Burton + Depp = Movie Magic

My personal favourite collaborations in the movie business has to be Tim Burton's movies with Johnny Depp. They are both talented in their own division of the industry.

Timothy "Tim" William Burton, age 49, is one of the best directors around. His movies have a distinctly gothic and dark humour themed feel to it. The best examples of dark humour appear in Corpse Bride, made in 2005.

Corpse Bride is a stop motion animation movie, starring Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter as voice over actors. It is a animated dark comedy, of a man named Victor, who was accidentily wed to a corpse the day before his arranged marrage to Victoria, voiced my Emily Watson. He is taken to the land of the dead, where lots of "mis-understandings" occur.
As you can see, it's not Dora Saves the Orphaned Monkey type of film.
It has it's own charm to it, and exemplifies Burton's talent in the dieing area of film, stop-animation.


Burton also directed the widely popular stop-motion animation movie The Nightmare Before Christmas.
It was released in 1993, and it also had the dark humour to it. I myself was not allowed to see this movie untill I was 11, as my mother thought it was too dark of a picture for me, and would give me nightmares. Burton shows his unique style of directing with the contrast of the Burton style, creepy looking inhabitants of Halloween Town, and the happy, sweet looking inhabitants of Christmas Town.


And of course, my favourite movie of all time, and by far the best combonation of Depp and Burton, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street

The plot of Sweeney Todd, is a long, complicated weave of characters, motivations, and plot. Benjamin Barker was sent away to Austrailia under a false charge, so the evil Judge Turpin could steal his wife Lucy and daughter Johanna. Turpin raped Lucy and caused her to drink poison. He then adopted Johanna and locked her away in his house, not allowing her to go out. Benjamin returns to London by Anthony Hope, a sailor. Under the guise of Sweeney Todd, he sets up his old barber shop above Mrs. Nellie Lovett's unsucsessful meat pie emporium. Anthony sees Johanna singing and instantly falls in love, vowing to rescue her. He runs and tells Sweeney and Mrs. Lovett, who then plan a way for them to rescue her. All Sweeney thinks of is revenge, and doesn't pay attention to much else.
I don't want to give away the ending if people haven't seen it, so I'll stop there.
This movie shows Burton's vision in camera movements and reaction to sound. The filming took place after the soundtrack was made and finished, so Burton shot all his scenes in reaction to what he heard from Stephan Sondheim's soundtrack.
A watercolour he made around 12 years before Sweeney Todd was in production, (which I can not locate, thank you very much google and photobucket) shows his gothic style and imaging for all his characters. They all are very pale and skinny, with dark eyes with circles under them. Like insomniacs basically. (paraphrased from Helena Bonham Carter in Burton+Depp+Carter=Todd)


All in all, Tim Burton has mastered the movie genres, and is a master director. His collaborations with Johnny Depp continue to inspire me in my acting aspirations, and can only continue to do so through-out the years.


**Thank You for Reading**