Our society
is fixated with entertainment as it brings culture from different countries
around the world. One part of
entertainment, I believe, no one can go without watching and that is movies. Movies are the highlight of television and the
entertainment world. I chose to pick “Corpse
Bride” by Tim Burton; he’s made quite a few movies in his career. Some of his nuterous work have been
Frankenweenie, Dark Shadows, Alice in Wonderland, Sweeney Todd, Corpse Bride,
Charlie and The Chocolate Factory, The Nightmare Before Christmas, Batman
Returns, Edward Scissorhands, Batman, Beetlejuice, and many more.
Corpse Bride is an animated and humorous
movie, which the target demographic is a younger audience. It can be a little frightening for some
children because the nature of the characters.
In this Tim Burton movie, he uses people’s curiosity of the dead and the
after life to tell us a story of a man, Victor, having an arranged wedding with
a woman, Victoria in attempt to save her parents from the poor house. The day of the rehearsal Victor kept on
forgetting his vowels so in embarrassment, he walks into the forest trying to
remember. As he walks further, he says his
vowels correctly and not knowing, he put the ring on what looked like a branch. Of course, it wasn’t. It was actually a corpse who was buried under
an old oak tree. She says, “I do,” and she
takes him under the “real world” where people that have died live together. He founds out that she was swept off her feet
by a newcomer in town and her father didn’t approve. So, they planned to meet in the woods to run
away together and she woke up dead and all her jewelry was gone. Victor
suggested to visit his parents but ended up lying to the corpse bride, Emily,
in which he actually visited Victoria. Victoria’s
parents thought his scandal of Victor running away couldn’t happen so a
newcomer came the previous day and he suggested to be married to Victoria. They agreed.
In the end, Emily figures out that Victor would have to be dead in order
for them to be married. He agrees to do
it because Victoria got married to the newcomer and they planned their wedding “upstairs”
in the land of the living. They go up
and the dead reunite with their living relatives. Everyone gathers at the church where Victor
and Emily are getting married. Victoria
sees many people walking to the church so she follows and stands behind a pillar
looking at the back of Victor. As he’s
about the drink the poison to end his life, Emily stops him and says, “I had my
chance at love and now it’s your turn.”
Now, Victoria’s husband, Lord Barkis, comes into the church and Emily recognizes
him as her murderer. Everyone is shocked
and wants to get revenge. He gets in a
sword fight with Victor and he eventually drinks the poison. He poisons himself and then the dead are able
to get their revenge.
One narrative that comes to my mind
is how in the beginning of the movie Victor is drawing a butterfly. Throughout the movie, this butterfly is seen
quite a few times. The meaning of the
butterfly is about being free. As the
movie reaches the end, Emily, the corpse bride, walks out of the church and
with the moonlight shining down on her, she turns into many butterflies meaning
she’s free from heartbreak and able to move on.
NOTE: I’m going to most likely cut down part of my “brief”
description of the movie.
I’m planning:
·
On to connect the curiosity of the dead with the
“All Soul Parade” that happens here in Tucson in November.
·
In the movie there is a lot of crows in the
forest and the “underworld”, so try to analyzing why that is
·
Promoting the harmful or beneficial views of the
movie
·
Why this movie is part of popular culture (fascination
of the dead and afterlife of when someone dies)
·
Possibly how humans react being heartbroken
I’m going to watch the movie again so I understand it a
little more. So, there’ll probably be
more things I can analyze.
Hi, Christina, I agree with you that our society is fixated with entertainment. In America, there are cultures from different countries around the world. In my opinion, the movies are the most popular in the entertainment. Unfortunately, I didn’t watch the movie “Corpse Bride” by Tim Burton, but now I want to find this movie and watch. Thank you for analyzing the movie “Corpse Bride”.
ReplyDeleteI like your NOTE. It is good to plan your essay # 3. I think the best point of this plan is the question: “Why this movie is part of popular culture?”
You are going to watch the movie again and I’m planning to watch this movie. Thanks!
Tatiana.
I enjoyed your paragraph on the butterfly metaphor. Your wonderful butterfly narrative shows a good example of how you are going to eventually construct everything else just as well. Just remember to leave out the “my mind” part. Likewise, don’t use “I believe” or “I chose to pick” etc. In academic writing, your opinion is your statement without including the words “my opinion is.” Therefore, your statement: “Movies are the highlight of television and the entertainment world” is a powerful assertion of your opinion.
