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.