#they are dead. this is a representation of the afterlife where you are always 17 and therefore wont see anyone you loved past that age

[garbagequeer]

haha guys it’s not that im pushing for heteronormativity i swear i just think it’s problematic to have more characters come out late in the game other than the designated gay side characters haha not because i think main characters shouldn't be gay or because it makes me uncomfortable when gay characters don’t come with a designated partner and instead of staying confined to their part of the story experience desire in many directions it’s just because it is queerbaiting! to make new characters gay! somehow! or fetishistic! or something! but it is not okay! but i swear im not pushing for a heteronormative story i swear it’s just that i think it’s cowardly to not make the characters end up all in their respective monogamous relationships and instead portray a more realistic idea where they can be with more than one person and their relationships can change during their lifetimes and they still hold love for each other in a way that is not limited to traditional romantic models haha. because you know you can’t end the story without telling me how your characters straight marry each other and have kids haha that’s just a cop out to avoid a real ending even if you tell me your characters’ lives to the day they died. yeah no it’s not heteronormative to consider classic endgames the only form of closed ending because i would support the designated lesbian and gay ship also getting married and having kids haha. what do you mean your story has been poking fun at the concept of endgame the entire time dont be silly haha

[gravecinema]

Why Beetlejuice is the Best Tim Burton Movie - 05/06/2020

Beetlejuice is the best Tim Burton movie ever made. Many directors can be said to have developed their own style over the course of their careers, and there is no other director that has a more distinct style than Tim Burton. In only his second feature film, Beetlejuice, which was released in 1988, exhibits and expresses a macabre, grim, and whimsical style that would since become synonymous with Tim Burton. It sets the tone for much of his later work yet to come, such as Edward Scissorhands, Sleepy Hollow, and Corpse Bride.

The main plot revolves around the couple of Adam and Barbara Maitland, played by Alec Baldwin and Geena Davis, who within the first 10 minutes of the movie get killed in an auto accident heading over a bridge into a creek and drowning. The newly dead couple soon discover that they now have become ghostly spirits that are forever trapped within their house. When a new couple with a daughter move into their house, they attempt to haunt and scare away the new family. However, the new daughter who is a curious, gothic, and depressive teenager name Lydia, played by Winona Ryder, is the only person able to see the two ghosts. When Adam and Barbara are unable to successfully scare away the family, the plot takes a turn when they seek the help of a ghostly demon: the titular Beetlejuice, played wonderfully by Michael Keaton.

Throughout the course of the movie, we are treated to a visual and creative feast of set design, stop-motion effects, and Oscar-winning make-up. For a movie with macabre subject matter, you would think it would be a mostly dark and grim affair, but it’s the vivid colors used that really stand out to me. Tim Burton would later become known for having a much darker and gothic looking color pallet in his films, but the Director actually has his cinematographer make wonderful use of color in a number of his films, and Beetlejuice is one of the best examples of this. Most notably when Adam and Barbara take a trip to the afterlife waiting room, in which a comparison and contrast to the real-world DMV is ever present. It’s nothing but endless waiting, but in a much more colorful and vibrant setting. This similar color technique to establish setting would also later be used in Corpse Bride, where the afterlife is shown to be much more colorful and vibrant than the dreary normal life on Earth.

The Oscar-winning make-up of Beetlejuice shines its brightest in the afterlife, with the various deceased characters making up the waiting room. The man with the bone stuck in his neck must be one of my personal favorites. I also really appreciate the visual gag of having dead versions of the audience staring back at themselves in Juno’s office in the background, while Adam and Barbara are in the foreground of the shot. The exact make-up work I really believe won Beetlejuice the Oscar though is the stunning creature design of Adam and Barbara when in the film they later don their monstrous visages in order to better scare the family out of their house. They are two looks you certainly won’t forget after having seen this movie and are truly inspired.

