For the film study this week, the film I want to talk about is Corpse Bride, which is the movie that applies the concept of German Expressionism. It releases on 2005. It is an animation movie, the stop-motion animated dark comedy movie. In this kind of film, the audience can see a lot of the high contrast scene in the movie.
German Expressionism, it is a filmic style that emerged in Germany from 1919 until 1926. It influenced by the Expressionist movement in modern art of the early 1900s. The Germany Expressionist started to fade as 1920s German film industry tries to imitate and compete with Hollywood films. The expressionism was not limited to painting only, it also manifests in the literature, theatre and architecture of Scandinavian and German-speaking countries. Most of the filmmakers whose migrated from Germany to the USA, they brought the filmmaking practice to Hollywood. It made a very big influence on horror films and film noir, the quality of these kinds of genre improve very well. The famous German Expressionist filmmakers are Fritz Lang, Robert Weine, and F.W.Murnau. The theme that inside the German Expressionism film is include revolt, self-analysis, madness and primitive, and sexual savagery. In the film Corpse Bride, there are also some of the themes were applied to it.
The beginning of the story is talking about Victor has been arranging to marry a woman. However, Victor hadn’t met the woman before. When Victor met the girl, who named Victoria, they fall in love with each other. After several days, Victor was prepared to marry Victoria, but he forgot his wedding vows. When he passed the forest, he uncarefully places the ring on the corpse’ hands. The corpse who named Emily misunderstood Victor, and bring him to go to hell. Victor was tried back to his world and he knew about the story of Emily. When Victor knew Victoria was going to marry Mr. Barkis, he felt sad and decide to marry Emily by drink the poison. At the last, Emily stops Victor because she doesn’t want, he dead.
There are some of the themes that the audiences can see in the movie, of example revolt. When Victoria’s parents want, she to marry Mr. Barkis, she very resists for the decision of her parents. She escapes to outside through the window, and try to request some help to save Victor because she knows that Victor is staying with a bride. The next theme is about madness. When Victor first arrived at the hell, which is the place od the dead people staying. Victor had feeling about the environment, the ghost or everything in the hell is very madness. So, he tries to escape the hell just because he feels fear of these. Thirdly, the body and the shape of the character is also a theme we could found out. We can notice that lots of the character’s body or face shape is very unnatural compared to the real human. In design, it can say that this a very stylized design of the character. For example, the mother of Victoria, the face shape of her is like a peanut. Do you imagine that can find out a peanut face in the real world? Back to the other theme is about the self-analysis. For example, in the film, Victor and Victoria don’t have any choice and must listen to the elder for the marriage. In that time, they don’t know each other, but they still follow their parent to meet and marry each other. It was not the decision of Victor and Victoria, they just follow what their parents want. Lastly but not least, the lighting also as the theme in this film. The lighting is related to another art movement, which is the surrealism content. The different of the light can show the different feeling for the audience, no matter a character or a place, it can be used to affect the feeling of the audience. It is a very important theme for the Germen Expression, because it can make the shadow to influence the feeling of the audience. For example, when Victor passes to the forest, there is a lot of the shadow caused by the trees. It makes the environment become very sombre and scary. Other than, some of the scene using the blue, red and green colour to make an effect of the contrast value, like the colour of living have lots of the shadow, lack of colour, using cool colour to show the town. It feels very boring and also lifeless compared to the hell, which is the place that put lots of the colour. By the ways, the ghost in the hell is more active than the living people.
In conclusion, this movie was made by the German Expressionism and used some of the themes to attract the attention of the audiences. The director of this movie shows that It shows how well the theme can use like, especially the lighting, which is the high contrast also know as low-key lighting to create dramatic shadows.
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