roman Polanski. Screenplay by John Brownjohn & Enrique Urbizu and Roman Polanski. Cast: Johnny Depp, Frank Langella, Lena Olin, Emmanuelle Seigner, Barbara Jefford, Jack Taylor, Jos Lopez Rodero, James Russo.
In retrospect, it should be no surprise that Tim Burton was drawn to Roald Dahl’s novel CHARLIE AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY. Burton’s films have tended to focus on what we might call “demented artists” — that is, people with enormous creativity whose imaginative flights of fancy make them seem weird, abnormal, and even, on occasion, dangerous.
Pee Wee Herman, in PEE WEE’S BIG ADVENTURE, is an oddly immature adult who seems to live in a childlike world of his own creation. The title character in EDWARD SCISSORHANDS is cut off, trapped in his abnormal world (not of his own making); even when introduced to human society, his deformity makes him both an artist and a freak, capable of creating imaginative hair designs but not of sustaining a romantic relationship. ED WOOD’s real-life character is a transvestite film director. BIG FISH’s lead character is a teller of tall tales. Jack Skellington is the mastermind behind Halloween Town’s annual holiday presentation. In BATMAN and MARS ATTACKS, the demented artist role is given over to the villains, who go about their work with viciously gleeful imagination.
In CHARLIE AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY, Johnny Depp’s version of Willy Wonka combines elements of Pee-Wee Herman and Edward Scissorhands: he is a creative genius living in a colorful world of his own making, but he is also isolated and lonely — a sort of damaged child hiding in an adult’s body — like Edward, the victim of an abruptly terminated father-son relationship, seen in flashbacks (although in this case the father is played by horror star Christopher Lee instead of the late horror star Vincent Price).
Whereas’ Gene Wilder’s Wonka (in WILLY WONKA AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY, was a Trickster — an ambiguous character whose bizarre mood swings always seemed carefully orchestrated, indicating a “method to his madness” — Depp’s Wonka really is half nuts, drifting uncontrollably into flashbacks almost like a cliched Vietnam veteran. Although in other aspects, John August’s script is more faithful to the source than the Wilder movie was, this new approach to Wonka moves the film away from Roald Dahl territory, making it even more clearly a Tim Burton film. (Whether or not that’s a good thing, may be a matter of personal taste.)
Unlike director Mel Stuart with WILLY WONKA AND THE CHOCLATE FACTORY, Burton has a handle on the material from frame one, instantly pulling you into the fantasy world and making it seem utterly believable within the confines of the story. Unburdened with as many musical numbers (the Oompa-Loompas still sings, and there is a brief ditty when the Golden Ticket winners first enter the chocolate factory), CHARLIE moves along at a faster clip. If the energy flags somewhat in the latter portions, it is only because the bombardment of colors is so consistently eye-catching, that the viewer’s capacity for wonder is eventually worn out.
Danny Elfman’s score is invigorating from the opening frames (a fanciful view of the chocolate-making process, seen behind the opening credits), and his four Oompa Loompa songs (using lyrics taken from Dahl’s novel) are an amusing amalgam of different musical styles. There is no highpoint here that quite matches Veruca Salt’s “I Want It Now” number, but overall Elfman maintains a much higher and more consistent level than Bricusse and Newly did in WILLY WONKA AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY.
The script by John August slightly updates the characters. Mike Teevee is no longer pops cap guns while watching Western shows on television; now he is a videogame addict, blasting away with his joystick. And Violet Beauregarde still chomps gum, she is now an over-achieving child with a Stepford-Mom (played with a perfectly glazed expression by Missy Pyle).
Depp is wonderfully dazed and crazed as Wonka, and Freddie Highmore is suitably sincere as Charlie. David Kelly makes a far more authentic and effective Grandpa Joe than Jack Albertson did (for one thing, Kelly is British). Deep Roy is hysterical as the Oompa Loompas, and Lee does his sinister schtick really well (you’d be screwed up too if your father was Saruman/Count Dooku). Julia Winter is a a splendidly spoiled Veruca, but the original’s Julie Dawn Cole retains the crown as the queen of obnoxious brats.