One of the most distinct elements of the film has also got to be the engaging and creative score by Danny Elfman, who would go on to become a longtime collaborator with Tim Burton. Tim Burton would make it a habit of reworking with people that he has a great professional relationship with, most notably with Johnny Depp. The initial theme playing over the opening credits really sets the mood for the rollercoaster of a movie you are about to watch. Individual eerie elements are also added into to score to help set the mood for certain scenes, and they do a great job of transitioning the mood and tone for each subsequent scene.

It also cannot go without mentioning the brilliant use of the Banana Boat (Day-O) song, by Harry Belafonte, in the truly out of left-field and amazingly iconic scene where the two ghosts possess Lydia’s parents and dinner guests in another failed effort to scare everyone out of the house. The use of the song is even teased in the opening production company logo of the film. Adam is also seen to be listening to Harry Belafonte music in the attic just after the opening credits. It cannot be overstated just how much the music of Beetlejuice truly breathes life into the film.

The costume design is also inspired, and Beetlejuice himself is eventually adorned in his most iconic look, that of the black and white striped suit that he can be seen in on any poster of the film. Oddly enough, the character only wears the famous suit for just over 3 and a half minutes of screen time throughout the entire movie. In fact, the titular character of Beetlejuice only has about 17 and a half minutes of total screen time throughout the movie, not even making his first appearance until just over halfway through the film. However, when Beetlejuice does make his first appearance, does he ever own the screen and movie.

You can tell that Michael Keaton had an absolute blast playing Beetlejuice, and his fun and enthusiasm shines throughout his performance. It’s reported that he even adlibbed a great deal of his lines, and you can tell that helps increase the flawless comedic elements to his character. The voice Michael Keaton has given to the character is such a great affectation, and it does a perfect job of having Michael Keaton really own the role and make it his own. You cannot show a picture of Beetlejuice to someone, and then not have them instantly think of Michael Keaton and the voice he gives to the character.

The movie also possesses an excellent script by Michael McDowell and has some nice and interesting bits littered about. The character of Otho, played by Glenn Shadix, is shown to have an expert knowledge of the supernatural, even correctly knowing about the souls of those in the afterlife becoming civil servants after committing suicide, as the audience has previously seen when Adam and Barbara took their trip to the afterlife waiting room. The character of Delia, played exquisitely by Catherine O’Hara, also exclaims, “Do you think I want to die like this?!,” after having one of her sculptures encompassing and trapping her earlier in the film, which is a nice bit of foreshadowing towards the climax of the film.

What really sets Beetlejuice apart from other Tim Burton films is its originality, and the screenplay is a truly unique piece of scriptwriting showcasing what it means for two characters to die, and to have their afterlife get harder and not easier than when they were alive. It has its own unique vision and story, which is something that is lacking in most major Hollywood films that are made today. Many of Tim Burton’s later works would be adaptations from preexisting properties, but Beetlejuice was a completely original concept from script to screen, and as such, Tim Burton would have more of a say and representation of his own vision towards the overall final product.

If you look at the career of many directors, you will find that some of their best and most unique work are the early films that they make during a time when they are more driven by creativity and having a message that they need to say and represent through their art. Tim Burton is no exception to this, having what I consider to be his best films made during this period. Among them are Edward Scissorhands, Ed Wood, and of course, Beetlejuice. If you include The Nightmare Before Christmas, which was directed by Henry Selick and not Tim Burton himself, but completely his story and characters, then there is no doubt that this period was the best creative output of his career.

Later works of Burton would mostly be adaptations of previous works, but with studios just wanting to add that Tim Burton style that was so well done in his early work. This was done successfully in the very first Batman films that were directed by Burton. The character of Batman and the setting of the dark and gritty city of Gotham created a perfect marriage of a preexisting creative property and Tim Burton’s style. It was only with the turn of the Millennium that this method of having Tim Burton add his own flair to a property would become hit or miss.

Tim Burton adaptations of Planet of the Apes and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory would prove to be critical and creative misses for Burton. Other films such as Big Fish, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, and the underrated Dark Shadows film adaptation would prove to be films that produced better results of adding that particular Tim Burton style to a film. However, it is mostly a rare occasion when we get to see a new and mostly original Tim Burton film, and that is a shame, because that’s when he is truly capable of creating some absolutely memorable pieces of cinematic beauty.

