CONTEXTUAL STUDIES: Authorship and Auteurs - Analysis of an Auteur Director - Tim Burton

The Auteur Theory involves three main criteria; technical competence, distinguishable personality of the director and interior meaning. Following this criteria, Tim Burton can objectively and critically be described as an auteur. 

Tim Burton displays technical competence in his films through his confident use of different camera techniques. One of his most commonly used technique is the dutch tilt. He often uses this technique within his films to reflect the emotions and feelings of the main character. For example, in his film Corpse Bride, when Victor is walking up to Emily playing the piano, Burton uses a dutch tilt to connote the uneasiness that Victor feels in this situation. Tim Burton also commonly makes great use of the point of view shot type. This can be seen in Alice in Wonderland when Alice is falling down the rabbit hole, the POV shot enables the audience to be put in Alice’s position as she falls past all of the items surrounding her. This helps the audience to understand the disorientation the character herself is feeling. 

Tim Burton’s films all have the same gaunt, gothic and de-saturated look to them whether it’s one of his stop motion animations or one of his live action pieces. This helps to distinguish the personality of him as quirky and eccentric individual and helps to build up his unique signature style. Tim Burton’s quirky personality definitely shows through in his films through the whimsically gothic scenery and the gaunt, pale characters. Even in his more vibrant films such as Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Alice in Wonderland, there is still a faded, de-saturated look to the colours. Like the colours used for the settings and scenery of his films, the colours Burton uses for the characters within his films is very specific and unique. Many of the characters in have a very skeletal, death like look to them which again helps build the gothic look of his films.

(For example, Ichabod Crane in Sleepy Hollow has very pale skin with dark circles around his eyes. His costume also corresponds with this monotone theme as he wears a black jacket with white shirt. The White Queen in Alice In Wonderland again has pale skin but her darkened features include dark eyebrows and dark lips. She also wears a white dress and her hair is very blonde, almost white colour. Whilst converting her as an innocent, angelic, 'good' character, it also upkeeps Burton's infamous de-saturated colour palette. The Mad Hatter in Alice In Wonderland is perhaps one of Burton's most colourful character, yet all the colours are still muted. He has a very pale face with deep red / purple circles beneath his eyes. His hair, whilst bright orange, has a frazzled look to it, conveying the erratic yet exhausted nature of the character. All the characters from Corpse Bride look very gaunt and skeletal. They all have pale skin, with Emily's skin being a more blue tone to symbolise her deceased state. The level of saturation in this film is so low, making it almost black and white in colour.)

This leads to perhaps the most important aspect of the auteur theory, the interior meaning. “All of Burton’s work, with its ghoulish archetypes, feels loosely autobiographical at least in a psychological sense”, with Frankenweenie being the film that feels the most “intimate” and “personal”.  [1] Much of the film is inspired by his own childhood experience where everything is based on somebody he knew and the memories and feelings he had as a child. Tim Burton also describes the parent sin the film as a sort of ‘wish fulfilment’, providing his films with interior meaning. [1] The emotional privation he seems to have experienced in his childhood also shows through in his films. He was forced to grow up very early and by the age of 16 he was already living alone in apartment. This made protecting his childlike, eccentric imagination a top priority. This vivid imagination shows through, especially in the films he has written as well as directed such as Corpse Bride. 

[1] The Guardian (2010) Tim Burton: 'The love and life and death stuff was stewing from the start' [online] Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/film/2012/oct/07/tim-burton-frankenweenie-interview [Accessed on: 07/02/2017]