The film does go a bit soft at the end. Like the previous film version, Burton must wrestle with Dahl’s anti-climactic structure, in which Charlie wins the big prize at the end basically by default (his big achievement is that no terrible fate befalls him on the tour). The John August script adds an extended coda, a sort of sappy paen to family values, in which Charlie helps Willy resolve his father-son issues. It’s all very well-intended, but it carries about as much conviction as the “Bluebird of Happiness” ending to BLUE VELVET. Like David Lynch, Tim Burton is simply better at the bizarre. Making conventional relationships seem sincere may be a bit beyond his reach.
TRIVIA
Before the film’s release, some commentators (including Time magazine) tried to draw comparisons between Willy Wonka and Michael Jackson, suggesting that Johnny Depp’s appearance in the film was inspired by the real-life pop singer. This theory ignored two basic facts: 1) the Wonka character was established long before Jackson took on his bizarre, adult appearance; 2) Depp’s character is clearly another variation on the standard Tim Burton emasculated artist hero, previously seen in everything from PEE-WEE’S BIG ADVENTURE to EDWARD SCISSORHANDS.
DVD DETAILS
The double-disc DVD is a decent presentation of the film, but it does leave one wondering why two discs were necessary: the bonus features are nice, but not overwhelming, and there are not that many of them.
There is a nice documentary about the author of the book on which the film is based, titled “The Fantastic Mr. Dahl,” which takes a look at the author’s life and his approach to writing children’s fiction, but does not focus specifically on “Charly and the Chocolate Factory.”
There are a handful of behind-the-scenes, making-of documentaries that are midly interesting and informative. As often happens with DVDs, these “documentaries” are actually little more than promotional films created to sell the movie to audiences, so they tend to be a bit fluffy, offering little in-depth information.
Perhaps the most interesting featue is “Becoming an Oompa-Loompa,” which details how actor Deep Roy played the entire tribe of Oompa-Loompas. Not only did Roy have to learn how to perform all the elaborate action in the film; the sequences also required elaborate and systematic staging so that the computer-generated effects could multiply him into multiple characters in post-production.
Also worth perusing is “Attack of the Squirrles,” which shows how a combination of trained squirrels, animatronic squirrels, and computer-generated squirrels were used to create the sequence wherein spoiled Veruca Salt is determined to be a “bad nut” and tossed down the garbage shoot by the rampaging rodents.
The DVD also features a number of “challenges,” actually simple games for children, such as searching for the Golden Ticket. The deluxe edition of the disc includes a pack of five limited-edition trading cards. Altogether, it is not a bad presentation of the film on DVD, but calling it “deluxe” seems at least a slight exaggeration.
Nikki Finke’s Deadline Hollywood Daily tells us that the start date for DARK SHADOWS, Johnny Depp’s feature film version of the Gothic soap opera, may have to be pushed back to accommodate director Tim Burton’s schedule:
…any rumor that Burton may bail altogether is “definitely” not true, says my insider: “He loves the project”. But his helming of Alice In Wonderland for Disney — and people who’ve visited the set tell me it looks amazing — is demanding more time than originally planned. Now Burton is facing a hot delivery date for a March 5, 2010 release. And so he’s exploring pushing back the start date for Dark Shadows.
I’m told the postponement hasn’t yet been presented to Warner Bros. Another of my sources says the studio has already reserved stages. “It is our intention to still start the movie in the fall. We’re trying to work it out,” a Depp insider explains to me. “And Tim Burton is Johnny’s first and only choice to direct.”
Warner Bros purchased the film rights to the TV series from the estate of Dan Curtis (the creator, producer and director of Dark Shadows). Depp is both starring and producing through his Infinitum Nihil company which his sister runs. It’s true that Depp has had a long obsession with playing Barnabas Collins. Tim Burton signed on as director last June with John August scripting. Originally, a start date had been scheduled for August but then was pushed back to the fall.
