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The Corpse Bride and other Fairy Tales
Sep. 26th, 2005 10:04 amI saw the Corpse Bride yesterday and loved it. I agree with John's assessment that storywise it's nowhere near as good as the Nightmare Before Christmas, and I too would have chucked the maggot character all together as it added nothing likable to the film. The musical numbers also were jarring but...
The bride herself. Oh gods was she beautiful. She moved with such incredible grace and flowing that I was just in pain watching her. She's thousands of times more elegant than Sally. Truely beautiful in design and animation.
Speaking of which, the design of the film. Unlike Jon, I REALLY liked the design sense in the film. Perhaps it didn't have quite the sense of place that Nightmare did but it had an incredible design sense, almost on par with Sleeping Beauty. I liked how the real world was grey and bleak and the world of the dead was more colourful but not overly so. The lighting and shot contrasts and such were beautifully chosen. I get the feeling, the focus of direction was on making the characters really look alive and the corpse bride be as beautiful as she could be. It worked for me. Emily was the most beautifully animated and sexy thing I've ever seen.
I also liked the shot where Victor was playing on the Harryhausen piano. ^_^
In terms of other fairy tales... I despairetely wish I could get an 1810 translation of the Brother's Grimm works. I read the first three stories aloud to Stacey last night and these were the fairy tales I hated as a child. The brothers badly butchered them to make them 'christian' and 'child friendly'. While yes, there is still violence in them, the sexiness is gone, and the christian rhetoric is loathesome and overbearing. I mean, I'm sure the brothers aren't fully to blame. Germany did suffer from hundreds of years of theocracy, and the book seems to be structured so that the stories for younger readers are in the front and better ones are further in. But still. You can tell some of the stories were just brutally amputated with a dull knife. It makes me sad that as story collectors, they felt the need to make such rough changes to what they got from the people because it wasn't godly enough. On the other hand, I understand their desire not to be burned as witches, so I could see where one might make changes under those circumstances. Anyhow, it's clear that much pain and suffering shall be my grimm fate as I work through this book. I'm looking forward to russia. My sneak peak tells me that the russian stories are largely free of the molesting hand of the church.
The bride herself. Oh gods was she beautiful. She moved with such incredible grace and flowing that I was just in pain watching her. She's thousands of times more elegant than Sally. Truely beautiful in design and animation.
Speaking of which, the design of the film. Unlike Jon, I REALLY liked the design sense in the film. Perhaps it didn't have quite the sense of place that Nightmare did but it had an incredible design sense, almost on par with Sleeping Beauty. I liked how the real world was grey and bleak and the world of the dead was more colourful but not overly so. The lighting and shot contrasts and such were beautifully chosen. I get the feeling, the focus of direction was on making the characters really look alive and the corpse bride be as beautiful as she could be. It worked for me. Emily was the most beautifully animated and sexy thing I've ever seen.
I also liked the shot where Victor was playing on the Harryhausen piano. ^_^
In terms of other fairy tales... I despairetely wish I could get an 1810 translation of the Brother's Grimm works. I read the first three stories aloud to Stacey last night and these were the fairy tales I hated as a child. The brothers badly butchered them to make them 'christian' and 'child friendly'. While yes, there is still violence in them, the sexiness is gone, and the christian rhetoric is loathesome and overbearing. I mean, I'm sure the brothers aren't fully to blame. Germany did suffer from hundreds of years of theocracy, and the book seems to be structured so that the stories for younger readers are in the front and better ones are further in. But still. You can tell some of the stories were just brutally amputated with a dull knife. It makes me sad that as story collectors, they felt the need to make such rough changes to what they got from the people because it wasn't godly enough. On the other hand, I understand their desire not to be burned as witches, so I could see where one might make changes under those circumstances. Anyhow, it's clear that much pain and suffering shall be my grimm fate as I work through this book. I'm looking forward to russia. My sneak peak tells me that the russian stories are largely free of the molesting hand of the church.
