Symbolism In Corpse Bride

The movie Corpse Bride is a very charming yet macabre movie of how a shy, stumbling young man accidently marries a deceased bride. This movie is done by stop motion, yet is still very elegantly. With the grim aesthetic of the Victorian era, the living world is shown to be dull, gray, and practically lifeless while the Land of the Dead is full of color, and lively characters. The detail of every character and object is rich with also a grand orchestra, soft piano and jazz numbers to company. The plot of Corpse Bride is probably something you have heard before but with a strange twist. It starts with the wedding rehearsal of two families, the Van Dorts and the Everglots. The Everglots, the supposed rich family in the town, has arranged to marry …show more content…
Like I described above, the creators chose a Victorian type of setting for the movie. The costumes and buildings are what you’d expect from the time period. Men dress in suits and woman in dresses that go from their neck to their feet. Then the movie takes an interesting choice with color where the living world has the palette of lifeless, dull colors; however, the Land of the Dead is full of color, painting the world with neon green, icy blues, and rich purple; gives personality to the place, ironically more lively than the living. Now this movie has beautiful atmosphere music with some characters having their own little numbers. There’s not many separate scores, but most of them are catchy. With the beginning song, “According to Plan”, explaining to the watcher the main topic of the movie to “Remains of the Day” introducing and explaining the background of one of the main characters’. The music goes from dark and eerie to panicked adrenaline to jazzy and hopeful to classical …show more content…
The designs first off are a wonder to look at. No two people look the same. Even the skeletons, which normally look nearly identical in most other films, have some sort of different quirk to them with different skull shapes, heights, and some wear clothes while others do not. Living characters all have a gloomy, uptight look to them with a sort of lifeless look to their eyes. The creativity really shines with the dead characters where you can tell the creators had fun coming up with different results of corpses. For example, one skeleton has a giant hole through his ribs, one man is split in half, the bartender is just a head with cockroach legs at the bottom of his neck helping him move around, and many more gruesome yet imaginative designs. Then their personalities; watchers can’t help but feel bad for Victor, a young, shy, and awkward man who finds himself in a rather awful mix up from his clumsiness. There’re many odd characters that help with the main characters. Emily recieves advice and has small banters with the maggot that’s in her eye socket along with a black widow. The movie also does a good job giving the viewer what a character is like within a small amount of time. Watchers can immediately sense how slimy and devious Barkis is just from the first time we see his cold smirk and scheming eyes. The Everglots are easy to identify as snooty people who only care about their reputation in the town seeing as they view