"Corpse Bride" and German Expressionism Movement, Film Analysis

About the Movie
“Corpse Bride” is stop motion animated romance drama directed by Tim Burton and Mike Johnson that came out in the year 2005. The film has been labelled as a horror film and has subgenres such as comedy and musical. The story of the film centres around Victor Van Dort, a shy groom that practices his wedding vows in the forest and accidentally forms a bond of marriage with a deceased young woman, Emily. She is raised from the dead thinking that she has met her significant other.

Throughout the film, there are concepts and techniques that stem from the German Expressionism art movement. Films of this nature began in Germany and was prominent between the year 1919 and 1926. This art movement was influenced by the Expressionist movement of modern art in the early 1900s. These films had recurring themes involving revolt, self-analysis, madness, and primitive sexual savagery. The content of these films included industrialisation, war, the search for truth, the viewpoints of the hero, and sometimes taboo topics.

Some of the many forms that Expressionism manifested into include literature, theatre and the architecture of buildings in Scandinavian and German-speaking countries. It also spread into narratives, sets and mise-en-scene in cinema during the time. There are several styles that can be implemented that make a German Expressionism film distinguishable.

A common trope in German Expressionism films are oblique camera angles. Oblique angles, also known as Dutch angles are shots that slant in a way to emulate the tilting of one’s head to the side. The use of this type of angle is meant to depict psychological tension or uneasiness. Examples of scenes in the film where this is applied are the scene where Victor and Emily are staring at the moon together. The use of a Dutch angle here depicts the discomfort Victor feels about being married to a dead person. This angle is also used when Emily finds out that the reason Victor returned to the living world was to meet Victoria and when an undead skeleton menacingly walks up to a child, only to reveal that it is his grandson. The use of oblique angles in these scenes is supposed to make us feel anxious and uncomfortable about what is to happen next.



Besides that, German Expressionism films also use a combination of warm coloured lights with cool coloured lights in order to create a more dramatic effect by contrasting the two. This distortion of colours which creates dramatic contrast is displayed in the film when Victor is first brought into the world of the deceased. In this scene the warmer shades of bright green and cool coloured blue lights are shone from multiple directions onto the skeletons that are telling the story of Emily, the corpse bride.



Another common thing that is seen in German Expressionism films is the application of distorted bodies and shapes. Characters were caricatured as a way of representing certain racial groups and stereotypes. The characters in this film are stylised and completely reject naturalism. The clothing and body parts of the characters in the film are exaggerated making the disfigured. As seen below, some characters are almost completely round while others have abnormally thin limbs and sharp jaws. Some characters even have detachable limbs, as is the case with Emily while others have bodies that do not anatomically make sense, such as Paul the “head waiter”, whose body is just a head being carried around by cockroaches.



Lastly, German Expressionism films tend to have content that is surreal and Gothic and revolves around unnatural acts or realities. Something Gothic translates to anything forebodingly gloomy or horrifying. This can be seen throughout the film as a majority of the characters are creature straight out of Halloween. From skeletons to zombies to talking black widow spiders, the movie definitely delivers when it comes to being scary. Aside from that, the very plot of the film itself is bizarre and somewhat terrifying as it is essentially a story about a man who tries to marry a deceased person. As for being gloomy, this can be seen in the scenes that take place in the world of the living. The colours used are dull and gray which gives off a bleak and gloomy feeling. Most of the humans also tend to look as if they are displeased or upset most of the time which adds to that feeling.

Conclusion

In conclusion, “Tim Burton’s Corpse Bride” falls under the umbrella of being a German Expressionism film because of its implementation of settings and props which are associated with the art movement. Styles that fall under films from that art movement are oblique angles, dramatic lighting, distorted bodies and shapes, and surreal and gothic content. Aside from mise-en-scene, the film also fits with this art movement on a narrative standpoint. The film portrays the idea of a living person wanting to be bonded by marriage to a corpse. This is both horrifying and even a taboo topic to bring up.

Final Thoughts

I found the ending rather interesting as it differs slightly from most of the animated films nowadays. Unlike other films nowadays, although the movie works on developing the relationship between Victor and Emily, the movie does not end with them being together. Instead, Emily decides to give up Victor as she too sees that it would be wrong to keep him to herself. Furthermore, Emily does not end up with a love interest by the end of the film. With a handful of exceptions such as Moana, not a lot of animated films end in a happily ever after without the protagonist ending up with a love interest by the end of the film.