Tim Burton and German Expressionism

This video shows how the director Tim Burton is influenced by German expressionism in his films. It shows some very early expressionist films and compares them to some of Tim Burton films.

 As you can see Tim Burton has got ideas from old expressionism films and used them in a more modern way. He uses the ideas of sharp straight lines and very contrasting light. To use this genre of film to make it work in a movie where you wouldn't expect it. For Tim Burton to use German expressionism in a super hero film is very unusual as super hero films are not set out to be filmed in this way but the show Arkham in this way really revels how dark and twisted a super hero film can be.

 In this picture Tim Burton has used the German expressionism way of showing loneliness and darkness by having houses in places impossible to actually live but this will show how animated and over the top German expressionism is and how Tim Burton's films really capture that too. He has also copied the way in which you can only see the top of the hill and no other life which really emphasises the concept of either alone or feared.

Finally in the picture you can see that the shadows in German expressionism are very important and how they can tell a lot about a character and Tim Burton really pits this into a lot of his work including in Vincent, The Nightmare Before Christmas, Corpse Bride and many more. Tom Burton also uses the long fingers and arms and long features to create more scary and dark shadows which is also a main feature of German expressionism