Jonathan Frid as Barnabas Collins
DARK SHADOWS was a daytime serial that became a hit in the ’60s, starring Jonathan Frid as Barnabas Collins, a reluctant vampire seeking a cure for his undead existence. The show, which basically recycled old Universal horror movie motifs in a soap opera context, yield two feature films in the 1970s and was later remade in 1990, as a prime time series, with Ben Cross as Barnabas.
Tim Burton’s second stop-motion feature film bears some obvious similarities to THE NIGHTMARE BEFORE CHRISTMAS, but it has almost as much in common with BEETLEJUICE (not to mention touches of EDWARD SCISSORHANDS and the excellent short subject VINCENT). Not only does the story involve a “newly-dead” couple in a bizarre afterlife, populated by characters whose appearance betrays comically obvious evidence of how they departed the land of the living, there is also a BEETLEJUICE-type of manic energy — a sense of imagination run riot that makes the film always worth watching, even when the story loses traction.
As a technical achievement, CORPSE BRIDE goes far beyond NIGHTMARE BEFORE CHRISTMAS. The stop-motion work is breath-taking in its ability to imbue life into the characters; the expressive capability of the armature puppets puts the vast majority of computer-generated animation to shame (even Pixar, the king of all things CGI, has never made human characters half this impressive).
Moreover, the film is stylistic tour-de-force of amazing camera angles and intricately choreogrpahed movements. There is no proscenium arch staging here; scenes play out in dynamic fashion that makes the action come alive, and the fabulously detailed sets and costumes create a world far more vivid and three-dimensional than scene in any other form of animation.
And in a welcome departure from the SHREK films, CORPSE BRIDE is not afraid to wear its heart on its sleeve. There is plenty of humor but none of the knowing, almost condescending winking to the audience that says, “We all know this is fairytale nonsense, so let’s just smirk and have a ball.”
At the center of its story is the titular, tragic character (voiced by Helena Bonham Carter) who was murdered while waiting for her fiance to elope with her. In Victor (Johnny Depp), she finds a replacement, but like Sally in NIGHTMARE BEFORE CHRISTMAS she has trouble making him appreciate her charms (there are other similarities, such as her detachable limbs, which work independently).
Unfortunately, once the premise is set up, the film doesn’t seem to know quite what to do with it; it’s almost as if the script couldn’t figure out what story to tell. The initial idea seems to be that Victor is being forced into an arranged marriage with a live woman named Victoria; the monochromatic look of of the land of the living makes this prospect resemble an extremely unpleasant living death. The passionate love of the Corpse Bride, coupled with the (literally) colorful characters in the world of the dead, makes marriage to her seem far more appealing, but the film fails to follow through on this idea.
The basic problem seems to be a failure of nerve. The Corpse Bride, whose name is Emily, is obviously fashioned convey a ghoulishly erotic allure, with her beguiling eyes, thin waist and half-exposed breasts (even the lack of flesh on some of her bones only emphasizes how slim her figure is). Yet the film shies away from the implications. Although inspired by a Russian folktale, the story is pure Victorian Gothic in its ambience, an essential requirement of which was always that the heroes and heroines be so pure and virtuous that they were often insufferably dull as well. Contrasted with these lifeless characters was the darkly hypnotic dynamism of the villains/monsters (think of Erik in PHANTOM OF THE OPERA or the Count in DRACULA). Of course, virtue always won out in the end, but the element that made the stories truly interesting was the flirtation with the dark side.
From Tim Burton, we expect a little bit more than flirtation. Like David Lynch (but with much more colorful approach and commercial appeal), Burton is a director who views the bizarre and the macabre not with disgust but with eager fascination. His “monsters” (with a few exceptions) are usually demented artists and outsiders, yearning for love and acceptance, who only seem monstrous when viewed through a lens of ignorance and misunderstanding. Emily fits this mold to perfection, and it would have been dramatically satisfying to portray the process by which Victor overcomes his initial alarm and learns to embrace love from beyond the grave, turning his back on conventional normality in favor of something new and exciting.
Alas, it is not to be. Instead, Victor falls in love with Victoria, his living fiance on first sight; consequently, Emily is reduced to being a fly in the ointment, an impediment on the way to this happy marriage to a living bride. This story could have worked too, if Emily had been a genuine threat, a monstrous succubus from beyond the grave, tempting Victor away from marital bliss in favor of a lust-filled damnation, but the character is too sad and tragic to fill the role of monster.
