Some
of the impressions I’ve been writing lately have been a long time coming
because it’s taken me ages to finish watching things. This one is overdue just
because I haven’t gotten around to it, deciding I wanted to wait for a repeat
viewing – which is also the case for director Henry Selick’s James and the
Giant Peach.
What’s
that? Henry who? Wasn’t the director here Tim Burton? Well, as a matter of
fact, no – it wasn’t. Yes, it has his trademark atmospherics, his cheerfully
grim style, music from Danny Elfman (vocal performances too) and even says ‘Tim
Burton’s Nightmare Before Christmas’ in the posters. But while he was the
creative force behind the project’s inception, served as the producer and came
up with the story (based on a poem he had written), he neither directed the
piece nor wrote the screenplay. After all, he is a director of live-action
films, not a creator of stop-motion – though he did go on to co-direct The
Corpse Bride. The credit here, however, goes to Selick, later to gain more
recognition as the director of Coraline and currently under the employ of Pixar
and working on a new film before being lined up to adapt a Neil Gaiman novel.
This
is not a case of either-or, however: both men deserve considerable credit for
creating this very fine piece of work. Along with Aardman, this 1993 work sent
new life coursing through stop-motion animation, which had been foundering
since 1986’s creepy but iconic The Adventures of Mark Twain. Its
brilliantly distinctive aesthetic showed that CG was not going to entirely
replace this branch of the art form, and in every way – concept, characters,
music, pacing, believable antagonist and even progression of its romance – it
is a good, solid, memorable film. And while Burton
has always come down heavily on talk of a direct sequel, the world has remained
an attractive one, appearing, for example, in the Kingdom Hearts games.
For while this was seen as a little too risky to be released as a Disney
animation, it comes from the studio’s Touchstone imprint – which probably
helped it at the time, for while Disney was making excellent films like The Lion King, they weren’t exactly associated with quirky, edgy, dark work at
the time, and if anything the stigma of Disney being safe and cute could have
lost Nightmare a chunk of its audience.
The
story is based on one of the more popular modern takes on Christmas: someone
who is not a typical Christmas figure intruding onto the joy and brightness of
Christmas and ruining it. Unlike a Grinch or a rampaging South
Park snowman,
here Jack Skellington has mostly good intentions. He is The Pumpkin King,
leading the horror-themed inhabitants of the gleefully German Expressionist
Halloween Town, and once he glimpses the gaudy holiday happiness of Christmas
Town, he is infatuated and wants to be able to do the same thing – even going
so far as to kidnap Santa himself to take his place. Of course, things don’t go
to plan and as it turns out, you can’t just usurp Father Christmas – especially
with the chaotic madman Oogie Boogie setting his eyes on Santa and Jack’s love
interest Sally. His motivation is ultimately a little dubious, but he’s so
charismatic and visually striking that this can only be considered a minor
quibble. He is cruel for the sake of cruelty, because that’s the sort of
character he is.
Brilliant
visually, clever in how it can make characters at one repulsive and appealing
to look at, and delivered with great belief and a fantastic aesthetic, it’s no
wonder it was such a hit – and has become a neatly alternative Christmas
classic.
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