ShyViolet wrote:Dusterian wrote:
ShyViolet wrote:other than mocking Victorian rules and lessons his two books WERE basically posing the question of what Alice's eventual adulthood would mean.
Can I have an explanation of that, with examples?
Basically, pretty much all the crazy things Alice runs into in both books is really about adult things that she will eventually have to deal with. Dealing with ridiculous rules at a tea party or being asked to recite nonsense rhymes is just a reflection of the insane "real" world she's on the verge of entering.
Technically, Alice isn't "asked to recite nonsense rhymes", she's asked to recite real rhymes, and finds they come out as nonsense.
Partly to sell Carroll's own parodies, partly to clue us in that she might be dreaming (and that everything is "quite curious today"), and partly to satirize the Improving Education with which real schoolchildren were asked to recite them.
Also, (this was understandably left out of the Disney version) Alice is asked by the Duchess to care for and even nurse a baby; she is of course too young but this is once again a prediction of her eventual adulthood. (the baby actually turns out to be a pig).
The pig ends up in the movie as a completely unrelated "footstool" gag, almost because T&L knew from the Tenniel illustrations there "had" to be one in the movie--and that important "faithful" publicity shot of the RQ holding one--but didn't seem to be familiar enough with the book to know WHERE.
In the scene where we see the Frog Footman accused of Stealing Tarts--which doesn't seem to have any bearing on the actual story--while the Evil Villainous Knave of Hearts continues plotting, except for the heroic Dog, book readers are just staring at T&L's wildly scrambled illustrations-based bluff saying "You...really haven't
read the darn thing, have you?"
(It's as if you asked me to describe a Shakespeare play if I'd never read one, and I'd enthusiastically said "Okay, Hamlet loves Juliet, but he has to defend the Castle because three witches are sending their fairies after it, but he's protected against them because he's got Yorick's skull which he got from Julius Caesar!" wouldn't quite sound convincing as a bluff: Hey, c'mon, he's got a skull; I saw the picture in Wikipedia!
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EricJ wrote:I don't approve that a film director 51 years old, and whom studios fall all over themselves to hand the keys to the studio treasury, still pretends to be the same gothy garage-film-school student or animation washout he was twenty or thirty years ago thinking he was the Next Edward Gorey.
Mr. Burton is neither as "original" as he (and his worshippers) believes himself to be, nor as "shocking". All I see is someone who tells the same jokes over and over, and giggles over his own cleverness at every single one.
But he's not just telling jokes; that's only
part of what he does. The shock is not of skeletons or freak babies raised in sewers, the shock is from human ugliness, sadness, and pain. The hyper, super tacky worlds he creates are in Tim's mind more monstrous than the "monsters" of his films. This is what gives his films heft and beauty and why he's lasted this long.
Was referring more to Burton himself as a director:
I used to joke about Internet trolls or jackass Howard Stern fans, etc., that those who are the most in love with "shaking up the status quo" for thrill value usually end up attracted to the SAME EXACT corny familiar overworn punchline targets as each other (insert GeorgeC joke here
)--Thus, ironically, making themselves their
own overbearing and asinine cliche', completely in the belief they're not, while the rest of us casual folk with no social demons go our own merry unpredictable way.
In Tim's case, he wants to "champion the Weird and Misunderstood"--So, we get a parody of Plastic Suburbia...OOH! And comedy gags about wacky senile old ladies...EEK! Jokes about funny, lovable decomposing corpses that fall apart at the wrong time...FAINT! You could describe the plot of Mars Attacks on paper, and facepalm at the borscht-belt corniness of half the film just from the
descriptions. ("Y'see, they figure out that to defeat the aliens, they have to play
Slim Whitman records, and the yodeling makes their heads explode...Get it, get it??")
Whether taking on beloved pop icons, or "reinterpreting" famous Twisted Tales Of Our Youth", Mr. Burton is not
quite as Misunderstood Weird as he desperately
wants to be, and certainly
wants to be a great deal "weirder" than he basically IS. It takes a lot more than Wanting To.
(And he can certainly create an atmosphere of misunderstood pathos or pain, but unfortunately, it's usually immediately deep-sixed by his urge to have, say, Paul Reubens suddenly walk in in a bit-part cameo because the director thought it would be a Hoot. Uh, Tim, there's this little directorial thing called "consistent tone", and it comes from not following your every single urge at every single minute.)
He's "stayed around" because of his Cults of Personality: Fanboys who want him to direct another Edward Scissorhands (because they dream of being as Weird As He Is without quite knowing how either), and Studios who want him to direct another Batman, both handing him movies and saying "Here, do it, you know how!"
For comparison, though, look at Spielberg: Thirty years later, Spielberg still attracts mindless 80's-fanboys who say "Spielberg should do some more aliens and dinosaurs, and another Indiana Jones!", and Steven turns around and does historical epics, period 60's con-men, and Tom Hanks dramas...In other words, going out and doing exactly whatever personal/artistic/conscience project he
wants to do at the time just to keep from directing the same movie twice, and okay, fanboys, just try and predict we'd get Amistad or The Terminal.
Burton, OTOH, has believed his own publicity for the last fifteen years to the point that a studio can walk in, say, "We don't know what to do with this remake of Fantastic Voyage we've had lying around for twelve years, wanna do it?--We know you'll make it look Really Weird! Or how about this stop-motion movie, can you put in all those curly-stripey things from Nightmare Before Xmas?". Burton says "Okay!
" and directs it strictly to the paint-by-numbers and automatic casting. Thus becoming THE most predictable director working in films today...Now, really, Tim, is
that shaking up the Status Quo? Being In a Rut isn't what Misunderstood Weird people aspire to do.
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