Instead, the plot turns into Victor’s quandary about being forced to disappoint one of the women who loves him. In a way, the situation is not that different from the third act of of the Japanese classic UGETSU, in which a wayward husband finds himself enthalled by a beguiling female ghost. The difference is that Kenji Mizoguchi’s 1953 classic is a 94-minute, adult-themed film that benefited from its complexity — but CORPSE BRIDE is a 64-minute fairy tale, which would have benefited from a fairy tale simplicity to its storytelling. With Victor truly in love with his Victoria, but sympathetic to Emily’s plight, the tug-of-war inherent in his situation sends the story tacking back and forth, and it requires some fairly manipulative and convenient twists to provide conventionally satisfactory solution.
The weakness in the plotting is easy enough to tolerate as long as the visuals and Elfman’s songs carry the film. The Corpse Bride’s resurrection from the grave is a stunningly realized sequence that makes the film worth seeing all on its own (in fact, the incredibly smooth animation of wedding veil is enough to make the film worth seeing), and her sad refrain upon realizing that Victor does not love her (“I know that I am dead, yet I have more tears to shed”) is genuinely moving.
But surprisingly, some of the songs fall flat (the opening number has a dirge-like pace that almost stops the film before it can start — it’s all recitative-style exposition, unlike the blissful arias that launched NIGHTMARE). And the script’s attempts at humor (including a Peter Lorre-inspired maggot filling in the Jiminy Cricket role) often elicit groans rather than chuckles.
The great thing about NIGHTMARE BEFORE CHRISTMAS was that it set the standard; it had no immediate precedent by which it could be judged. CORPSE BRIDE bears the burden of having to live up to that earlier achievement. On a technical level, it more than meets — and even surpasses — expectations. But on an overall artistic level, it is no match for its illustrious predecessor. It’s dark, demented, and fun, but it’s more of an extremely clever trick than a truly delightful treat.
SECOND VIEWING
A second viewing of the film helped me overcome my initial disappointment and somewhat revise my opinion. The story still the wanders back and forth a bit, but the heart-felt emotion invested into the plight of the lead characters — Victor, Victoria, and especially Emily the Corpse Bride — helps offset the structural weaknesses.
TRIVIA
In an early scene, Victor sits down at a piano in his fiance’s home and begins to play while the camera performs a graceful, sweeping arc around him (worthy of any live-action Hollywood musical). When we finally get a closeup look at his hands on the keyboard, we see that the brand name on the piano is not Steinway but “Harryhausen.” Ray Harryhausen, of course, is the maestro behind the stop-motion effects for such classic fantasy films as THE GOLDEN VOYAGE OF SINBAD and JASON AND THE ARGONAUTS.
Tim Burton’s Corpse Bride (2005). Directed by Tim Burton, Mike Johnson. Written by John August and Pamela Pettler and Caroline Thompson, story and characters by Tim Burton. Music and songs by Danny Elfman, additional lyrics by John August. Voices: Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter, Emily Watson, Tracey Ulman, Paul Whitehouse, Joanna Lumley, Albert Finney, Richard E. Grant, Christopher Lee, Michael Gough, Jane Horrocks, Enn Reitel, Deep Roy, Danny Elfman.
[EDITOR’S NOTE: Since Tim Burton fans are showing up today in response to our preview of SWEENEY TODD, we thought we would offer up this review of Sweeney’s closest antecedent in Tim Burton’s ouevre.]
The Headless Horseman rides hell bent for leather in Tim Burton’s elaborate 1999 horror film, derived loosely from Washington Irving’s “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.” There may be some problems in the storytelling and exposition departments, but no one would deny the effective visual scheme that creates a fairy tale world in which the existence of a malevolent Headless Horseman – who returns from the grave to decapitate his victims – is completely believable. Burton’s work is a triumph of style over substance – a visual tour-de-force in which the director’s fairy tale horror aesthetic (so charming in THE NIGHTMARE BEFORE CHRISTMAS) is rendered in live-action to stupendous effect, overwhelming the weaknesses in the storyline.
