Screenplay Written by Scott Alexander & Larry Karaszewski
Produced and Directed by Tim Burton
***1/2 (three and a half stars)
Just days after I had expressed my extreme disappointment with filmmaker Peter Jackson's adherence to the spoils of empty commerce over artistic triumph with his dismal final entry in his trilogy based upon J.R.R. Tolkein's The Hobbit, I am fully refreshed as I am now ready to heap praise and celebrate another filmmaker whom I feared I had lost to the same beast.
For several years now, I have felt that filmmaker Tim Burton has existed within a painfully lengthy creative rut. The nightmarish brilliance of his adaptation of "Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber Of Fleet Street" (2007) notwithstanding, Burton has released one CGI drenched and sadly unenthusiastic film after another, for my tastes and sensibilities. Over the course of his career, Tim Burton has consistently presented himself as one of our most idiosyncratic cinematic artists as he has so proudly waved his freak flag but with the most open-hearted sense of humanity as his collective of societal misfits were always treated with such grace and sympathy as we saw the world reflected back to ourselves through their eyes.
For close to 30 years, I have deeply appreciated Tim Burton's commitment to serving his muse and crafting cinematic universes that are unlike any other filmmaker's. From "Batman" (1989), "Edward Scissorhands" (1990), "The Nightmare Before Christmas" (1993) and "Ed Wood" (1994)--all of which I loved--to "Pee-Wee's Big Adventure" (1985), "Beetlejuice" (1988), "Mars Attacks!" (1996) and "Sleepy Hollow" (1999)--all of which I didn't love--the movies all felt as if you could see Tim Burton's fingerprints within each frame as they all seemed to fully represent his full artistic purpose and left-of-center personality.
Yet with films like the so-so "Tim Burton's Corpse Bride" (2005) and the middling to bad to downright awful entries of "Dark Shadows" (2012), "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" (2005) and the disastrous "Alice In Wonderland" (2010), Burton's films have grown increasingly impersonal despite their lavishness. It just was not nearly enough for him to team up with Johnny Depp once again, have him dress up in some elaborate costume, spray the screen with all manner of CGI visual effects and gargantuan gothic set pieces and just call it a movie. It was as if we were receiving carbon copies of the types of films Burton had made in the past, each one either more or less soulless than the one before it. That is precisely what makes Tim Burton's latest film "Big Eyes" such a wonderment as it is easily and not only the best film he has helmed in many years, I could feel Burton's artistic soul speaking to us once again after far too long. In a strange way, the film feels to be of such a personal quality that I cannot help but to wonder if Burton has utilized his latest work as a form of cinematic atonement. For whatever the reasons, it was simply a pleasure to bask in the beauty of Tim Burton's artistic vision once again as I am realizing just how much I have missed it.
Based upon true events, "Big Eyes" stars Amy Adams in a completely winning performance as American artist Margaret Keane, whose collection of paintings featuring odd looking waif children all augmented with large eyes, were fraudulently claimed to be the work of her then husband Walter Keane (Christoph Waltz), a charismatic, fast-talking charlatan who pioneered the mass production of inexpensive prints for massively lucrative financial gain. Throughout the course of the film, we are witness to Margaret Keane's journey as an artist during a period when the work of female artists were not as respected as their male counterparts and even more importantly and internally, her rise from subjugation to independence.
"Big Eyes" is Tim Burton's most overtly mature work since his poetic and beautifully aching film "Big Fish" (2003), as it represents a return from wonderland into a more adult and realistic world while still maintaining a playful spirit. It is as lushly visualized as you would expect from a Tim Burton film, however, it is not a film drowning in a sea of special effects and increasingly cartoonish characters. On the contrary, I think the crucial element that appealed to me so greatly about "Big Eyes," is that this is the first Tim Burton film in so very long that has bothered to be centered around actual people and their respective grasps of humanity. For just a moment, please think back through Burton's filmography and remember that no matter how freakish and bizarre the characters may seemed to have been on the surface, from the likes of Pee-Wee, Batman, Jack Skellington, Edward Scissorhands to even Betelgeuse, we always responded to their humanity and their inherent traits which actually did not separate any of them from us in the audience since we all exhibit those very same qualities...even the disturbing ones.
With that in mind, Burton has crafted an ode to the power of creativity and artistic expression but also an exploration of greed and malice, as those elements relate to a person's mounting level of insecurity and feelings of personal failure and overall insignificance. Additionally, Tim Burton has also crafted a wise social commentary about sexual empowerment as he utilizes the figure of Margaret Keane and her personal story to represent the rise of women's independence in society during the late 1950's and 1960's, and how that very independence was seen by some as a threat to a male dominated landscape, in this case as represented by Walter Keane.
