Tim Burton Comparison

It is human nature to fear the unknown, but, to quote Aldous Huxley, “there are things known and things unknown, and in between are the doors of perception,” regarding humans fearing the unknown. Tim Burton often enjoys taking a rather literal approach to by having his characters find entrances to new worlds. Burton is well known for his outcast characters and grim-but-innocent movies, but his settings often offer important lessons as well. Burton creates an unknown world and then throws his protagonist into it. The most common reaction from the protagonist is fear and confusion concerning the foreign land. His characters frequently find themselves conquering the unknown, although they once feared it. In Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and …show more content…
The design usually has two sides to it. Side one is the protagonist’s hometown, where everything and everyone has a ‘cookie cutter’ life. In Alice and Wonderland, for example, where Alice lives, everyone is proper and dresses in formal wear. The ladies are expected to wear corsets and stockings. However, the second side of the world is the more whimsical side. Wonka’s factory serves as an excellent example of this. From the outside, the factory matches the rest of Charlie’s town; it is a dull gray color with a standoffish look. Contradictorily, the inside of the factory is full of amusing, bright colors. Burton regularly implements an entrance into side two. Naturally, the entrance generally presents a challenge for the protagonist. In Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, the entrance to the factory is a golden ticket hidden in a candy bar wrapper. The challenge lies in the fact that there are only five tickets. Wonka ships candy all over the world, making the chance of finding a golden ticket rare. Once Charlie gains a ticket he is granted access inside the factory, which is a comical and wacky contrast to the outside of the …show more content…
In Alice in Wonderland, Alice falls down a rabbit hole and lands in Wonderland, a place full of unusual inhabitants and bizarre scenery. Burton transitions from the high key lighting of Alice’s engagement party, to the low key lighting of Wonderland. At the party, everyone is dressed in pale blue and white attire, while Wonderland offers a stark contrast with dark skies and little lighting. The colors of Wonderland appear more muted and shadows drastically overpower most of the scenery. Likewise, in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory the town Charlie lives in is described only as “a great town” despite the looming gray clouds and the dark, desolate looking buildings. Burton uses low key lighting when the factory is shown from the outside, making Wonka’s factory appear ominous and sinister, but when Charlie and the others enter the factory, they are greeted with a drastic contrast of high key lighting and a vast display of vibrant colors. This is significant because it gives the audience conflicting emotions of whether or not they should fear the safety of the characters. As both Alice’s and Charlie’s storylines progress, they are both put in perilous situations, some more subtle than others. For instance, in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory if one of the children