Got a sneak peak at SWEENEY TODD on Tuesday, and it is absolutely fantastic – one of the best things Tim Burton has ever directed! The film was not finished (the closingcredits were missing, and the sound mix will be tweaked over the next five weeks), but barring ratings problems, this appears to be the final cut in all its gory glory. The movie is pretty much your dream of what it would be, when you first heard that Burton and Johnny Depp would be turning the Stephen Sondheim musical into a movie: it’s a dark, brooding horror-musical-comedy that hits all the right notes.
Depp casts aside the over-the-top antics of Jack Sparrow for a much more self-contained performance as the Demon Barber of Fleet Street, in which the emotions (primarily a lust for revenge) ooze up to the surface in controlled bursts; without ever blunting the character’s razor-sharp edge, the actor demands that we sympathize and root for Sweeney as he slashes his way through half the throats in London. Alan Rickman is wonderful as the hypocritical Judge Turpin, whose machinations drove Sweeney to madness. Sacha Baron Cohen shines in a small role – you don’t have to be a Borat fan to enjoy his work here. A special mention must go out for Timothy Spall as Beadle Bamford, Turpin’s right-hand man – a perfectly wrought performance of a slimy character who mistakenly believes himself to be slick and smart. Hopefully, the Oscar academy will not overlook him next year even though his role is not of the showy, melodramatic kind that usually draws attention.
If there is a flaw in the movie, it is that the cinematic storytelling occasionally short circuits the musical nature of the source material. The acting performances, through close-up camera angles and cutting, convey the point of some scenes long before the songs wrap up, as when Anthony (Jamie Campbell Bower) first lays eyes on and falls in love with Sweeney’s daughter Johanna (Jayne Wisener), who is kept a virtual prisoner in Turpin’s mansion. Judging from the reaction and comments after the screening, fans of the musical will be pleased that the film is faithful to Sondheim, but SWEENEY TODD might have been even better if it had jettisoned more of the stage version, which on a few occasions feels like dead weight slowing the movie down.
The screening was followed by a session in which the marketing people asked for audience reactions. It was clear that the small audience (a bit over forty, mostly of fans of Burton and/or Johnny Depp) loved the film: over thirty called it great; eight called it very good; two said it was merely good; and no one admitted that he/she actively disliked it. UPDATE: One of the two viewers who ranked the film as only “good” complained that the story offered “no closure,” but he did not get a chance to explain what he meant by that. (The film ties up all the plot threads; it may or may not show you exactly what happens to everybody, but it gives you enough information to figure it out satisfactorily.) This audience member also complained about Depp’s performance, saying that he had seen the actor in similar roles too often before; he called Sweeney “Edward Scissorhandspossessed by Jack Sparrow.” (“Scissorhands possessed by Jack the Ripper” would be more accurate; Sweeney has little if anything in common with the woozy pirate from CURSE OF THE BLACK PEARL, whose head seems soft from too much time in the sun.) Funnily enough, even though the “Scissorhands-Sparrow” remark had been intended as a criticism, the marketing people actually liked it, saying they would like to put the comment in their promotional campaign. UPDATE: One of the first questions that came up was regarding the singing voices, of the cast in general and of Johnny Depp in particular. According to a show of hands, a near unanimous majority of the audience thought Depp and his co-stars passed the test. Personally, I thought it was clear that neither Depp nor Rickman is a trained Broadway singer, but it doesn’t matter because they put so much acting into the songs that the lyrics become sung dialogue. I’m not saying their voices were off-key or flat, just that you could tell they were not going to throw back their heads and belt out notes that would shatter a champagne glass. The strength of their singing lay more in acting skill than in virtuoso vocal stylings, and the result is fully satisfying in the movie.
