Edward Scissorhands, written by Tim Burton, tells the tale of a young man who is lovable, childlike and sensitive, bewildered by the humanity around him, yet is terrifying- someone who has scissors, the deadly weaponry, for hands. Many viewers may read this film as a “Tim Burton” type of fairytale which includes both an alternative aspect and romance. However, through the presentation of mise-en-scene in this film, Burton drives in a much more serious subject of social criticism by establishing two different understandings of life in the movie.
To begin, the idea of two realisms is first illustrated in the opening sequence of the film and continues throughout the length of the story. For example, the neighborhood shown in the film is very staged, with warm and soft lighting, providing a calm, serene feeling. The houses are all lined in formation, with similar colors and structure. Even the colors and decorations in the houses are all pretty much the same, pinkish red and yellow, that makes everything feminine and monotonous, perhaps even boring, just like the houses on the outside. The people of the town are all different, but are all narrow-minded in the same way, which is shown when they gather and gossip about Edward (Burton, 1990). These are all examples of how there is not much difference from one another in a way that they are all controlled by the same, concrete social group. What the beginning of the film brings us is a type of realism where people live in the excessive stereotype of suburban America.
However, everything is unusual in Edward’s world. Tim Burton introduces another realism from Edward’s perspective. The impression of where Edward comes from is completely different from what is observed in the neighborh...
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...As we are examining the people on the screen, we are viewing ourselves. Burton produces a “perfect” figure of Edward who is kind, caring, and signifies the most striking feelings of individuals. In addition, his evil appearance exists only because humanity says that he is unusual. Burton wants us, as the audience, to be conscious of ourselves as a part of the social order, and to cautiously consider the realism we decide to accept as true and exist in.
Works Cited
Burton, T. (1990). Edward Scissorhands. Century City, CA: Fox Studios.
Burton, T. (1990). “Family Dinner”. Edward Scissorhands. Retrieved February 14, 2011 from
http://movieclips.com/M5bd-edward-scissorhands-movie-family-dinner/
Burton, T. (1990). “Edward Makes Snow”. Edward Scissorhands. Retrieved February 14, 2011
from http://movieclips.com/vGd5-edward-scissorhands-movie-edward-makes-snow/
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No one likes to be alone and stand out from the rest. Edward the main character in “Edward Scissorhands,” struggles to fit in with everyone in the community. This movie is about Edward, who has scissors as hands. He lives in a big castle on a big mountain looking over the town. The person who created him was just about to give him normal hands, but he died from a heart attack. For a while now, Edward has been living alone. One day, Peg a main character in the movie decides to take him home with her. Throughout the movie he starts to slowly adapt to the new environment and overcomes a few challenges. In the movie Edward Scissorhands,Tim Burton uses camera shots and camera movements to show the variance between the way Edward’s appearance and the way he is like.
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On August 25, 1958, Timothy Walter Burton was born (“Biography”). Burton had a painful childhood in which the relationship with his parents and brother was nonexistent (Morgenstern). Through his intense feeling of isolation, his visual talent began to develop. The comfort found in hobbies such as writing and drawing led him to attend the California Institute of the Arts which led him to his first job in any artistic field at the Disney Animation Studios (“Biography”). Burton has since been referred to as one of the most visually gifted writers, artists, and filmmakers that America has seen (Hanke). His short stories, poems, and film scripts are centered on an inner darkness which he has been slowly acquiring since his childhood. He throws himself into everything he writes and makes even the simplest characters have a deep, complex meaning. His famous darkness and symbolism is shown in his book The Melancholy Death of Oyster Boy and Other Stories. The book contains a collection of his short stories, poems, and illustrations about a variety of fictional characters that can be compared to Burton and his life. Tim Burton’s home life and previous hardships have made a significant impact on his work. In my paper, I will draw parallels to his life and work as well as prove that there is reasoning and beauty in the way he is.
Since the communist era, the concept of conformity has been tested on humans thinking it would bring a sort of comfort. These regimes rapidly crumbled due to their often authoritarian nature. Following these dictatorships, we often associate conformity with misery. Similarly, in Edward Scissorhands, through the characterization of Peg Boggs, the symbolism of Edward’s castle home and the change in Edward’s behaviour, director Tim Burton rejects conformity since it leads to fakeness, boredom, and corruption and, instead, promotes the benefits of authenticity and old habits.
...ed to kill Basil Hallard) and dies, his corpse acquiring the shape of his soul and the painting, his soul, regaining the purity of his youth. To regain the purity of his soul he must expose himself as he really is to the eyes of the world. It is, in short, an act of confession that will grant him salvation through the mercy of God. In Dracula, Arthur’s liberation of Lucy’s soul through strong thrusting of the stake, a three-foot long phallic symbol, through her heart is the regaining of the masculinity of England’s youth. The elimination of the Count and the resulting withdrawal of the forces of evil (the gypsies and the wolves) represents the reaffirmation of that masculinity against the foreign threat of the count. This ordeal has helped them to reencounter their true virtues and will enable them to guide the country to a brighter and more prosperous future.
Within the very beginning of the film, the wonderful portrayal of William by Billy Crudup gives the audience a lasting impression by Burton of the blatant resentment and distain William has towards his father and his mythological stories. Wallace, while more subtle in his method to reveal the underlying anger of William towards Edward, does not make it any less apparent than Burton of the obvious indifference William feels towards his father. In Burton’s ...
Realism in film is significance in actual and present things, and how things actually come out. now, it is afar the capacity of this part to converse the extent of realism, we support are description upon things such as sanity, experiences, believes, manner and extra communal things such as olden times, political affairs, and finances. No matter how we identify authenticity, realism in film can be judged by administrating what we observe in own world and the world of others. Realism is also a way of conducting subject matter that follows everyday life. Practical characters are anticipated to do things that are conventional to our prospect of real people.
The most appealing films are those that keep audiences guessing, surprise them at the most unexpected times and break conventional film boundaries. Edward Scissorhands (1990) directed by Tim Burton, is a feature film that does exactly that. It blends a fairy tale story with a gothic horror film, to engage the viewer right from beginning until the resolution. It tells the tale of Edward, who was the creation of an inventor who died before he could give Edward proper hands, and was left with scissors as hands. When he was taken from his gothic mansion, into a “normal” suburban community, he was at first welcomed, but then heartbreakingly rejected when things went wrong. The character of the “monster” is an important feature to many gothic horror texts, and examining Edward and other various characters helps to bring about interesting ideas and concepts about this key role. Burton also draws on the relationship between the princess and the prince, commonly found in fairy tales. By using various features found in the gothic horror genre and the fairy tale genre, Edward Scissorhands is able to sway us to think about the consequences of judging people who are different, it influences us to question what true love is and changes the way we view who can be the prince and princess.
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