In addition to directing blockbuster films for grown-ups, Tim Burton has crafted many movies
for the entire family - as he did with Corpse Bride. While there's plenty for kids to enjoy
in this classic film, some of the material is aimed straight at the adults in the room.
Corpse Bride is laced with clever, witty, humor of the wordplay variety, and on top of that,
death features prominently in the plot - which tends to happen more often than not
in the films of Tim Burton, the man responsible for other morbid masterpieces like Sweeney Todd,
Frankenweenie, and, of course, Beetlejuice. But there's one
running joke buried in Corpse Bride that combines puns and death references,
and it's so subtle that even most adults wouldn't notice it on the first or second viewing.
The plot of the film involves the premeditated homicide of Emily,
the corpse bride, at the hand of her evil fiancé, Lord Barkis, who intends to kill again.
Crows can be seen flying about and lingering throughout the movie,
especially when Emily is around. And it's not just because these ominous,
midnight-colored birds effectively add creepiness and moodiness to the proceedings. A group of crows
is called a "murder," after all, which is a gag that ties nicely into the movie's macabre plot.
The works of William Shakespeare are more than 400 years old, but they represent the
foundation of a lot of Western narrative fiction, from movies to theater to books.
Plots laid out by the Bard recur throughout endless films, as do individual references
to the works themselves. Shakespeare is so influential that screenwriters in the 21st
century can include a nod and wide swaths of the audience will get the allusions.
But that's because most adults receive at least an overview of Shakespeare's "greatest hits" in
high school or college English literature class. Little kids watching a movie like
Corpse Bride would likely have no clue when filmmakers deliver a perfect reference to
Shakespeare's most famous tragedy, Hamlet, which is full of foreboding and the promise of death.
"Come on, Hamlet. Buck up!"
Toward the end of Corpse Bride, Lord Barkis tauntingly toasts Emily for
her having died without marrying. Then, in his arrogance, he accidentally drinks from
a goblet of poisoned wine, which had been intended for Victor so he could join Emily
in death. That's awfully reminiscent of the accidental poison switcheroo in Act
Five of Hamlet. The prince, seeking vengeance against his villainous stepfather, Claudius,
is toasted by his mother with a glass of wine that Claudius poisoned and intended to give to Hamlet.
For a movie about dead people, Corpse Bride has a surprisingly light touch, particularly in its
dialogue. The script is bright, bouncy, and agile, and along those lines, it's full of silly puns and
old jokes that any goofy dad would proudly make his own. For example, in the Land of the Dead,
Victor meets a short, zombified skeleton dressed in late 18th-century military officer regalia,
replete with a bicorn hat and a sword. He's instantly recognizable to adults as a riff on
the French general and European conqueror Napoleon Bonaparte, a bit made overwhelmingly clear when
his name is revealed to be General Bonesapart. Of course, adults will get the reference immediately
but it will definitely fly over the head of most kids - along with plenty of other punny moments…
"My name is Paul. I am the head waiter.”
"I'll keep an eye out for him."
"Where do you keep the spirits?"
It seems like the people who make movies that are ostensibly for kids and clearly
marketed to the young ones like to throw in mildly risqué jokes here and there.
Not only are these little verbal Easter eggs so subtle and specific that children
will have no idea anything untoward was said, but they feel like a little
reward to adults or parents who dutifully sat through a movie made for children.
Corpse Bride has a few examples of innuendo and suggestive dialogue,
and some of it is particularly tough for kids to notice because it's
somewhat era-appropriate to the film's Victorian sensibility. For example,
the Everglots look down their noses at Victor Van Dort and his family because,
although they're wealthy, their money comes from running a canned fish empire. They dismissively
call the Van Dorts "fish merchants," and even though that's what they actually are, it's
implied that it's not a respectable profession - particularly because a few hundred years ago,
"fishmonger" was a euphemism for "procurer", or a man who manages ladies of the night.
On another occasion, Victor goes right up to the edge of making a suggestive gesture.
While practicing his upcoming wedding vows alone in the forest,
he gets a little carried away with himself.
"With this hand, I will cup your...oh, goodness, no."
By the time adults get to the age where they're old enough to watch Corpse Bride with their kids,
they've absorbed volumes of cultural history. Most grown-ups can recognize references and allusions
to classic movies from modern filmmakers who are cinema devotees, such as director Tim Burton.
Corpse Bride is rife with nods to movies as far back as the 1920s and 1930s - references
the average child, relatively new to movie consumption, probably wouldn't be able to spot.
In a scene in the lair of Elder Gutknecht, the character's hand passes by a candlelit wall.
It comprises only about a second of screen time,
but it's enough to evoke a famous shot from the pioneering 1922 vampire movie Nosferatu.
Then in the big musical number, "Remains of the Day," the choreography of the skeletons instantly
brings to mind the vintage creepiness of the boney dancers from Disney's 1929 animated short
film "The Skeleton Dance." The routine from Corpse Bride even recreates the xylophone gag from the
original cartoon, which, for some reason, feels much more disturbing than the modern version.
Burton also pays homage to his horror master predecessor, Alfred Hitchcock,
and one his most famous films. The group of crows that look down on Victor recalls
the shot of the birds looking down on Tippi Hedren's character in The Birds.
Corpse Bride often alludes to the stars of some of Hollywood's most classic films. For example,
Alfred is an elegant and cultured skeleton, a denizen of the Land of the Dead who strikes quite
the handsome figure in his purple jacket and long, thin mustache. His living wife,
Gertrude, doesn't recognize him without his flesh but eventually she makes the connection.