Several viewers raised their hands when the moderator asked whether any of the women thought there was too much blood; interestingly, none of them said this ruined the movie for them or would prevent them from recommending it to friends. A few pointed out that the highly stylized nature of the film – most of the colors are muted and almost monochromatic, like Halloween Town in NIGHTMARE BEFORE CHRISTMAS – rendered the bright-red bloodshed in a highly artificial way that muted the impact, making it more palatable, even for non-gore hounds. UPDATE: Some people in the screening compared the violence to KILL BILL. Personally, I found it closer to one of KILL BILL’s inspirations, the “Lone Wolf” samurai movies made in Japan in the 1970s. Like those ultra-violent extravaganzas, SWEENEY TODD features blood the flows in watery geysers – the effect is so over-the-top that it becomes almost cartoony. Still, the sight of razor slicing flesh does have an impact, especially during the montage of Sweeney carving his way through at least half a dozen victims during a song.
To be clear, the session was not about gathering audience reactions in order to re-cut the film to make it safer for a general audience; the goal was trying to gauge the film’s appeal. From the various questions and statements uttered over the course of half-an-hour, it appears that the marketing people believe the film will appeal to three or four non-intersecting groups:
Teenage girls who like Depp
Tim Burton fans
Fans of the musical
The “Adult Alternative” audience, who want to see something other than NATIONAL TREASURE 2
For some reason, there was some doubt that SWEENEY TODD would appeal to horror fans, even though it clearly is a horror movie, the songs notwithstanding. There seemed to be a misapprehension that “horror” equated with SAW, and that fans of that franchise and others of its ilk would not enjoy the Burton film.
Personally, I think nothing could be further from the truth. The blood explodes in only a few scenes of SWEENEY, but when it rains, it pours – in unbelievably graphic gouts of gushing red. I can’t remember when or if I ever saw this much red splashed across the screen in a mainstream studio movie. More important, the Sweeney character fits the classic movie monster mold: he does horrible things, but the audience identifies with and even roots for him to dispatch his victims, who more often than not deserve what they get.
It’s a mistake to think that torture-porn and/or high-octane violence are synonymous with horror. There are a few loud voices at horror movie blogs insisting that HOSTEL PART II, GRINDHOUSE, and 28 WEEKS LATER are what horror is all about, but these films can barely find an audience, if at all. Much bigger audiences will clearly turn out for scary movies – even ones with violence and blood-letting, like SILENCE OF THE LAMBS – as long as they are done with some style and class. Certainly, SWEENEY TODD could draw in the same kind of viewers who turned SLEEPY HOLLOW into a blockbuster.
One other incident from the session deserves mention. One recurring question was whether the musical nature of SWEENEY TODD would turn off some young male viewers who might otherwise be interested in another Depp-Burton collaboration. In answer to this, an audience member recounted the following incident: after seeing a trailer for TODD before a screening of THE HEARTBREAK KID, two young men in the row in front of her turned to each other and enthusiastically cried out, ‘Fuck yeah!”
That’s not the kind of comment likely to find its way into the marketing report, so we preserve it here for historical purposes. UPDATED AGAIN: I forgot to mention this previously, but one thought that went through my mind during the screening was that SWEENEY TODD reminds me of THE BLACK CAT, the classic 1934 horror film starring Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi. The story has Lugosi as a man who returns for revenge after fifteen years in a Russian gulag (same amount of time Sweeney has been away). Meahwhile, Karloff’s character has married both Lugosi’s wife and – after the wife dies – Lugosi’s daughter (more or less what the Rickman character attempts to do in SWEENEY). In the end, Lugosi flays Karloff alive with a scalpel (sound familiar?). As in SWEENEY TODD, the audience is invited to identify with a demented character driven by revenge, even though his actions are almost as monstrous as those of the man he is targeting – perhaps even more so. UPDATED AGAIN AGAIN: Some message boards linking to this report have complained that I neglected to mention Helana Bonham-Carter. I simply did not find her performance particularly remarkable. That does not mean it was bad or that I did not like her, only that I did not feel compelled to lavish suprlatives on her. For some reason, I was not concerned about her singing voice, so it was no surprise to hear her do well in that regard. She certainly looked fantastic in the part: her lovely features covered in pale makeup that made her resemble the living dead, she was the perfect compliment to Depp’s Sweeney. Also, her name barely came up in the session after the screening, so it’s not as if I was reminded that this was a hot topic. LATE UPDATE: Someone at the New York Post links to my article here. The brief post ends with this sentence:
Mr. Biodrowski doesn’t say if he signed the nondisclosure agreement that is standard before such screenings
No one asked me to sign a non-disclosure agreement. Nor was anyone else asked, apparently; long before I wrote my piece, the message boards at IMDB had lit up with responses from other people at the screening.