The legacy of Tim Burton will always be mostly defined by those early and unique films of his. The most defining of which will always be Beetlejuice. It will always be the film most people will think of first when you mention the name of Tim Burton. While it may not be the best technically made and acted movie by Tim Burton, it will always be the best “Tim Burton” movie, since Tim Burton has become a movie genre all unto himself, and Beetlejuice is the defining movie of that genre.

[joel-furniss-blog]

Contemporary Art & Its Histories Part 2

Despite Hirst’s impassive and disinvolved artistic demeanour and public image, he has a habit of wearing his influences on his sleeve quite boldly, even to a point of possible plagiarism. The same wholly goes for his thematic motifs, a limited range of concepts that almost exclusively involve elements of faith, science, value, and most famously, mortality. His conceptual scope is best described by art critic Sarah Kent who said: “Hirst alludes to heavy topics – health, meaningful living/living death, art as a live entity, the extinction of the individual and the species – with a brilliant, angst-free clarity.” (Kent, 2012).

With the previously discussed For the Love of God, the thematic inspiration is apparent, the enigma of death (in the form of the skull) juxtaposed with the concept of value and preciosity in our society (represented by the diamonds). This quite plainly stated juxtaposition of themes is not an invention of Hirst’s, but is him using a well know theory and practice in the art canon, memento mori. Memento mori (meaning “remember that you have to die” or simply “remember death”) is a Latin Christian theory which revolves around reflecting and being aware of one’s own mortality and, as a result, the transient nature of all physical goods and earthly life which. As an idea it can be traced to the Plato’s dialogue Phædo which recounted the trial and execution of Socrates during his last days, specifically his philosophical lamentations on death and the afterlife. He culminated his thoughts in his discussion on philosophical practice as a whole and described it as: “about nothing else but dying and being dead” (Plato, 360 B.C.E).This philosophical approach to understanding one’s own transient life was manifested in a number of artworks from the classical and early Christian eras all the way up to the modern period, in which the reoccurring objects associated with the still life based theme are adapted to burgeoning and well-established modern methods of artistic representation and style. Now wilting flowers, rotting fruit, near-finished hourglasses, and almost always a signature inclusion of a skull were updated by the new masters and given (ironically) a new sense of life.

Famous modernist works that utilize the thematic imagery of memento mori include Francis Picabia’s oil-on canvas cubist work Portrait of a Doctor and Pablo Picasso’s proto-cubist lithograph Black Jug and Skull (1946) which follow the more traditional artistic sensibilities of previous vanitas works, too much more avant-garde and disconnected works that still hold a common thematic resonance such as Jana Sterbak’s Vanitas: Flesh Dress for an Albino Anorectic (1987) and Robert Rauschenberg’s Animal Magic (1955-59), all of which involve some element of death juxtaposed with the fleeting physical frivolousness of earthly possessions and the dissonance between them.

An artist whose work captures the element of still life and memento mori well is post-impressionist Paul Cézanne, whose oil paintings during his final period and up to his death in 1906 encapsulated the sense of reflection on his ephermility and inevitable demise that was seen in Plato’s account with Socrates, but where Socrates created dialogue, Cézanne painted. Between the years 1890-1906, Cézanne became withdrawn from portraiture as a result from multiple afflicting events that briefly caused him to leave his usual dwelling of Paris for his hometown, Aix-en-Provenance. Described by Harris (1983) his life was “…outwardly uneventful. He seemed to have been forgotten by the art world, and ceased even to submit his works to the Salon [Salon des Refusés]”. During the final years of his life Cézanne’s isolation was only interrupted by various letters he would send to multiple of his subjects, reading these letters reveals an increased consideration to the artist’s own mortality: "For me, life has begun to be deathly monotonous"; "As for me, I'm old. I won't have time to express myself"; "I might as well be dead." (Cézanne, 1897, 1900, 1905) During the same timeframe his mother passed away and his own heath began deteriorating, both factors being thought as to accelerate his lamentations on death. His climatic resignation of his own life inspired a number of still life watercolours and oils which visually approach the theology and imagery of memento mori. This small series of skull paintings have become some of Cézanne’s best known works, not only for their assaulting yet near-domestic arrangement and deeply personal visuals that almost seem like the skulls were painted as portraits rather than still lifes, but the intriguing and tragic context behind the paintings enhances their visual aspects thoroughly.

