Film Authorship - Julie Angelicola

I have to admit I'm not one of those students that follows the films of certain directors. But when it comes to movies there is one director I can say is an auteur in my mind. His movies are more than identifiable, they are a part of our pop culture and many of these films have played roles in our childhood. The director I am speaking of is the one and only Tim Burton. As a writer and director, Burton has tacked his name onto many movies in his lifetime, and he's not stopping anytime soon with a remake of Alice in Wonderland on the way. Some of the most well-known films are Edward Scissor Hands, Beetlejuice, Big Fish and The Nightmare Before Christmas. Burton does both live action and animated films, but his attention to morbid and imaginitive detail is what always pulls me toward his creations.
His style is undeniable with a whimsical take on gothic characters, scenes and storylines. His main characteres are incredibly flawed and have dark backstories that add to their charisma and charm in the films. Everything is over the top with Burton and our imaginations are enabled to bloom with his rich and darkly lavish settings and landscapes. He works with fantasy and adds it to black comedy, turning the touchiest subjects into laughs. The characters Burton creates are unforgettable, such as Beetlejuice, the ghost with the most, or Johhny Depp as Edward, the boy with the scissor hands that can shape a topiary like no one else. Burton's films are often dramtically lit and he uses architecture as a theme for creating the mindset of the film's townpeople. For example, the identical houses in Edward Scissor Hands inform the viewer that everything and everyone there is more or less the same, making it a perfect contrast for Edward to show up and cause instant conflict. He is strange, bizarre, and the complete opposite of the pastel panneling and perfect lawns of Winona Ryder's neighborhood. In Beetlejuice, the unusual sculptures and layout of the Deitz's home is representative of Delia's manipulative personality and her tricks used to exploit the ghosts haunting her.
Burton uses his imagination to create vividly ghoulish stories and frames his films using a sharp contrast between overly bright color and darkness. An example of this is in The Nightmare Before Christmas when the Oogie Boogie, a neon green monster, glows against a black background where Jack Skellington is defenselessly watching. Burton utilizes the natural contrasts that exist in the world, such as the angular and the organic, the beautiful and the hideous, the morbid and the joyful. Burton is less recognizeable for his framing techniques as other directors are, and more known for the incredibly exaggerated settings and characters that celebrate everything over the top, full of whimsey innovation and artistic notion. Tim Burton is an auteur of his craft using true creativity as his main tool in filmaking.