The Nightmare Before Christmas

 

The Nightmare Before Christmas

Director ~ Henry Selick

Writers ~ Tim Burton, Michael McDowell, Caroline Thompson

1993, USA

Stars ~ Danny Elfman, Chris Sarandon, Catherine O'Hara

In many ways, this summarises the Tim Burton agenda perfectly: a lofty misfit that loves the fun-and-frolics dress-up of horror, of Gothic macabre, still wants and is fascinated with the inverse shininess and performative brightness of Christmas, but his attempts to mimic the yuletide season just warps the simulations, because that is not what he is. Trapped in the euphoria of your own darker taste but still hankering for appeal of a care-free opposite. Just wanting something more than what you are: the identity crisis which is the perfect theme for a coming-of-age fairy tale and the Do Good Christmas agenda. Performatively "Bad kids" being envious of symbolic Goodness.

Directed by Henry Selick, scripted by Caroline Thompson and adapted by Michael McDowell from an idea and characters by Tim Burton, it’s a unique confection. Disney stuck Burton name on the title to make sure it brings in his fan’s money, but Selick is reported as saying that Burton only visited the production a handful of times over the four years it was being made. It was based upon Burton’s original three-page poem, the designs have the pointy-lanky design of Burton’s previous work and certainly the sensibility is identifiable to his: one only has to look to Burton’s short ode to Vincent Price, ‘Vincent’ to see this; and ‘Vincent’ too is the tale of a good boy indulging in the darker role playing. Price was intended to voice Jack Skellington, but illness had weakened his mellifluous voice and had to be replaced with Chris Sarandon (it’s also a tale of being overcome with depression, gestured at by the darker taste). But not to take away from Selick and Caroline Thompson’s screenplay or the adaptation by Michael Dowell, whose credits also speak of a fun-horror outlook, having also adapted ‘Beetlejuice’and Tales from both the Crypt and Darkside. And of course, the other crucial element that makes it feel Burtonesque is the showtune bravura of Danny Elfman. If the music isn’t quite to your taste, there are nevertheless smart lyrics to hook you. Elfman also sings as Jack Skellington. Burton and Elfman are one of cinema’s recognisable, indelible audio-visual collaborations.

 'Vincent'

It's a film that feels very modern, or post-modern, in its tossing and mashing up of various mythologies, Christianity gaudiness and Halloween paganism, genre cinema, scientific thought, and all in an extensively detailed world-building package. It doesn’t really lampoon the consumerism and corporate takeover of the seasons because it is not really interested in satirising that. In an age where many kid’s animations are overwhelmingly bombastic outpourings of zeitgeist and overlapping pop culture (e.g. the LEGO movies), this feels almost prescient in using multiple cultural sources.

The film is overflowing and delirious with imagination and gleeful subversion, and not just a little nastiness. There’s plenty of genuinely macabre detail and layers of jokes, such as rag-doll-Frankenstein-monster unstitching her own arm to get away from the hideous Dr. Finkelstein, her creator: it’s a gross gag that harks to the parenting angst of Mark Shelley’s novel. Zero the ghost-dog has a pumpkin nose (which also comes in handy when he stands in for Rudolph). The town mayor has two faces. And the sequence where unsuspecting kids open gifts made by a well-meaning Halloween Town is a delightful comic sequence.

Inevitably the stop-motion speaks of a remarkable, pain-staking achievement, which is indigenous to the process. 100 crew members averaged only 60 seconds of film per week in this $20 million production. Even if it is the work of others that embellished his original concept, ‘The Nightmare Before Christmas’ shows why Burton was a champion for outsiders and beloved for his Fun Goth Disney sensibility, with his designs still popular on the toy shelves today. My favourite is the burlap sack textures of Oogie Boogie.

Yet perhaps the real dark edge is that for all his anti-hero pretences, Jack Skellington is also really more a covetous egotist, motivated by envy, boredom and appropriation. All the woe-is-me and misinterpretation of Christmas is just play-acting to get in on someone else’s act, because after all, you can only be what you are, even with dress-up. But whatever genuine intentions he has gets him the girl, and he does seem to learn something about moderating your behaviour.

‘The Nightmare Before Christmas’ provides a fun exploration of people with alternative tastes not understanding why their offbeat interpretations can’t be as much appreciated or beloved as the more mainstream upbeat fare. It is all so joyous that it really does say that opposite attract and co-exist. After all, surely all you happy people love a scare?