Films Analysis : Edward Scissorhands and Sweeney Todd

Synopsis of Edward Scissorhands

          Edward’s Scissorhands (1990) by Tim Burton is about a nearly complete young man named Edward who tries to have a normal life as an ordinary person. The professor who created him died before he helped Edward to change his scissorhands into a human hand. Edward then lives alone at the castle on the hill in the neighborhood. Peg, who is a sales person tries her luck at the castle and find Edward. She brings him home and catches the attention in the neighborhood. Since then, Edward’s scissorhands is so famous with his trimming skill on plants, dogs and hair. He also falls in love with Peg’s daughter, Kim. However, the neighborhood dislikes him after Edward was caught as a culprit in a robbery at James house. At last, Edward is forced to go back to his castle and continue his lonely life.

Analysis of Edward Scissorhands

Edward’s Scissorhands is one of the movies that are influenced by German Expressionism. One of the themes in this movie is self analysis. Edward is a robot that was created by a scientist and lives in the castle till he met Peg. Peg brings him back home. Edward now starts to live a normal life with his Scissorhands. He wears Bill’s clothes and look into the mirror, finding himself as a normal person like others. He helps the neighbors to trim the plants, dogs and even their hair. Later on he actually mixes around with the neighbors. He starts to discover that he can live like a regular human even though he is different from the people in the neighborhood.

Another theme for this movie is madness. We find that there are some characters that portray madness. For example, a girl who plays the organ and keeps shouting to the neighbors that Edward is not from heaven but he is actually the devil. Besides that, Edward also shows a little madness  quality in the film. After he sees Kim having a tender moment with James, he got so mad and frustrated. This was shown when he scratches the wall in the hallway to the bathroom. He faces the mirror in the bathroom and expresses his anger by scratching the wallpaper. This shows madness and the anger of Edward towards the relationship of Kim and James. This demonstrates the theme of madness because Edward has failed to control his emotion and he was not able to think rationally therefore he was throwing a tantrum and taking it out on things around him.

On the other hand, we notice some of the German Expressionism influenced styles appearing in the movie. One of the styles uses in this movie is distortion bodies and shapes. For example, in the castle, the trimmed plants appear bigger than usual. The handle of the doorknob is longer than the usual. Edward’s scissorhands is also a kind of body distortion. As an ordinary person, we use to have human hand instead of scissor hands. All these distortions clearly show the element in the film that was influenced by German Expressionism

In addition, there are some bizarre settings that embodied gothic elements as well. For example, the castle has a gothic architectural style with high ceilings, huge pillars and gargoyle as decorations at the outer and inner part of the castle. Beside the architectures, the costumes were also very gothic stylized. For example, Edward’s costume is black and has a lot of buckles. On top of that his makeup consist of a pale face with dark eye makeups and messy hair. It clearly shows the gothic style of dressing and make up. Throughout the whole movie, the music or the audio that appear in the movie is gothic influenced music which creates the mysterious and horror feel. For example, the music that played by the mad girl in her home. All these gothic elements further shows that German Expressionism did influence this film.

The settings in the film have slanted lines and curves. The attic of the castle has a slanted roof. The stair to the attic is not straight but curve up with uneven staircase surface. There is also crooked window grill in Edward’s castle. The white pathways in the neighborhood are also curvy. All these curves and crooked lines is clearly one of the characteristics of German Expressionism films as these lines were seen in The Cabinet of Dr Caligari as well.

Besides that, Chiaroscuro lighting is one of the styles in this film. Low key lighting appears when Edward is lying on Kim’s bed at night. This lighting is to create the feel that Edward is actually lonely in this foreign world. Another example is during the time Edward, James and Kim are fighting in the attic of the castle, there are many harsh shadows on their face which is the effect of the low key lighting as well. This style of lighting is the basic element that appears in German Expressionism, kind of like a requirement for films from this film movement.

The surreal setting can be found in the movie. In the town, all houses are built in the same shapes and arrange neatly along the entire road. Houses and cars are in different bright pastel colors that create a surreal feel to the audience. For example, there was a house that was painted in orange and green stripes. In the castle, there are many different trimmed huge plants. In contrast, there are also some trees with only have trunks without leaves. All these unnatural realities is also one of the styles of German Expressionism film.