"You've been dead for 15 years."
"Frankly my dear, I don't give a damn."
That's a reference to the famous kiss-off line from the 1939 classic Gone With the Wind.
Those timeless words were uttered to Scarlett O'Hara by her former love, Rhett Butler,
a character who, like Alfred, sports a very dapper moustache.
One major character in Corpse Bride is a full-on imitation of another movie star of Hollywood's
Golden Age, although one who's been relatively forgotten by the 21st century and certainly
not someone who kids would be familiar with. In the film, a maggot, known only as Maggot,
lives inside of the rotting but living corpse of Emily. Their relationship is symbiotic in
that he presumably lives off her dead flesh but also offers her friendship and guidance.
He's a charming and caring little guy, but his small talk could use some work.
"Excuse me. You don't know me but I used to live in your dead mother.”
Maggot is voiced by Enn Reitel, who delivers a convincing vocal
impersonation of actor Peter Lorre, co-star of classic films, such as M, The Maltese Falcon,
Casablanca, and countless others. Maggot even resembles the legendary actor. Of course,
Lorre might have had a few things to say to us about comparing him to a talking maggot.
“You imbecile. You bloated idiot. You stupid fathead. You…(cries)."
Corpse Bride is an animated movie, but unlike traditional, hand-drawn Disney movies or the
computer-enabled, ultra-realistic Pixar style, it was produced by the deliberate and extremely
taxing method of stop-motion animation. It's the same technique that was used for Coraline,
The Fantastic Mr. Fox and, of course, The Nightmare Before Christmas. In all these films,
each character is essentially a puppet that needs to be physically moved for every frame of filming.
This method of animation was pioneered by special effects legend Ray Harryhausen. He
used stop-motion to bring dozens of creatures to life in classic sci-fi and fantasy films,
such as 1963's Jason and the Argonauts and 1966's One Million Years B.C., just to name a couple.
Corpse Bride would most likely never have been possible without the work and inspiration of
Harryhausen, so the filmmakers decided to pay a small tribute to the trailblazing artist.
In the scene where Victor sits down to play the piano,
he does so on an instrument purportedly made by "Harryhausen."
The team who brought Corpse Bride to life reference a number of vintage films, classic
movie stars, and legendary directors of yore, but they also throw in some shout-outs to projects
that hit closer to home. Specifically, there are a few allusions, both subtle and unmistakable,
to the films of Tim Burton, which adult audiences might be more likely to notice than kids would.
For one thing, Corpse Bride further illustrates Burton's love for creepy trees.
The burial places for both Emily and the headless horseman from Sleepy Hollow features
trees that are extraordinarily eerie and have a similar look.
And there's another Corpse Bride element that might seem familiar to Burton fans.
In the middle of the film, Finis Everglot mistakenly calls Victor by the wrong name.
"We shall continue as planned with or without Vincent."
"Victor."
"Whatever."
A lot of moviegoers might make the same mistake because Victor bears a striking
resemblance to the main character in Burton's early short film "Vincent."
Overall, Corpse Bride concerns dead people taking extreme action amongst living beings,
which is more or less the plot of Burton's 1988 film Beetlejuice. Nor is Corpse Bride the first
Burton project to feature a dog who has seen better days. His 1984 short film "Frankenweenie"
and the 2012 full-length animated remake of the same name are both about a dead dog come back
to life, much like how Victor is reunited with his beloved, lost pet Scraps in Corpse Bride.
"Play dead." (whimpers) "Sorry."
An adult mindset brings a different perspective to a film than that of a child.
Not only does life experience offer another point of view, but the intelligence learned
just by spending more time on the planet allows adults to notice plot holes or
character inconsistencies that would likely not bother a child audience member one bit.
In Corpse Bride, such a problem exists in the motivations of the film's primary villain,
the loathsome Lord Barkis. He's the former fiancé of the deceased Emily,
having killed her and robbed her of her wealth. That becomes his modus
operandi - to convince women to marry him, stealing their treasures, then killing them.
Making things even more complicated, Victoria's parents prefer the dashing, old, presumably
moneyed Lord Barkis to Victor, and they decide to marry off their daughter to him instead of Victor.
This is mostly according to Barkis's plan. He wants the Everglots to allow him to marry
Victoria so that he can cash in on the dowry and then kill Victoria thereafter. However,
the Everglots are actually broke, and they thought they were the ones going into the
marriage for financial gain. But if Lord Barkis's grand plan is to marry for money,
wouldn't he have properly researched beforehand to confirm that the Everglots were, in fact, wealthy?
There's a lot of death in Corpse Bride, although there isn't a lot of violence.
This is a PG-rated movie for families after all, and depicting how the dead people actually
died is largely inconsequential. Still, the film does suggest how several of its deceased
characters became permanent residents of the Land of the Dead and decaying.
For example, the area's barber retrieves his trusty scissors by pulling them out of his own
head. This implies that he was killed by the very tools of his trade. Then there's the chef who,
in his previous life, clearly found himself on the wrong end of some serious kitchen utensils.
As for Emily, the corpse bride herself, viewers know she was killed by the greedy and villainous
Lord Barkis, but they aren't made privy as to how, exactly, the act went down. However,
judging from the tear in her dress, the exposed ribs and the moment where she catches a sword to
save Victor, we can assume that Lord Barkis took her life by stabbing her through her abdomen.
[gasps]
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