Tim Burton is my security blanket of nostalgia. The first movie I saw multiple times in the theater was Batman (1989, Tim Burton). And at this time there was a kid who lived on my block who was a couple years older who was obsessed with Beetlejuice (1988, Burton) and urged me to watch it—this was the first time in my life I became aware of a movie director. It was the first time I realized that if you found the elusive, something to get excited over kind of movie, it was possible to get more where that came from. This might be another convenient way of defining the auteur theory. Didn’t Fat and I once have a conversation where we agreed that auteur theory was more or less a shopping guide? Seeing Edward Scissorhands (1990, Burton) in the theater preserved Burton as the one director whose work I discovered during my childhood.
30 years later, the only film Burton has done that I am still in love with is Ed Wood (1994, Burton). I continually derive inspiration from the undying optimism, romanticism, and nostalgia of the weirdos who love making movies, and in glorious black and white. Also when I think of pathos my connotation is Landau’s performance in that film.
I have discriminating tastes in movies. I spend more time reflecting on what I respond to and how and why than I do making or watching movies. And between the greats and the sucks there are thousands in between. One group I’m still trying to categorize arise from my being a snob and wanting to fill the void left by wishing I could enjoy the lavish hundred million dollar spectacles from directors working in our current studio system, which is why I can’t pass up anything by Burton or Ridley Scott (and here I’ll throw in most Michael Bay). But I also need Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005, Burton), Alice in Wonderland (2010, Burton), Frankenweenie (2012, Burton), and Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children (2016, Burton) because after all the depressing social or domestic drama, artistic innovation, crime genre darkness, western savagery, and explorations of sexuality, sometimes I just wanna feel like a kid again. And well, Sleepy Hollow (1999, Burton) Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (2007, Burton) and Dark Shadows (2012, Burton) are just rad gothic fun.
Dumbo (2019, Burton) is an escapist fairytale that assures us it’s possible to find acceptance without fitting in. And the red and white candy-striped bigtop with its crowds gathered in the dark to see the big show is the same aspect of our culture that brings us into the theater—the sweets that Celine and Julie magically find.
HOLT FARRIER (Colin Farrell) returns from WWI missing an arm to his children MILLY and JOE, who are missing their mother. Most of Dumbo is about being patient and ready for your opportunity to find happiness, despite adversity. And the best thing going for the narrative is Milly’s passion for science and reluctance to use this as a means to perform in the circus as a common trait with Dumbo through which they form a friendship. For the macro narrative though we get MAX MEDICI (Danny DeVito) as an impresario who cares about his talent pitted against heartless, avaricious V.A. VANDEVERE (Michal Keaton), and it is their conflict that creates the arc of the film. Vandevere’s showbiz empire is called Dreamland, and its spectacular opulence ending up in flames before his very eyes is a fitting sight as Dumbo’s cautionary lesson.
And the narrative’s darker elements are why Dumbo feels like a Tim Burton movie. Eva Green as COLETTE, Vandevere’s bride, in an opportunistic marriage with a rich maniac that allows her to soar into new heights of fame and fortune only to realize there’s no safety net when she finally looks down is a strong metaphor. But also after Dark Shadows and Miss Peregrine’s, Green is now part of Burton’s stock company.
Dumbo plays it safer than much of Burton’s other work, but as a fairytale it has just the right escapist tone of coming of age joys and terrors to make you feel like the show was worth it.
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