Analysis on Tim Burton - Grade: B PDF

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Analysis of the short film Vincent produced and created by Tim Burton....

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Liana Veleva 16429944 Analysis on Tim Burton’s Vincent (1982)

Vincent is a short-animated stop-motion film directed, designed and produced by Tim Burton. The film celebrates Vincent Price, who is an iconic American actor in horror cinema, known for his distinctive voice and acting performances. Short film is chosen as a medium because it enables the director to experiment with style, animation and design, rather than making it an all-round story, which has fully focused on each element. Vincent introduces us to the life of the seven-year old Vincent Malloy and his alter ego – Vincent Price. We are shown the mundane and bland everyday life of a child in a conventional family, opposed to his imaginary world and persona of Vincent Price. The fictional world runs amok when the protagonist engulfs himself in reading authors such as Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849) and Mary Shelley (1797-1851), or watching horror movies starring Vincent Price. Tim Burton decides to end the film with Vincent being overtaken by his imaginary world, and gothic interests. Nevertheless, Disney pressures him in making the ending more ‘family-friendly’ by creating an ending scene of Vincent Malloy playing outside with his father. Tim Burton shares that he finds that ‘optimistic’ ending more depressing than the darker ending as it robs Vincent out of his interests and identity, and gives the audience a hollow, socially stereotyped happy ending, which disregards everything brought up in the film. Throughout the short, we see Vincent’s mother interfering with her son’s fantasy world, and trying to pull him back into the everyday world, which he dismisses as uninteresting. The film explores themes, which are commonly found in gothic literature and cinema. The audience is presented with the inner struggle in the protagonist’s mind. Vincent depicts the thin line between the world of imagination and the world of reason; fiction and reality’ light and dark; death and life. The choice between being true to your quirks, and succumbing to the social norm; mould. The mise-en-scene in the short, references a lot of its imagery to influences such as the filmography of Vincent Price, the literary works of Edgar Allan Poe as well as gothic style, textures and devices popular in German Expressionism. The whole short film is narrated by the American actor – Vincent Price, he is famous for his distinctive voice featured in horror movies. This enhances the emotion the director is trying to achieve. By choosing to go with a narration performed by the alter ego of the protagonist, Burton provides a better insight of the imaginary world to the audience. Gothic literature and German Expressionism are other big influences present in the production. Chiaroscuro lighting is a famous technique in expressionistic paintings and film noir. By using extreme contrast between light and dark, Burton creates dramatic shadows, or isolates only what is meant to be seen, creating a lonely and striking visual. The preoccupation with mirrors, glass and other reflective surfaces gives way for the director to cast anthropomorphic shadows on the walls and floor. By using this technique, Burton can relate Vincent’s ideas to the audience, and enhance the gothic stylized animation he wants to achieve. In every scene, we can find symbols relating the film to German Expressionism. The animals shown in the short are all related to the gothic period (e. g. bats, cats, spiders), except for the dog, which is later transformed into a ‘zombie’. Because of the strong relation to abstract and fantastical elements in the gothic style, anthropomorphism is vital to the character design. In addition to it, the protagonist can shift from his human behaviour, form or characteristic to convey the scale of the emotion he is having as a response to his dramatic inner struggle. The cinematography used to create the unique and picturesque style of Tim Burton’s films, relies heavily on the framing, transitions, colour, lighting, contrast, patterns, and shadows. The framing in the short film focuses on Vincent. He is almost always in the frame. When corresponding

Liana Veleva 16429944 with grown-ups, their heads are cut off from the frame. This imagery suggests their lack of imagination as well as imply the social hierarchy. This is supported in the second scene, where we are introduced to Vincent’s sister, whom we fully see. The mother always imposes on her son, trying to pull him back to reality. She often brings light to the picture, creating a contrast between the world of reason, and the imaginary world of her son. The transitions in the short are really well executed, often using related imagery or element in consecutive scenes. For example, the transition, when Vincent imagines digging a grave while he is actually digging his mother’s flowerbed. There is a flash of lighting separating the two scenes. It is a noir film, because of Burton’s belief that composition elements are like senses – if you remove one sense, it heightens the others. We can see that lighter hues are used in scenes showing reality, while the imaginary world of Vincent Price is in heavy blacks and bright whites. When the contrast is strong Burton creates grotesque pictures and gothic scenery. Moreover, sometimes adds distorted patterns and geometric shapes to achieve surrealism. Shadows often show the ideas entertained in Vincent’s imagination, they are most often brought by flashed of lightning, electricity, opened doors and staircases. I believe that the short film serves as a successful experimentation on Tim Burton’s future style. We see a lot of his later developed films in their early version (e.g. Jack Skeleton, Frankenweenie, Sally, Vincent Price). The techniques used in the stop motion short film are later incorporated in his full-featured films as well.

Reference List: Bibliography: Dunst C. “What Has Influenced Burton's Film Vincent (1982)?” LinkedIn SlideShare, 26 May 2013. Webber, Abbigail. “Short Films.” Scriptwriting Week Two. Scriptwriting Week Two, Northampton, Northamptonshire. Salisbury, Mark. Burton on Burton. Faber and Faber, 2006. Filmography: Burton, Tim, director. Vincent. Disney Studios, 1982....