Adam: Hello! It's been a while, how are you? Gosh, you look great.
Anyway, I wrote a movie review for the first time in months. No, it wasn't The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies believe it or not. It was Big Eyes, the new film from my first ever "favorite director" Tim Burton. Read it below!
--
Big Eyes Review
As long as I’ve been watching movies, I’ve been a fan of Tim
Burton’s work. When I was young, I loved the quirky color schemes, the macabre
visuals, and the dark, but somehow still friendly, tones and messages of his
films, and as I’ve grown older, the same is still true but with a further
appreciation of the way he writes and shoots them. But I’ve also learned over
the years that many people have grown tired of the unnaturally skinny and pale
characters, Danny Elfman’s bouncy scores, and Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham
Carter being cast in almost every single one of his films since 2005 (and a few
before that as well), and no matter how well the movies do at the box office,
critics and moviegoers continue to sling unnecessary venom at the crazy-haired
director.
Here’s a brief reminder of Burton’s director filmography
from the past ten years: Charlie and the
Chocolate Factory, Corpse Bride, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet
Street, Alice in Wonderland, Dark Shadows, and Frankenweenie. Of those six films, the only one I’ve heard the
general consensus consider “a good movie” is Corpse Bride (which is a fantastic movie, and one of his best films
hands down). Most people with whom I discuss Burton will tell me he “sold out”
or “just can’t make movies anymore” or “just does the same thing over and over”
or “will never top Edward Scissorhands”
or the one that makes my skin crawl, “he only casts Johnny Depp and Helena
Bon-whatever, I guess he just can’t find anyone else to be in his crappy movies
besides his best friend and his [now ex] partner ugh no other director does
that.” (Many other directors do that, i.e. Martin Scorsese, Wes Anderson, David
Fincher, Quentin Tarantino, Judd Apatow…to name a few, and there’s nothing
wrong with working with a group of people with whom you have creative
chemistry.) It seemed Burton was doomed to keep putting out movies only Hot
Topic kids (and yours truly) would enjoy, but Christmas 2014 proved this is not
the case.
Enter Big Eyes, a
tale set in the 1960’s about a soft-spoken, modest artist (Amy Adams) who
marries a charismatic man (Christoph Waltz) after she leaves her first husband.
He paints realistic representations of the streets of Paris, and she creates
beautiful melancholy children with massive eyes. They display their work at a
club after the local art gallery turns them down (you see, modern art is the
hip thing), and when the public desires her pieces over his, he takes credit
for her work (“no one likes lady art”) until eventually everyone believes that
he is the true artist. The tension rises and we watch this talented artist
being controlled by a hollow husband that reaps ever-growing fame and fortune
from her fruits.
The thing that initially struck me about this film as being
drastically different from Burton’s other work was not the absence of Depp or
Carter, nor was it the lack of stop motion or stripes or misshapen houses – it
was the fact that I was bored. I’ve never been able to use “boring” as a
compliment, but this was the first time I was watching a Tim Burton film and
felt so stuck in reality that it felt a bit stale, and I was exhilarated
somehow. However, when I realized I was feeling like this, I knew I wasn’t
reading the film the right way. Burton is not a boring filmmaker, nor is he a
gimmicky one (despite what the crowds may think), and I knew I had to dig a bit
deeper. And then it hit me: this could be Tim Burton indirectly making a film
about Tim Burton. Amy Adams’ character can be read as the “real artist Burton”
and Christolph Waltz’ character can be read as “the sell out Burton” that
everyone sees. Add in Adams’ daughter, her character’s inspiration, as a
representation of Burton’s inspiration, and we have ourselves an intriguing
meta film. The sell out artist suffocates the true artist to the point where no
one knows what the truth is anymore, much like Tim Burton’s career over the
past ten years. Once this clicked in my head as a possible reading, I couldn’t
look away. It wasn’t just meta for Burton, but for anyone pursuing a life as an
artist. Fame and fortune are the number one killers of artistic integrity, and
this film captured that in a big way.
Now, if all this “meta” stuff isn’t really your thing, don’t
worry. This movie, although a touch predictable, contains some excellent
performances (particularly Amy Adams), beautiful colors, interesting shots, and
a nice build of tension until the climax when everything gets wrapped up a
little too quickly. It’s a good movie. But for those wanting to dig a bit
deeper…it’s fantastic.
Big Eyes is not
Tim Burton’s best film (though I’d probably rank it pretty high), nor is it a
rebirth or redefinition, but it’s definitely one of the most surprising films
of the year because of its lack of surprise, and for that, I must recommend it.