ReplyDeleteThe introduction could begin with two sentences that relate to the theme of the movie. You could cut the info on Tim Burton because the subject isn’t about him, right? What you can do to describe your story or pieces of it is use the questions we have to answer, such as cultural beliefs etc. as key words for each paragraph. For example, arranged marriages could be used to describe the cultural beliefs this implies. Next paragraph links this subject somehow into the next key word of attitudes. What is the attitude about death or the after- life? Perhaps, values about elopement? You have a lot to work with in regard to mythology: classical Greek ideals of the underworld and moving between two worlds, such as with Persephone. “Upstairs” is that like Elysium? Well, good luck! There are a lot of ideas that can be taken from this movie.
This is a strong start. You had some great ideas in your notes, too. I did find a few places that could be developed further & asked questions about these parts.
ReplyDeleteWhy is the nature of the characters scary? Analyse our cultural fear of death and how this show (in addition to other forms of entertainment) deal with this fear.
What does the portrayal of the arranged marriage say about our current cultural views on marriage?
How is “saving her parents from the poor house” depicted? Does the husband know? What does this say about our cultural ideas in regards to money?
Where else in the movie does the butterfly appear? Does its meaning change at all in the movie? If yes, what does the change indicate?
Where do the crows appear? What do they traditionally symbolize in our culture? Is this the same or different from what they indicate in the movie? If the meaning in the movie does differ from our perception of crow symbolism, why do you think this is?
Insia Ali
ReplyDeleteCorpse Bride is actually one of my favorite children movies to watch! I like that you pointed out that you need to cut down on your brief summary before anyone else got the chance to point it out. The connection of the symbolism of the butterfly to freedom shows that you are constructing an ideal analysis of the movie. Focus on how society is viewing that freedom. In addition, you should probably not mention the many movies Tim Burton created, it kind of throws off the introduction to your essay. It kind of threw me off. In the introduction, you need to focus on introducing the concepts you will talk about in your body of the essay (death, heartbreak, etc.). Also you seem to be in the right path in concern of the rest of your analysis. Great movie to analyze!
I love this movie, and Tim Burton as a director. His style is so cool and unique. Great start and great ideas. Mara's questions where great for you to think about and incorporate.
ReplyDeleteTo piggy back off of the first question with how we as a culture fear death, another thing you could add to that is how we as a society try to find answers to the un answered. "After life" is something that is a mystery. No one really knows what will happen after life. I think a lot of us try to come up with an explanation for everything cause we always want to know "why?" and "how?". That could be an interesting view is to see how we try to answer the things that we are unsure of, hence how Tim Burton created his idea of what "after life" is.
Over all I thought your brief description was too the point while including important details. Great job.
I like your choice for the essay. Entertainment is a huge part of society. And Tim burton has made many movies, many of them having to do with killing and death. They are animated but i don't think most of them are all that much for children. He seems to fixate on death a lot, i'm not sure why. But i do like how in the corpse bride it shows you that there is life after death, and even in death you can love. And he shows that in many of his movies like the corpse bride, beetlejuice, Edward scissorhands, nightmare before christmas and sweeney todd. Granted not all of those the characters are dead, but some they kill for love, or they are doing something to show their love for something . He has his wife in a lot of movies as well, she is actually the voice of the corpse bride.
ReplyDeleteI liked your choice of movie considering i am a fan of Tim Burton and the movie Sweeney Todd. I think that the huge list of movies that you gave should either be removed or shortened because it is very unnecessary to have a long list of his creations. You did extremely well in explaning what happens in the movie and how it works but I think to give a stronger picture do a bit more in showing the scene to give the readers an understanding of the style of the movie, otherwise it can be hard to tell how depressing or creepy .etc this movie is. I think you can make a symbol out of the murderer of the main character, what do you think he represents in the film? Also I agree that death is a topic for us humans because we have no understanding of it other than things die and that is a natural thing but other than that we are clueless.
ReplyDeleteYou chose a great film to analyze. Tim Burton certainly has a proclivity of reflecting society in a sardonic, dark manner. His films have reflected changes in popular culture over time. One of his films you mentioned really struck me. Edward Scissorhands is such an applicable representation of society's ostracizing of any one or thing that is different from the norm.
ReplyDeleteDecent post, though it could be fleshed out some more in later drafts, but you forgot one big thing about the buterflies: In a lot of cultures, they are a major symbol of death and rebirth, which is why Emily turning into them was a great symbol, because it showed she was now free from her past life. Hell, I learned about this when looking up the ending to Super Mario Galaxy, I'm surprised more people didn't catch it.
ReplyDeleteAlso,on a tangent, anyone else wish Burton'd stop doing these awful, awful remakes and go back to doing his own stuff? Because god I miss when he was good.