Directors – Tim Burton, Mike Johnson – 2005 – US – Cert. PG – 77m
*****
When his arranged marriage preparations go badly wrong, a young man inadvertently marries a dead woman from the underworld – stop-frame animated marvel is out on 4K Ultra HD and Digital, and in UK cinemas on Friday, October 10th
It is a grey world, and everything must go… according to plan. For there is to be a rehearsal today for a marriage that will take place tomorrow. The son of nouveau riche couple the Van Dorts (voices: Tracey Ullman, Paul Whitehouse) is to wed the daughter of penniless aristocrats Lord and Lady Everglot (voices: Joanna Lumley, Albert Finney). The bridegroom Victor (voice: Johnny Depp) has yet to meet his bride Victoria (voice: Emily Watson) and, left in the vast Everglot vestibule, the young man plays the piano. The tune floats up the stairs and is heard by Victoria who is drawn to it and its performer. She descends the stairs to listen and, against the odds, the pair fall in love.
Three hours into the marriage rehearsal, presided over by Pastor Galswells (voice: Christopher Lee) and poor Victor can’t seem to get his lines right. They are joined by the mysterious Lord Barkiss (voice: Richard E. Grant), a guest who has arrived a day early. The rehearsal is adjourned. Victor walks in the nearby woods running through his lines, inadvertently putting the ring on the finger of an arm pushing out of the ground – which could easily be mistaken for a tree – whilst speaking the marriage vows, He is pulled into the ground and dragged down with his new Corpse Bride (voice: Helena Bonham-Carter) into the underworld. She eloped with her lover of whom her parents disapproved only to be killed in the woods – until such time as her true love might appear and claim her, a role she now projects onto Victor – for whom it’s all a been terrible mistake, since he wants to marry Victoria.
Tricking his new wife into enlisting the help of Elder Gutnecht (voice: Michael Gough) to magically transport the couple back to the land of the living so they can meet his parents, Victor visits Victoria’s room to explain his plight before his furious bride appears and pulls him away. When Victoria explains the changed situation to her own mother and father, the eavesdropping Lord Barkiss offers himself as a husband, to which Victoria’s cash-strapped parents readily agree. Now Victor must escape his new marriage and rescue his original bride before she is forced into a union with a man she does not love…
Burton is the maverick director who trained as an animator at Disney and then made live action films unlike anyone else’s. By the time of the current film, with his live action directing career well-established, he had also produced two stop-frame puppet features (James and the Giant Peach, 1996 and Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas, 1993, both Henry Selick). He clearly wanted to direct a feature in the stop-frame medium himself, and did so here alongside former animation staffer Johnson.
Like Beetlejuice (1988) and, particularly, Nightmare Before Christmas, it focuses on the world of the dead as a metaphor for people who don’t conform to society’s norms. The stultified world of the living, as portrayed here, is predominantly grey with only the merest hint of colour, whereas the underworld of the dead is full of vibrant colour. The former pictures families trapped by social convention and high position, the latter shows people liberated from the past by death, living it up dancing, playing music or drinking in bars. The dead here, for the most part, feel far more alive than the so-called living.
It’s a deceptively simple story, but when you throw in the remarkable physical character design, the otherworldly quality of movement afforded by stop-frame animation and a clutch of Danny Elfman songs – like Burton’s other stop-frame films as a producer, this follows the animated musical template – the piece turns into something very special indeed. The voice cast are excellent to a woman, while the puppet construction by Mackinnon and Saunders is top-notch.
For those that like their animation history, there are nods to Ray Harryhausen, the piano is named after him, plus there’s a whole sequence involving animated skeletons. Actually, that has further animation significance, going right back to a Disney Silly Symphony classic short from the silent era, The Skeleton Dance (Walt Disney, 1929).
The care and artistry that goes into a stop-frame production like this makes the movie a perfect candidate for release on 4K UHD. The disc comes with some excellent special features. Some of these have appeared on earlier releases, but there are also two new ones: Digging up the Past: The Minds Behind The Corpse Bride and ‘Til Death Do Us Art A Corpse Bride Reflection with producer Alison Abbate, writer John August and co-director Mike Johnson. I learned a couple of things from these. One is that, moving the techniques on considerably from the substitution animation of Nightmare Before Christmas, the puppet’s faces were fully manipulable, which gives the animators much greater scope for performance than previously. The other was that this was apparently the first animated feature to be shot on digital rather than film (a decision made only shortly prior to commencing shooting).
The film, perhaps in part because it’s set in an idealised Victorian past before such elements of modern life as smartphones existed, the film has stood the test of time well. Indeed, like the best fairy tales or folk tales (the story is apparently based on an old Ukrainian / Rusiian folk tale) there is a timeless quality about it. Whether you chose to pick it up on the 4K UHD disc (which I would recommend) or see it in the cinema on its reissue, you’re in for a treat.
Tim Burton’s Corpse Bride is on 4K Ultra HD and Digital, and in cinemas on Friday, October 10th.
Trailer: