#it would be especially interesting to see in contrast with dante's familiar relationships

[prototypelq]

The reason I am so ensnared by the idea of Patty interacting with Dante AND the entire DMC cast is that she is, pretty much, the only normal person out here. Dante and Patty's relationship (found family or just friendly, I hunt down shippers for sport) is the most normal relationship, which is also quite important to him. And he has never had that.

Dante's relationship with literally any other character is rooted in very bad, no good, terrible history which neither of them want to talk about ever again. Those relationships are full of landmines, which they need to avoid. Dante&Patty don't have that, there is no big blacklist of topics between them, they can just vibe together without this additional weight of History TM between them. This normality, is in itself, abnormal in DMC and for Dante especially. He needs that, and honestly, every character in this series is mentally deranged in some way, they all need that. But I also think exposing them to this little island of almost-normal will hurt them initially...(this can vary a lot depending on the circumstances, look for reblog for additional thoughts).

This doesn't make other relationships Dante has with characters less, nor does it make Dante&Patty's relationship more important than others. I just wanted to point out how heavily this (1) normal relationship heavily contrasts with everything else this series has, and can have a little earthquake effect of this house build of cards. More importantly, I wanted to highlight how Interesting it would be to compare it with others, and it would be fascinating to see other character's reacting to it.

[fabdante]

Not to keep on with this but right so I made a post about Vergil and Bernini  and in that post I mentioned what art works and pieces I think represent the other parts of the DmC trio, Kat and Dante. And I just wanted to follow up on that with more focused posts because yall have no idea, I’m very into this whole thing.

First up: Dante

So Dante I go into a good deal in the Baroque essay already so some of this is a rehashing but I just wanted to go more in depth about Dante and Caravaggio’s Davids. 

(David and Goliath, 1599)

(David with the Head of Goliath, 1607)

(David with the Head of Goliath, 1610)

More about Dante, Caravaggio, and especially that last David under the cut! This one got a little long.

Ok so first things first, like discussed in the Baroque essay, Dante is Baroque and the game is based around Caravaggio’s Baroque to a point where many of his paintings are directly referenced. That last David in particular is referenced directly in the game. See below:

so I’m not really saying anything the game hasn’t really done itself here. Dante is the main character, he is represented by Baroque and Caravaggio. That’s his vibe, that’s the parallel. And it’s a very intentional one I mean in Talexi’s art book he discusses picking Caravaggio as an influence and the overlap between Dante’s whole deal and Caravaggio’s own. But I’m like really into Caravaggio’s David’s and want to talk about that and the neat way this plays with Dante’s whole deal so, let’s do it.

To quickly summarize Caravaggio and the background of his last David: Caravaggio was an angry guy who worked in Rome during the Baroque period until he killed a guy for Reasons (probably a bet, possibly a woman, possibly a tennis match or something, probably the bet). He gets kicked out of Rome, does some stuff (joins a knighthood? at some point then leaves the knighthood?), gets word that the pope wants to pardon him. He goes back to Rome with some art but dies on the way at the ripe age of 38. One of the paintings with him that makes it on this trip is the last David. 

What I like about Caravaggio’s David’s is how different they are then other David’s that come up in the art history canon. Just for comparison I’ll share the famous David but also Bernini’s David from the same time period.

(The David, Michelangelo)

(David, Benini. Pain to get a photo of s2g)

The first key difference is I mean, all three of Caravaggio’s David’s are wearing clothes which I think is neat in that I imagine he would be wearing those given the situation. But beyond that, what strikes me about Caravaggio’s David’s is their youth. In the biblical story, David is more the age Caravaggio consistently depicts him at. Which is about approximately preteen or teenage. The second thing that strikes me is the confidence and power displayed in Bernini and Michelangelo’s David’s evoke. But Caravaggio’s are not confident, not the way these one’s are. And especially that last one. 

Caravaggio’s David is unsure. He’s just done this thing, killed this man, but he doesn’t seem to have quite processed it in the first two. But in the third, he is processing it. And he’s not processing it well. This is a David who is unsure. This is a David who seems to pity the man who’s head he now holds by the hair. This is a David who is not strong and unwavering and confident and elegant, this is a child who just killed a man. This echo’s in the games interpretation of the scene, that same worry echoing in Dante’s brow that’s in Caravaggio’s. It’s a sympathetic David in that he seems to be unsure if this choice was worth the personal toll but also in the sense that the viewer is sympathetic to him, they feel bad for this child who has just been forced to make this choice. 

Reboot Dante’s life is not one about choice, it’s not really something he seems to be able to do often. Sparda put him into the orphanage and the orphanage put Dante into the foster care system. And ever since then Dante has had to fight. Not by choice, but by necessity. It show’s in his combat style, in his clearly untrained movements focused on power and strength rather then tactics. Vergil, if you watch him fight, he’s much more elegant, his style reflecting practice and technique. Dante, though, throws everything into his movements to kill as fast as possible. That if he just swings hard enough, this’ll all be over faster. He even stumbles in his combat because he’s put so much power into his swings, it’s my favorite little detail. 

In the game, it’s mentioned that Dante’s first recorded demon kill was when he was eight years old. It was one of the ‘caretakers’ at the facility he was in. I often wonder if that’s the moment that they were trying to depict in this image, the moment after that. I'm not really sold that he looks eight here but I mean you be the judge of that but bare with me. It’s the mood, that moment right after he’s been forced to enter his new reality for the first time. That he is going to have to fight like this the rest of his life. That bewilderment and regret and just general disbelief that he’s done this, that he’s just killed something. That sorrow for the Dante he was before, like that sorrow that David must be feeling for who he was before as well. 

But there’s a second layer here I haven’t gotten to yet. And that’s how Caravaggio’s David is also thought to be a self portrait. No, he’s not David. Caravaggio has painted himself as Goliath. A portrait of Caravaggio for reference: 

(Caravaggio as depicted by Ottavio Leoni in 1621)

Usually this is read as a tongue and cheek thing to the pope, like Caravaggio is offering himself in the ultimate repentance for his crimes. He’s sorry, here’s his head on a platter. But there’s something about it being a self portrait coupled with David’s pity for this Goliath that feels kinda...sad in a way. 

Further context to this is Caravaggio, on the run or not, did not have a studio. He was a solo artist, which is a bit odd for the period at his level. He did not take students, so his techniques died with him. No one else worked on his paintings, they’re all by his hand. This in particular David was not commissioned either, it was done as a gift. So this was a deliberate thing entirely thought through by him, painting himself as Golith, painting David so full of pity and grief. 

It’s sort of this idea of pity for the monster when you yourself are the monster as well as a sort of self hatred. Which reboot Dante is familiar with. Either Dante, preboot or reboot, kind of has this arc about trying to cope with being half demon while hating being half demon. It’s not a part of himself that he likes. The reboot goes further with this though because he doesn’t even have the solace of being half human, he’s also half angel. Reboot Dante goes from seeing himself as a human being to being told no, your not, your the things that you hate and it’s your job to protect people anyway. You are both the out of control monster and a threat, but also their protector. 

In either reboot or preboot this isn’t like the most explicit character beat, though it does come up. In the reboot we see it peak through in moments like Dante’s interactions with Phineas. The ‘my father was a demon and I’m nothing like him’ mentality. The reboot makes this more pressing to in that like, the reboot makes it clear that demons are not a hive mind. While they seem to vary in intelligence and free will and all that, the game does not imply that Phineas and Sparda are alone in their grievances where as the preboot paints demons like Sparda and Trish as complete oddities. But part of either Dante’s rejection of Sparda is always rooted in ‘Sparda is a demon, and I’m nothing like the demons.’

This is interesting in the reboot because, unlike Vergil, reboot Dante is always visually contrasted with demon imagery. His world is very red. His color is red. The colors on him, even the blacks and grays, are warm tones. His devil trigger is designed in such a way that the abundance of reds in it are even more prominent then his initial design. The only time he’s not is the scene with the graffiti where he’s positioned on the side with the angels. But visually it’s still made clear. Dante is the demonic twin, Vergil more angelic. On top of that, characters in the reboot love to point out how Dante reminds them of Sparda. Phineas does it and Mundus really does it (the ‘just like your father, too big for your fucking boots’ line). Which further puts Dante at odds with his identity. As much as he thinks he is nothing like Sparda, he’s his fathers son. He’s the demon half of this twin relationship. 

I think to like Caravaggio’s David’s just...they don’t want to do this. They’re just kids. They don’t want to kill their Goliaths. But they have to. Which is the spot we see reboot Dante in. He doesn’t want to save the world. He doesn’t want to fight for his life as often as he does. He doesn’t want this. But he has to do it. He might say he doesn’t give a shit, but what’s his choice? When has he ever had a choice? He’s the unwilling savior.

This runs through the game to. Dante doesn’t really want to be here. He makes that clear a lot. And his bravado is constantly a cover to keep him from being too vulnerable, too exposed. But it’s that last fight with Vergil where it all falls apart. He did this because Vergil asked him to, and Vergil didn’t even tell him the truth. And just like everything else, Dante doesn’t want to kill Vergil. He doesn’t want to fight him. But he’s provoked him anyway and got himself in this fight and he can’t let Vergil take the throne. David can’t just let Goliath go.

It’s the end of the game where we finally have Dante completely free of his walls and completely bare and entirely unaware of who he is and what he’s supposed to do next. It’s the same sort of vulnerability that I feel is abundant in that last David. Who is he now after all of this? Does he like this person? What’s he to do now that he knows what he’s capable of, knows what he’s done?

What makes him any different then this head in his hands?

[dmcofficial]

i really love how dmc approaches the relationship between human and demonic selves, especially in the light of it acting as contrast to how regular, average people struggle to accept parts themselves, the beautiful, the ugly, the parts that are both. dante has the most development simply bc he's the longest running protag of the series but also he's had games entirely dedicated low-key to his developing relationship and eventual acceptance of his human and demonic sides, even tho i think his are more clear cut (dmc1 & dmc3) meanwhile nero (dmc4 & dmc5) and vergil (dmc5) have more subtle and almost cramped development in a way

[ranting abt dante, vergil, & nero's character development throughout the franchise under the cut bc this also got rlly long,,,]

dante is interesting post dmc3 just bc he's both written 2 b a continuous character w no real conclusion to his character in order to continually write him into dmc games and content, BUT he still reaches SOME conclusions to character arcs in dmc1 and dmc3, and afterwards we see how those conclusions have aged with him— aged is the important word there, because changes in dante's character are both from the perspective on nero (his villainous aura at the beginning of dmc4) and the simple fact that where a lot of characters don't actively age and mature the same way real people do, in video game media especially, dante DOES and this changes how we would expect him to react in games liek 4 and 5

i think part of the reason the dynamic between vergil and dante has shifted by dmc5 is not only bc of vergils speedrun development in the same game, but also because you could reasonably say that while vergil expects a fight w him similar to their past fights, you could argue he is also a little bit unsettled with how dante's changed in the time theyve been separated. because despite how they tend to mirror each other as children and their journey thru dmc as a franchise can be framed as the same One character put thru different yet similar traumatic events, vergil even remarks about it at the top of the qliphoth, that difference here is that by dmc4 and DEF dmc5 dante has evolved past that where vergil is just beginning to really see it.

dante has had the time to process it. he went thru all this development years ago. it's had time to sit with him and age and ferment. dante is now tired, almost apathetic. he's disinterested with life and the cards he's been dealt with. at least in dmc4 and between dmc1 and 4, the anime too, he was sort of. rueful and upset about it? but he's seemed to move past that at this point. he is a character who has done everything there is to do. there is nothing and nobody who can challenge him, and even the concept doesn't catch his full attention. vergil is a trigger topic, it sets him off instantly, probably because vergil is the only constant in his life that will live as long and is as impossibly stubborn as dante is.

he doesn't chase vergil because he's necessarily hurting people with the dmc5 red grave massacre or trying to end the world in some great fashion and dante will have fun or at least get a thrill from defeating him or dying trying— cutting thru urizens forces are a pain in the ass and a waste of time. he wants the main course. he wants to be done with it. not to say he wouldn't have fun fighting, but he doesn't get the thrill he does when he's younger anymore. he wants to end their feud, seeming to be with the intention of making up with him even if he's come to terms with vergil's pride being what will force dante to kill him in the end

fighting with vergil in the underworld afterwards, having someone like him to keep him company, to share those experiences with, it's everything he needed and more i think. the repairing of their relationship, the new partner in a life none can truly relate to. i mean, both brothers treat nero like a child, he's the closest either of them can get to someone who understands, but nobody will understand truly like they will

vergil meanwhile, decides very young that power is all he needs and it will solve all his problems. and you know, at the time maybe it does. but eventually, when forced to admit it isn't, when put between dante and more power despite it being a hollow motivation, he chooses power and the end of dmc3 to the events of dmc1 happens.

dmc5 is unique in that v is forced to retrace vergils steps. they're put through the same paces: he is put in a position of fear after his 'birth', he chooses life, and then goes hunting for power to keep himself alive afterwards. but not only does he have his familiars to balance him out in a way vergil never had (and that dante has in trish and lady,) but his demonic tendencies can't overwhelm him, he has room to grow and accept and come to realizations he can only reach as a clear headed human. he is able to actively use empathy and sympathy, even against his will. he realizes that power isn't everything. that the atrocities he's committed in the name of his own growth in power are just that, atrocities. that he feels regret for what he has done. that he wants to find away to atone for those actions.

he is forced to accept the strengths and weaknesses of his humanity, but also the same coin's other side, the horrible things he's done in the past, the horrible things his demon self is currently doing unchecked, and v resolves to change that even at the cost of his human outlook, even at the gravity of his actions being leveled against vergil in all their horror. he learns to accept that part of himself, both parts, everything bad he can commit with his two hands, but also with nero, nico, his familiatr, the good that can be done. the weeds that can fight to grow through the cracks.

nero spends dmc4 learning how to be a demon. hes force to learn how to deal with and manage his demonic changes. for a few weeks he has his demon arm, when he previously believed himself to be entirely human, and is then forced to come to terms with his yamato trigger and all the changes that brings. he even promises to himself, having grown up on a hyper religious island that loathes demonkind and reveres sparda, that even if humanity learns to hate him and fear him, he will still stick to his steadfast morals, his drive to achieve his goal of saving kyrie and greater fortuna. i also think a lot of dmc4 is nero becoming comfortable with his true nature. he comes into himself in dmc4 as a mouthy, demonic-warped demon hunter with a bad attitude in contrast to the bored, slightly tempered teen who broods in church even as kyrie attempts to wrangle him at the beginning of the game

dmc5 i think is nero's human game in the sense that he's forced to relearn how to be human. he spends five+ years as a demonic freak of nature, powerful on an island of human people with no demonic power. he's downright untouchable. after losing his bringer and his powers, he's forced back to square one, human again. i think dante believes nero is deadweight in the sense that nero is weak again, without any kind of demonic power and will get himself killed easily fighting urizen despite his hybrid resilience that still lingers. nero is angered by this— by his weakness, by the fact that he promised dante to keep the yamato safe and had it stolen from him, by his lack of agency. dante wasn't even going to tell nero, v, some random-ass goth, had to fetch him. he feels he isn't enough anymore, and dante's words are poorly timed— they sting particularly hard i think, considering he is nero's only unofficial family at the time, and family is his soft spot.

i also think nero coming to terms with vergil and dante being his father and uncle respectively takes up a lot of this arc of his– he is forced to grapple with what family means to him, what he is willing to do for family, when his only relationship with family has been his experiences as an orphan with strange white hair and a bad attitude in fortuna of all places, fostered by kyries parents who seemed to only take a liking to him at first for how much he resembled the Savior™. kyrie and credo were his only family after they died, and it's kyrie who reminds him of his own beliefs, in his own love and stubborn, headstrong dedication and determination for the well being of his found family, even as that found family suddenly includes actual blood family. he also has to try and understand dante and his perspective, who hid this from him. maybe out of fear of disappointing him, maybe out of concern of how he would take it, maybe because he thought nero was better off with the family he found than with the knowledge of how much bloody weight he carries, the heavy history of their family, didn't want to give that weight to him.

nero sort of learns here that seemingly good people do bad things for the right reasons. sometimes bad people do bad things because they think it's the best of the shitty choices. sometimes bad and good people just don't exist, and there's no good choice. he learns unwavering forgiveness, unconditional and true. all of these lessons he's lost between dmc4 and 5

[gennarenee]

My Devil May Cry Game Ratings

Alright so I finally finished playing all the Devil May Cry games (barring DMC2 and DmC), so I wanted to write out my thoughts and reviews of the games in order of my favorite to least favorite. I played the games in the order of 5, 4, 3, then 1.

#1: Devil May Cry 5

DMC5 was my introduction to the series. I first watched a whole play-through of the game as background while I was working on a research project, but it looked so fun that I bought it on the steam summer sale and I loved it as much as I thought I would. The combat is intricate and fun, and I’m still discovering new tricks and play-styles (I think I’m on my third play-through of the game??). I love V’s character, but on my first play-through I didn’t know the story of the DMC universe, so I was disappointed when he turned back into Vergil. Now that I’ve played through all the games though, I love the story even more and I understand now how V is an important step in Vergil coming to terms with his humanity (also I love Vergil too now). Having played the other games too I can now see all the references this game makes to the previous games as well which is really cool.

Overall 10/10 this is my new favorite game and has beat out Bayonetta as being my favorite game of all time.

#2: Devil May Cry 4

As previously stated, I’m a huge Bayonetta fan, so you can imagine my excitement at all the parallels between this game and Bayonetta (aesethically, story-wise, etc.). However, DMC4 is definitely not a finished game, so I’m actually glad that Bayonetta basically stole the concepts of DMC4 and made them better. 

The start of this game is my favorite out of all the DMC games. I love the scene of Kyrie’s performance in the church while Nero battles demons in the street, and I think this does a really good job of setting the scene for the game. Fortuna is aesthetically beautiful, and the game’s music is fantastic (I’ve had “Out of Darkness”, “The Idol of Time and Space”, and “Shall Never Surrender” on repeat for the past few weeks). Having finished DMC1, I can see now too that Fortuna, Fortuna castle, and the enemies take a lot of inspiration from Mallet Island in DMC1. 

Combat wise, I loved playing as both Nero and Dante. After playing DMC5, Nero’s combat felt a bit lacking, but nevertheless I had fun smacking demons around with the buster arm. I adored playing as Dante, and I enjoyed his combat style more than Nero’s. HOWEVER, this brings me to the game’s biggest flaw: while Dante is super fun to play as, his levels are absolutely awful. Instead of creating a new area for Dante to explore while trying to save Nero, the entire 2nd half of the game is spent backtracking through all of the Nero levels. Like seriously Capcom?? I was aware of the backtracking before playing this game but having basically half of the game backtrack through the first half is ridiculous. The areas themselves also felt disconnected. Fortuna, Fortuna Castle, and the jungle all were interesting areas on their own, but it doesn’t make sense going basically from Italy, to a frozen mountaintop, to a jungle, all on a single island. 

All in all though, I’d give this game a 7.5/10. While repeated sections were annoying, the combat was fun and I love the aesthetic of the game and its soundtrack. Also Nero and Kyrie’s relationship is adorable.

#3: Devil May Cry 1

This might come as a surprise, but I enjoyed DMC1 more than DMC3 (but I’ll get to this more in the next section). 

First, I’m glad I played all the DMC games in reverse order. When I first picked up DMC1 after completing DMC5, I was shocked with how awful the camera system and general gameplay was, so I put down DMC1 to replay DMC5. However, when I came back to DMC1 after playing all the other games, I had become adjusted to the lack of features in each game, so I no longer felt as annoyed with the camera and gameplay. In fact, I enjoyed the gameplay a lot more than I thought I would. I imagined that the game wouldn’t live up to today’s gaming standards, but I was pleasantly surprised with how much I enjoyed the combat. I missed having access to the different playstyles of future games, but this Dante’s gameplay almost felt like a mix between trickster and gunslinger, so his combat style was not as empty as I thought it would be. 

Much like DMC4, I also really enjoyed the aesthetic of this game. Having played DMC4 before DMC1, I almost had “reverse nostalgia” for the scarecrow enemies and the castle aesthetic. I also really liked the level designs. While the levels in DMC4 felt disconnected, I could see the areas (castle, canyon, coliseum, pirate ship, etc.) all existing on one island together. In terms of bosses, I wish that there had not been repeat fights. While I loved seeing V’s familiars having a role in this game (again, “reverse nostalgia”), I could’ve done with a couple less Nightmare and Nelo Angelo fights. 

In the end, my biggest complaint about this game is that it’s too short. I started this game at 5pm yesterday, and I’ve completed it in under 5 hours. While the game is short, it felt like there was almost no plot until the very end of the game when you fight Nelo Angelo Vergil. I wish they would’ve expanded upon the story and included more information on Sparda and Eva and Dante and Vergil’s childhoods, but I understand that this game was the first in the series and made in 2001. 

Overall, I’ll give the game a 7/10. While I can’t imagine myself replaying this game (especially since there’s no other playable characters besides Dante), I had an overall pleasant time playing this game.

#4: Devil May Cry 3

First, while DMC3 is the last game on this list, I want to clarify that I enjoyed all 4 games, and this game is almost tied with DMC1. However, there are just some choices in the game that made this game a less enjoyable experience for me. 

Combat wise, while it took me some time to adjust to only having one style at once, DMC3 has my favorite weapon set out of all the games. I loved played with Cerberus in DMC5, so I was excited to have the opportunity to use this weapon again in DMC3, and the same goes for Beowulf and Kalina Ann. While I didn’t use it that much, I also adored the Nevan weapon, and it seems like a perfect weapon addition to the game series (if only we could’ve seen something similar in DMC5!). I also enjoyed the story of this game. It was nice getting more of a backstory on Dante and Vergil, and Dante definitely grew as a character by the end of the game. It was also nice finally seeing Lady’s backstory. Arkham/Jester annoyed me, and one of my favorite parts of the game is when Vergil basically goes from “I need to begin the all important ritual” to “Okay we need to get rid of this clown ASAP”.

But, what this game makes up for in storytelling, it lacks in general gameplay and aesthetic. The game’s aesthetics almost felt bland, and many areas in Temen-ni-gru were just brown/grey stone. I also wish the early enemy design went outside of the “grim reaper” aesthetic. While I know others have different opinions on the matter, I feel that DMC3′s aesthetic was very one note, and suffers from the opposite problem of DMC4. In terms of gameplay, I felt that most of the item quests did not make sense and were unnecessary. For example, many of the doors require orichalcum to open, but randomly finding a piece of orichalcum on the ground doesn’t make sense story wise. I remember a level specifically where you have to drop down to the library to find a key item, but the library is even before the start of the level.

Compared to this, the item quests and backtracking in DMC1 made sense. For example, finding a key in a room in a castle to use on another door in a castle makes sense. Even weirder item quests, such as finding the trident to open the door, make more sense than DMC3 missions. While I do not know what orichalcum does or what it is, in one of the rooms in DMC1 there is an item with 3 holes in it, and it makes sense that the trident item gained later on would go in this space.

Finally, one of my biggest complaints about this game is the boss battles. Now I might just suck at video games, but it took me way too long to defeat some of the bosses on Devil Hunter. For example, it took me longer to figure out the Vergil fights than it did for me to complete DMC1. Bosses like Beowulf also sucked due to relying on the smaller eye hitbox. In contrast to DMC1 as well, these bosses were at the end of a level, as compared to being a separate mission, so if I wanted to leave and come back later, I’d have to replay the entire mission first. 

Overall, I’ll give the game 6/10. Will I replay it? Possibly, I know I can play as Vergil, so it would be fun learning his moveset. However, a game’s aesthetic is almost more important to me than gameplay (that’s just a me thing), so I’m not sure that I would enjoy playing through the levels again due to their lackluster design.

Ending Thoughts

And that’s my rating on (almost) all the DMC games! While some of the gameplay in the earlier games was annoying, I definitely love this series, and I plan on reading the extra novels/mangas outside the game (I’ve already watched the anime). Hell, I’ll probably read some William Blake and the Divine Comedy itself.

Let me know what your ratings are! I’d love to hear everyone else’s lists. 

[s0022034a2film]

R. Creative Investigation - Collated Quotes

After going through 12 source review sheets, I had collected around 100 quotes. Here, I will gather some of the more useful ones. Thus eliminating those that are not of great value or repeat other quotes making them useless. Below, I have selected a handful of quote that have been annotated revealing the helpfulness and how they relate to my question. 

Style:

Sleepy Hollow:

Considering Burton was considering to experiment with black and white footage, his mention of colour is very interesting. His films are known for their gothic dark colour scheme and it isn’t a surprise to him this is beautiful. This point highlights how the stylistic elements feed into his themes within the film. 

The layout and the colour and the design were so beautiful... it had a very good mixture of humour and scariness -  a sort of fun, energetic, visceral kind of scariness.” - Tim Burton p.g. 167 (Burton, 2006)

Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street:

A director should have full control of all aspects of the film. And this point proves how Burton’s reworking of the songs is new territory. It is his vision complied with stylistic techniques we have grown to know from Burton. 

“It’s not just his DNA deep love for the grisly and gothic, but the sophisticated, intelligent way in which he has re-imagined this hollowed sung-through musical for the cinema, paring it back stylishly yet opening it up to new readings, and reworking ‘song’ as intimate musical dialogue.” (Stables, 2008)

Shows how he adapted his own styles to accommodate the fact this is a musical. 

“He’s very musical. And you can see it in the rhythm of– Not just the cutting, but the was the camera glides. The way it moves. The choice of angles. He’s responding to the music” (Young, 2007)

Dark Shadows:

Likewise with my previous observation with Sweeney Todd, this shows how he has responded to a change in the material his film is based on. Here, it is an adaptation of a soap which he has considered and impacted the shots used.

“The director’s affection is evident, and his homage sometimes acute: as in afternoon soaps, many shots are medium closeups of the actors staring pensively off-camera (presumably at the Teleprompter).” (Corliss, 2012)

General:

Emphasises the lexical field Burton is associated to: halloween.

“That was Christmas of 1998. it’s now two days before Halloween 1999, in Manhattan, where midtown shops are decorated with holiday cutouts of ghosts and black cats. Outside delis, stacked pumpkins wait patiently for the sharp knife that will be taken to their throats. It’s the time of year when a guy like Tim Burton should be a pretty happy fella.” (Nashawaty, 1999)

Burton may not have created his screenplays but he, according to Sarris, can still be the auteur due to the fact he has a consistency between his films. Defiantly my three focal films. 

“Over a group of films, a director must exhibit certain recurring characteristics of style, which serves as his signature. The way a film looks and moves should have some relationship to the way a directors are generally superior to foreign directors. Because so much of the American cinema is commissioned, a director is forced to express his personality through the visual treatment of material rather than the literary content of the material.” (Sarris, 1962)

Themes:

Sleepy Hollow:

Only because Burton has a past representation as a ‘eccentric visionary’, it doesn’t mean that is true of my focal films as two of them are past 2007 which is a 7 year gap between this quote. I would agree with this as, my focal films at least, don’t show a director who is extremely eccentric and experimental. I would say that when he first started out, with films such as Beetlejuice and Pee Wee’s Big Adventure, his experimental use of stop-motion was ‘eccentric’. The technology has changed and so has Burton stepping away from consistency between his earlier films and the ones audiences experience now. 

“Even with an almost mythic story as its foundation, Sleepy Hollow doesn’t seem like the work of an eccentric visionary, as Burton has long been labelled.” (O’Hehir, 2000)

Shows how he has built onto his gothic themes and style with the horror element. It isn’t new but rather a progressive sweep in context to earlier films. 

“With this film [Sleepy Hollow], Burton returned to the gothic and the macabre, and to Johnny Depp, and tackled a new theme: the horror of dismembered bodies and severed heads.” p.g. 134 (Baecque, 2010)

Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street:

Shows how beauty is such an impactful part of the society we live in. A possible reflection of his life as he wasn’t perceived to be beautiful. 

“Rather than a balanced pairing, then, Burton places beauty and the sub- lime in tension, then shows the historical process by which, in the Sweeney narrative, beauty is tainted by, falls to, and is ultimately consumed by the urban sublime over the course of the film.” p.g. 175 (McMahon, 2014)

Dark Shadows:

Death is a theme that links all my focal film together. He explores this theme to the same extent throughout all the focal films.

“And death in infiltrates all aspects of Barnabas’s character. Death is not only what leads him to be a vampire; it is what he is. He is a dead man walking. And death is what he doles out, albeit apologetically.” p.g. 228 (McMahon, 2014)

General:

Fairy tale elements of his films are evident (more so in Sleepy Hollow with it being based on a fairy tale) within my focal films. It shows how it has always been apart of his filmography even when he began his work at Disney. 

“The visionary and “slightly twisted” (Tiffin 2008, 148) auteur began using fairy tales quite early, when he was still slaving during the 1980s as an under appreciated cartoonist in the dungeons of Disney Studios.” p.g. 198 (Ray, 2010)

Flashbacks are a motif of a Burton film (evident in all my focal films). Therefore, this theme of childhood experience, is well represented. Plus, the way he links this with the horror genre.  

“What is it about the horror genre—especially in the way that Burton channels its dark magic—that appeals to children and seems to express something fundamental about the experience of childhood?” p.g. 48 (McMahon, 2014)

This quote explains itself. Blessed to have a quote mentioning all my focal films and their linking themes. 

“Sleepy Hollow (1999) combines the historical romance and the police procedural with the horror film. There is also an element of the fantasy film genre, given the supernatural figure of the Headless Horseman... Sweeney Todd:  The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (2007) draws on the horror film, the musical, the revenge tragedy, and family melodrama... Dark Shadows interweaves familiar features from the horror film and family melodrama within the narrative structure of a romantic comedy.  ” p.g. 196 (McMahon, 2014)

Collaborations:

Sleepy Hollow:

Shows how Burton has made changes from the original source just so the he could have Johnny Depp as the main character. A bold move that is interesting due to such a redirection of the focus point of the film.

“For while Burton’s Ichabod retains some of his comic qualities—he is still vain and jittery—he also solves the mystery, defeats the Horseman, and gets the girl. Burton’s Brom, meanwhile, is demoted in status to a minor, one-dimensional character who is quickly dispatched. Burton’s decision to cast handsome Johnny Depp as Ichabod affirms the director’s intention to redirect viewer sympathies toward Brom’s rival.” p.g. 114 (McHanon,2014)

Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street:

Shows the collaboration extends to the producer who is willing to step into this unknown realm. To do this is risky for both of their careers and so such faith in Burton shows the bond between them.

“Tim is an auteur, he’s a visionary. And he takes chances that most directors are fearful of. And this is a musical, which he’s never done before. Either have I, as a producer, been involved with a musical. So it’s very challenging.“ - Richard D. Zanuck (Producer) (Young, 2007)

Burton has his reasoning to have Depp but for Depp, he doesn’t think about the content but the fact it is Burton creating it. Meaning, if it is good enough for Burton, it is good enough for him. Interestingly, nobody had ever listened to Depp sing and so this was such a risky move by Burton.

“As always, with anything that I end up doing with Tim... the initial attraction is really Tim, more than anything else.” - Johnny Depp (Young, 2007)

Emphasises the work of the art team in creating the vision. 

“While such a style might seem anachronistic in the Victorian milieu of Sweeney Todd, Burton’s art team, led by scenic designer Dante Ferretti and costumer Colleen Atwood, constructed a hybrid imaginary that blends Victorian streetscapes and costumes with Weimar interiors and makeup.” p.g. 176 (McMahon, 2014)

Dark Shadows:

For the first time in their partnership, Depp offered the job to Burton. This could be why it sucked. Once again, he is working with the same actors. 

“Depp bought the rights to the show, produced the new movie version and stars as the courtly vampire Barnabas Collins. Burton, in his eighth collaboration with Depp, signed on as director; and Pfeiffer, who was the majestic-pathetic Catwoman in Burton’s 1992 Batman Returns, plays Elizabeth Collins Stoddard, doyenne of the cursed Collinwood estate.” (Corliss, 2012)

General:

Burton uses Depp to reflect his own characteristics onto. I feel this also a reflection on the character Depp is as well proving how strong the bond is.

“The Burton-Depp films often deal with characters who are artistic or skilled yet reclusive, idiosyncratic, or doubted by others. Contrasted to them are characters whose lives embody cultural norms and norms of social behaviour, as well as characters in positions of authority or influence who reveal to us something of the dark underside of human psychology and self-interest.” p.g. 193 (McMahon, 2014)