Synopsis of Sweeney Todd

Benjamin Barker, a skilled barber had been falsely accuses of a crime by Judge Turpin and sent to Australia because the judge had lust after the barber’s wife – Lucy. After 15years in exile, Benjamin Barker returns to the street with his shipmate, Antony and now he named himself as “Sweeney Todd”.  After he pays his first visit to Mrs. Lovett’s meat pie shop, he discovers that his wife had been raped by the judge and has poisoned herself. His daughter, Johanna is now Turpin’s ward and Turpin lusts after Johanna and wants to marry her. Sweeney Todd opens a barber shop above Mrs. Lovett’s shop and begins his revenge against Judge Turpin and his assistant. Todd will slice the throats of the unsuspecting public while giving them a shave. He is now the owner of the famous barber shop in the town and what he needed to do is just wait for the Judge to sit on his chair and give him a slice on his throats (IMDb, 2007).

Analysis of Sweeney Todd

Tim Burton was influenced by silent films and German Expressionism for his film adaptation of the musical Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, and so he describes the film as a "silent film with music".

The theme of revolt is one of the significant elements in German Expressionism film. In this film, he places the main character as an anti-hero that kills for revenge in a way that is not always justifiable by the audience. The way the character of Benjamin Barker is presented also has major influence as he is placed as an anti-hero who goes against the conventional way of a main character. German expressionism strongly emphasize on this way to bring out the main character throughout the entire film. Example of revolt from the film is Benjamin Barker had been falsely charged and banished by who had lusted after his wife. After 15 years, Barker begins his revenge (EdronFilm, 2009)He comes back to the city to find Judge Turpin and wait for a great opportunity to end his life. The whole story revolves around this purpose which goes to show that Benjamin is not afraid of the authority.

The theme of self-analysis is also found in German expressionism film. It is an important theme to set the story of a film. Most of the time, self-analysis can be noticed only after some time in the film by self-questioning or self-identifying in order to figure a new identity and it gives clue to audiences about something that is going to happen. In Sweeney Todd, Benjamin Barker named himself Sweeney Todd to hide his past identity to begin his revenge. After he killed Pirelli who threatened to reveal Barker’s real identity, the story developed. He no longer only seeks for revenge but start to become a serial killer order to have sufficient meat for Mrs. Lovetts pie shop to run her business of meat pie. Killing becomes important to him. This is shown through the way he changes his attitude as he starts to kill not just as part as his revenge but for the sake of it (EdronFilm, 2009).

The theme of madness contributes in making German Expressionism film too. The plots and stories often dealt with madness and insanity. Therefore, it becomes a formula of sort for Expressionist to make film. As seen in the film, Tim Burton applied this theme and the plots develops within this theme. From the Sweeney Todd movie itself, audience can see that the main character, Benjamin Barker/Sweeney Todd, constantly has thoughts of killing people with his blade. He constantly waits for an opportunity to kill Judge Turpin. He feels frustrated when he is unable to kill Turpin who visits his barber shop due to the sudden appearance of Anthony. Barker later becomes a mad man who kills people for the sake of killing.

As for the theme primitive savagery, the movie Sweeney Todd is influenced by this theme as well. In the film, Mrs Lovett mentions that her competitor’s pie is made of cat’s meat. Eating cat’s meat seems a little primitive in practice. Also, as the story proceed, Mrs Lovett ended up making pie using human’s meat. That shows the theme of primitive savagery. Also, this is backed up by the violent way Benjamin Barker kills his victims.

There are some film techniques that have been used in this film which was influenced by the German Expressionism. One of these techniques is the usage of oblique camera angle which means the camera is tilted or slanted in certain ways during the shoot. In other word, it simply means that the camera is not placed horizontal to the floor level. The use of this technique in a film is to suggest imbalance, transition, and instability. In addition, it is usually used to suggest the point of view of a particular character which mean the camera becomes the ‘eyes’ of the character, seeing what they see. Oblique shot is often used in horror movies and usually is a hand held shot (Mediaknowall, n.d.). The most obvious scene which used this technique is during the beginning of the film where after Benjamin Baker get down from the ship and started walking in to the London Street. In this particular scene, the camera starts to move along the street obliquely to show the view of the London Street until he reaches Mrs. Lovett’s shop. This camera technique is actually to show the imbalance of the London city where this place is actually full with corruption. Therefore, this resulted in certain people in the city becoming rich and they can dress up nicely while certain people becomes poorer and they need to beg on the street or work hard to earn some money for a living. This camera technique also enhances the description of Benjamin Baker toward London where he claim that London is a terrible place, living with many bad guys and most importantly, the guys that he wanted to revenge on is in London.