On the aspects of still life, it remains another example of an inspiration towards the previously mentioned contemporary artwork that deserves its own discussion. The quite visually sparse and ultimately singular For the Love of God isn’t comparable to the impressionist work of the latter discussed Cézanne, nor the later cubist arrangements of Picasso, both of which are visibly loud and dramatic. Hirst’s work, despite the inclusion of radiant collection of diamonds, is quite tonally subdued and constructed of only a few colours on the brighter side of the monochromatic scale, paired with the sparse use of space, a tightly bunched visual point presented with a lot of surrounding area that creates a certain inflated level of draw towards the main appeal of the piece. This class of visually thinly populated still life became a visible trend in the modernist period, particularly by one artist: Giorgio Morandi. Painter and printmaker Morandi specialized near exclusively in painting still lifes of mundane, decorative objects such as jugs, bottles, vases, bowls, cans, and boxes, all of which were distinguished for their tonal subtlety as well as their unusual, bunched composition of objects tightly gravitated to the direct centre of the painting. Morandi’s mid-1900’s still life works straddle a border between the relatable imagery of modern realism, and the unrecognizable surrealism of the Metaphysical art style, in essence the painting resonate with the viewer due to their understanding of how such objects can exist and be juxtaposed together, but the visual elements of Morandi’s rough near-impressionist style brushwork paired with the filtered and dulled pigments he used to construct the painting adds a certain level of disconnect within the observer. His particular technique and composition is described well by sculptor and contemporary follower of Morandi Tony Cragg (2006): “Artists’ show through their strange ways of life, their physiologies, the processes they go through, they show us something about our rough generalised pictures of realities, they show us something specific, and a new way of seeing. And one can imagine that the world would be a much poorer place without his [Morandi’s] work…”

When creating art a singular inspiration is difficult to pin, and with For the Love of God, there is ultimately too much both visually and thematically to associate with one singular artist or work, but there is undoubtedly a connection with the famous instances of still life artwork in the modern period, both in the thematic standing of Hirst’s works as well as the visual elements he used.

Bibliography

Books

Bostock, D. (1986) Palto’s Phaedo. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

Harris, N. (1983) The Art of Cézanne. London: The Hamlyn Publishing Group Limited

Cézanne, P. (1897). Letter to Joachim Gasquet. [letter] Translated by Danchev, A. The Letters of Paul Cézanne. London: Thames and Hudson Limited.

Cézanne, P. (1900) Letter to Paul Cézanne Junior. [letter] Translated by Danchev, A. The Letters of Paul Cézanne. London: Thames and Hudson Limited.

Cézanne, P. (1905) Letter to Émile Bernard. [letter] Translated by Danchev, A. The Letters of Paul Cézanne. London: Thames and Hudson Limited.

Coldwell, P. (2006) Morandi's Legacy: Influences on British Art. London: Philip Wilson Publishers

Internet Sources

Savvine, I. (2018) Paul Cézanne Biography, Art, and Analysis of Works. The Art Story. [online] Available at: http://www.theartstory.org/artist-cezanne-paul.htm [Accessed 17th April 2018]

n/a. (2001) Paul Cézanne. Wikipedia [online] Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_C%C3%A9zanne [Accessed 17th-18th April 2018]

Archino, S. (2018) Giorgio Morandi Biography, Art, and Analysis of Works. The Art Story. [online] Available at: http://www.theartstory.org/artist-morandi-giorgio.htm [Accessed 18th April 2018]

n/a. (2004) Giorgio Morandi. Wikipedia [online] Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giorgio_Morandi [Accessed 19th April 2018]