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Burton's "Corpse Bride" animates Venice film fest

Posted on: Wednesday, 7 September 2005, 09:48 CDT

By Mike Collett-White

VENICE (Reuters) - In Tim Burton's ghoulish but hilarious animation movie "Corpse Bride," the world of the dead is full of color, music and fun while the land of the living is black, white and oppressive.

For his latest film showcased at the Venice Film Festival on Wednesday, the director used painstaking "stop-motion" animation with models, setting it apart from the more common computer generation used in hits such as "Shrek" and "Toy Story."

"We feel so lucky, with computers and all taking over, to be able to do this beautiful, old fashioned technique," said Burton, sporting his trademark dark glasses and shaggy hair.

"It's something about the old fashioned quality of it," he told reporters. "There's something very emotional about it. It is hard to put it into words...the idea of somebody moving a puppet frame by frame."

The film, which took Burton 10 years to bring to the screen, is not in competition for the Golden Lion this, but the thunderous reception it received at a preview for the press and critics late on Tuesday showed it might have been a contender.

When Victor, the bumbling hero voiced by Johnny Depp, wanders into the woods outside his town, a twist of fate takes him to a life beyond the grave.

The surprise arrival of a "breather" in their midst prompts skeleton band the Skeletones to strike up, a severed head scuttles across the bar at the Ball and Socket pub and a general with a cannon-ball-sized hole in his chest knocks back a glass of wine.

Emily, the decomposing damsel who believes she is betrothed to the living Victor, has the unfortunate habit of losing an eye whenever the worm inside her head pops out to make a point.

Based on a Russian folk tale, "Corpse Bride" also features the voices of Helena Bonham Carter in the title role and Emily Watson as Victoria. Christopher Lee is the authoritarian pastor and Richard E. Grant the sinister Barkis Bittern.

TECHNOLOGICAL ADVANCES

Because it could take animators a full day of work to come produce just a few seconds of action, Burton and his team developed new techniques to ease the burden since his 1993 animation effort "The Nightmare Before Christmas."

In that film, facial expressions were achieved using replacement heads on the models.

In "Corpse Bride," puppeteers created a gearing mechanism inside the puppets' heads which could be adjusted through the ears or at various points hidden in the hair.

The corpse bride's tattered veil and accompanying tiara alone took 10 months to develop.

"It can be tedious work," said co-director Mike Johnson. "It's just the kind of thing that you have to be passionate about and willing to commit to completely."

It is Burton's second collaboration this year with Depp, after the two worked together on "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory," an adaptation of Roald Dahl's book. Depp also starred in Burton's 1990 film "Edward Scissorhands."

While Burton's film means the attention on the Lido on Wednesday is away from the main competition, two entries have their official premieres.

French production "Vers le Sud" ("Heading South"), directed by Laurent Cantet, is set in Haiti at the end of the 1970s and stars Charlotte Rampling.

"O Fatalista" ("The Fatalist"), an adaptation of "Jacques le Fataliste" by 18th Century French philosopher Denis Diderot, is directed by Portugal's Joao Botelho.

The festival ends with the award ceremony on Saturday.

Source: REUTERS

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