           Meanwhile, we also can notices the element of distorted bodies and shapes used in the film. Distortion shapes and bodies means it deforms the shapes and bodies as whole. As we can see through the scene in the barber shop where Benjamin Baker is feeling impatient when  Beadle does not show up in his shop after a few days as he wants to kill him, at the same time, Mrs. Lovett tries to calm him down and ask him be patient. In this scene, there is a shot where Benjamin was facing himself in front of a broken mirror and his facial expression was distorted on the mirror. The distorted face on the mirror actually enhanced the emotion of anger and impatient of Benjamin Baker.

Other than that, the film also shows the usage of chiaroscuro lighting which is one of the main elements in the German expressionism’s film. Majority part of the film is in muted color as well. Low-key lighting was always used to show the conflict, mysterious part of the characters. The lighting also created the atmosphere of hopeless, horror and scary.  (HubPages, 2009). One of the examples is the scene when Sweeney Todd pays his first visit to Mrs. Lovett, who sells meat pies in the shop where is below his old apartment.  In that scene, the lighting is created to become a mysterious atmosphere especially in the scene where Mrs. Lovett slowly revealing who Sweeney used to be and what happened to him in the pass. At the same time, we can also observe that the face of Sweeney is heavily covered by shadows and the shop was lit in low lighting. Besides that, in the scene when the old lady (Lucy) is outside the pie shop and tries to stop the people from visiting the pie shop, harsh lighting is applied too. It’s used to show that there is some horrifying thing happening in the shop, and we can hardly see the old ladies’ face. The scene when Anthony is walking on the street after he know that Johanna is sent to an asylum, low-key lighting is also used and we can hardly see his faces, its shows his sadness and how disappointed he is.

Besides that, there are also bizarre settings that are gothic in nature appearing in the film as well. Its setting is in London but the buildings and city are dull and dark rather than bright and cheerful city. German Expressionism inspires Tim Burton and he fully expressed the influences in the film Sweeney Todd. He used the combination of shooting in real locations but at the same time, there are some painted and hand-made backdrops and sets as well. The setting or backdrop of the city used a lot of gothic elements such as heavily painted shadows, in order to create the dull and dark atmosphere. (EdronFilm, 2009) In the beginning of the film, there is a scene when Sweeney Todd arrives in London, the camera then flies through the gloomy streets, stop and pause in some buildings and show the clusters of drunks and prostitutes.  It is clearly showing that the London is in dank lanes, dripping, rat-infested sewers and sombre shadows It brings us into Sweeney’s world which has no color and hopeless. (FilmFreakCentral, 2007)Besides that, the only living colour in the film is the colour blood which is red in colour. The structure of the building and city in the film we can rarely find it in our real life surroundings. Other than that, the structure of Judge Turpin’s house also look unnatural where there are statues of gargoyles-like creature on the pillars outside of his house, this strongly brings out the gothic elements.

There are some scenes that are considered surreal in the film. In the film, there is almost no sunlight, except for the scene where Mrs. Lovett’s imagines her future with Sweeney Todd and Toby.  Besides that, no one notices that Mrs Lovett’s pies are human meat pies. Also, the entire missing person victimized by Sweeney Todd. These are the examples for unnatural content in the film.

Conclusion

To sum up, German Expressionism indeed has influenced a lot of different film makers such as Tim Burton. Most of the current directors has modified and incorporate the influence of German Expressionism to form their own style of film making. Without a doubt that both films mentioned above does have influences from the German Expressionism movement. Both films clearly shows the styles and characteristics of German Expressionism. We think that Tim Burton is really good in using the influences from German Expressionism in his film to enhance the narration and bring out the essence of the story that he was trying to tell. Finally, through the researches and analysis on German Expressionism, we have come to like and appreciate this film movement a lot more. We enjoyed the influences of this movement  has on modern day films and we look forward to more film influenced by German Expressionism such as Tim Burton's upcoming film, Dark Shadows.