'Corpse Bride' Q&A with Tim Burton

Mark Salisbury chats to director Tim Burton about his latest creation

Oct 18 2005

Tim Burton follows 'Charlie and the Chocolate Factory' with 'Tim Burton's Corpse Bride', a melancholy stop-motion animated musical in the vein of 'The Nightmare Before Christmas'. It reunites him with Johnny Depp who, as the voice of groom-to-be Victor, is torn between fiancée Victoria (Emily Watson) and the Corpse Bride (Helena Bonham Carter).

TO From your 1982 short 'Vincent' to 'Nightmare…', you’ve championed stop-motion animation. What about the medium do you like so much?

TB I love stop motion because of [visual effects pioneer] Ray Harryhausen. Even when he did monsters, and they didn't even have characters, he always gave them a great death scene and you always felt bad for them. He'd give those things more emotion than most of the actors in the movie. With stop motion, you can feel the artists' hands at work. There's something textural about it, a certain magic to that handmade quality that gives it an emotional resonance.

TO Where did the idea for this film come from?

TB A friend, Joe Ranft [the late Pixar story genius] gave me the idea around the time of 'Nightmare…'. It was a little poem, and the minute he mentioned it I went into stop-motion vein. One thing I'd enjoyed in 'Nightmare…' was the emotional quality the character of Sally had. When I started thinking about this, I wanted to treat it more like a tragic romantic fairy tale.

TO 'Nightmare…' was a very American story; this is much more European, with a gothic, almost Victorian feel.

TB It just fitted the story. I didn't want to root it in a specific place, and I wasn't interested in what the real ethnic origins [of the poem] were because what got me was the fable aspect of it. But it does have a Victorian feel, because it represents, in terms of the living world, that kind of Victorian repression. I can identify with that rigidity and society, because in Burbank [where I grew up] you had that kind of rigid structure of society where people are categorised and put into certain boxes.

TO How different is it directing a stop-motion movie from live action?

TB This was easy for me because Mike Johnson co-directed and was there every day and I was able to step back a bit more. Having done animation myself, it was nice for me to just look at it and be able to see it as fresh as possible and treat it more like I would treat a live action movie. You look at dallies and you can start to see the shape of things, what you need and don't need and try to form it, because like 'Nightmare…' it's very organic. The script changed all the way through; little bits of humour and business. It kind of goes back to the old days of Disney where it's a story with people shaping it as it goes. There's been a lot of that in this.

'Tim Burton's Corpse Bride' opens Friday, October 21.

• 
•