Also, I wanted to clarify a couple of points made in my original article:
When I wrote the “teenage girls” were one of the target audiences for the film, I may have been over-interpreting what was being said. The actual age range mentioned was something like 17-30. “Teenage” stuck in my mind because some of the questions concerned whether parents would take their children- who dig Jack Sparrow – to see the bloody R-rated film. Women over 17 don’t need their parents to buy them a ticket, so the implication seemed to be that the film might lose the 13-16 year-old girls.
Some of the message boards linking to this post have expressed disdain for the marketing people and their attempt to “sell” this movie. I think it was pretty clear that the people marketing this film believe they have something good, with built-in appeal to certain segments of the audience. I suspect the real concern is crafting a promotional campaign that will appeal to each of these groups while not alienating the others. I also suspect this is the reason why “horror fans” are not listed among the groups being targeted: the marketers probably fear they have much to lose and little to gain, that selling to the horror crowd will alienate other viewers and still not bring in the gore-hounds. I am just interpreting based on the questions asked last night; I could be wrong, of course.
PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: THE CURSE OF THE BLACK PEARL was a wonderful example of a Hollywood blockbuster done well. The massively positive audience response led producer Jerry Bruckheimer to adopt the model used for the MATRIX sequels, filming two new motion pictures back to back in order to get them out as close together as possible: DEAD NAN’S CHEST and AT WORLD’S END. Unfortunately, in the process, Bruckheimer recreated many of the faults of the MATRIX follow-ups: taking what worked the first time and redoing it, only bigger and louder – in the process losing all the charm that made the first film so much fun. Consequently, the first PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN sequel, DEAD MAN’S CHEST, is considerably less satisfactory than the original – a bloated, over-long, meandering mess, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. Inexplicably, this was not enough to stop the sequel from becoming a record-breaking box office smash in the summer of 2006. Continue reading “Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest (2006) – Film Review”→
The concept hardly sounds auspicious – making a feature film based upon a ride at Disneyland – but PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN turns out to be a Hollywood blockbuster in the best sense of the word: a glorious piece of large-scale entertainment that uses its budget to grand effect, filling the screen with action, stunts, swordplay, costumes, sets and special effects, without ever losing sight of the story and characters.
Working from a clever script by Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio, director Gore Verbinski does a fine job of navigating a perilous journey that jumps from one tone to the other, incorporating comedy, romance, melodrama, fantasy, and even some outright horror, creating that often touted but seldom achieved commodity, a “film for the whole family.”
The rousing score by Klaus Badelt captures the wind-swept vigor of old-fashioned pirate movies without ever feeling embalmed in nostalgia. The same can be said for the cannon fire and swordplay, which is handled with all the visual excellence that modern technology can achieve. The result is a film that lives up to its cinematic forebears without ever being a slave to their established formulae. Continue reading “Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl (2003) – Film & DVD Review”→
In retrospect, it should be no surprise that Tim Burton was drawn to Roald Dahl’s novel CHARLIE AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY. Burton’s films have tended to focus on what we might call “demented artists” — that is, people with enormous creativity whose imaginative flights of fancy make them seem weird, abnormal, and even, on occasion, dangerous.
Tim Burton’s second stop-motion feature film bears some obvious similarities to THE NIGHTMARE BEFORE CHRISTMAS, but it has almost as much in common with BEETLEJUICE (not to mention touches of EDWARD SCISSORHANDS and the excellent short subject VINCENT). Not only does the story involve a “newly-dead” couple in a bizarre afterlife, populated by characters whose appearance betrays comically obvious evidence of how they departed the land of the living, there is also a BEETLEJUICE-type of manic energy — a sense of imagination run riot that makes the film always worth watching, even when the story loses traction.