Now, I have seen some criticism in a few reviews towards the performances of both Amy Adams and Christoph Waltz that I whole heartedly disagree with. For Adams, it has been suggested lightly that she is perhaps a tad too vulnerable, possibly to the point of being "Pollyanna-ish." For Waltz, the criticism has been a bit harsher as he has been criticized by some for being too mannered, and over-the-top to the point of being unhinged.
Well, to that, I felt that not only did Amy Adams create yet another pitch perfect performance that will only add to her already impressive range in her filmography, Christoph Waltz is absolutely magnetic to watch, as well as he should, considering how the real Walter Keane was indeed able to win the hand of the divorced and single parent Margaret Keane via a whirlwind romance but also how he was able to achieve such a large amount of fame and celebrity, based through absolutely no artistic talent of his own. It is within these two performances that I think that Tim Burton performed quite a clever feat. With "Big Eyes," Tim Burton has essentially created an adult fairy tale, where the aesthetics and archetypes of fantasy are re-shaped and re-examined within the context of a very real world thus unlocking both the virtues and grotesqueness of our humanity in the process.
In "Big Eyes," it is through the filter of the fairy tale princesses and oppressive monsters that we explore both the passions and motivations of Margaret and Walter Keane. As we regard Margaret Keane, slaving away in her studio, sadly creating painting after painting for Walter's financial gain and notoriety, what else is she but a version of Rapunzel or better yet, the poor miller's daughter forced to spin straw into gold for the malevolent King (i.e. Walter Keane) or face death in the classic Rumplestilskin? Additionally, who else is Walter Keane but the proverbial "wolf in sheep's clothing," the friendly, gregarious, would be cultured artist once based in Paris but in reality is nothing more than a sniveling con-man who grows increasingly monstrous the greater Margaret Keane begins to assert herself?
But this being an adult fairy tale, and one that is so explicitly about female empowerment, Tim Burton has wisely created a vista where Prince Charming essentially does not exist and will never come to the rescue. In fact, Margaret Keane, who at the start of "Big Eyes" is fleeing her first bad marriage with her tiny daughter in tow, arrives in San Francisco and is soon greeted and overwhelmingly swept off of her feet by her supposed "Prince Charming" Walter Keane, he ultimately turns on her, trapping her within yet another dangerously bad marriage. In this adult fairly tale, Burton is exclaiming, the hero of Margaret Keane's story is no one else than herself, her talents, and her own perseverance.
At the outset of this review, I remarked that I wondered if "Big Eyes" was indeed Tim Burton's way of possibly atoning for the emptiness of his most recent films. To that end, it was even more impressive that Burton utilized the canvas of "Big Eyes" to delve even deeper and explore the nature of art itself. Burton asks those large and often unanswerable questions that were often on display in films like the terrific documentaries "My Kid Could Paint That" (2007) and "Exit Through The Gift Shop" (2010) and even in the extravagantly animated and sophisticated Pixar/Brad Bird feature "Ratatouille" (2007).
What is art? Who gets to decide what art is? Does art cease to be art once the work grows in popularity? Is the nature of art decreased or diluted if it is indeed mass produced? All of these questions flow through the entirety of "Big Eyes" as we do indeed witness how personal the paintings are to Margaret Keane, and how the work is indeed an extension of herself. Yet, the paintings are often seen as nothing more than artless kitsch to so-called serious art connoisseurs. In fact, this particular, and eternal, battle is one waged by Tim Burton himself, a filmmaker who I see as an artist but I am more than certain that so-called serious connoisseurs of film would relegate to the kitsch pile as Burton's films have been so enormously popular for nearly three decades running. But then, here I sit with Savage Cinema placing my judgments upon what makes or what does not make cinematic art, especially over Tim Burton's career, especially as I am seeing this new film serving as an antidote to his some of his previous films, so who am I to throw stones at those so-called connoisseurs and even Tim Burton for that matter? In fact, doesn't my disdain just make me one of those so-called connoisseurs too? Tim Burton, includes all of us in the audience throughout "Big Eyes" with these very questions, inviting us to take part in the conversation that he has devised with his film, a conversation that is engaging and enthralling to hold.
And I think that for me and my sensibilities, this is precisely what makes a film like "Big Eyes" such an important step and achievement for Tim Burton to undertake. For I feel that art is indeed a representation of oneself, regardless of the medium the artist chooses to utilize to express themselves. Whether I like the art in question is irrelevant to a degree because if the work is a true representation of the self, then that is all that matters. When I criticize Tim Burton or more recently Peter Jackson, it is because I am feeling a certain rejection of the art in favor of commerce, which by its very nature is an artless entity. But then again, it is only the impression that I have towards the work, the intent of which I will never fully know anyway. So, again what does it all matter? It matters, when I am able to go to the movies and have a response to what I have witnessed that inspires such questions and emotions within me. It is when what I have witnessed speaks to my soul in some mystical, magical way.
With "Big Eyes," I was so happy to have something that Tim Burton created speak to my soul in such an entertaining, provocative and yes, artful fashion once again, after far, far too long.
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