Tim Burton has a very defined style as a director. Analyse how he uses visual and/or verbal features across at least two of his texts to fulfil the common conventions of gothic fiction.

In having a very defined style as a film director, we as the viewer can see and appreciate how Tim Burton carefully creates and develops films that fulfil the common conventions of gothic fiction. Two key visual texts that display these gothic fiction conventions, such as creating a classic gothic protagonist and antagonist, and making the reader feel uncomfortable and uneasy, are Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street and Sleepy Hollow. Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street is a film that follows the gothic protagonist, Sweeney Todd; a barber turned serial killer who murders his customers with a shaving blade. In turn, with the body’s of Todd’s targeted victims, his accomplice, Mrs Lovett, process them into meat pies for her pie shop. However, in the visual text, Sleepy Hollow, we follow a gothic protagonist and police constable, Ichabod Crane. He is sent to a small village named Sleepy Hollow to investigate a series of murders carried out by a headless horseman. Burton through both of these films uses three key techniques that fulfil the common conventions of gothic fiction. These are the use of chiaroscuro lighting, symbolism and flashbacks.

Firstly, the use of chiaroscuro lighting is a very prominent technique used in both Sweeney Todd and Sleepy Hollow. This method of cinematography is the specific use of low and high key lighting. By illuminating and darkening specific parts of a scene including characters and props, it suggests to the viewer the dark aspects of these aspects. Firstly, in Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, we see this technique very frequently throughout the film, however, a key scene in which this is displayed is where Sweeney Todd meets Mrs Lovett for the first time. Todd enters her meat pie shop, where he is immediately met with a dark and gloomy setting. As the scene progresses we learn of the death of his wife and also how his daughter is now that of Judge Turpin’s control. As they discuss the happening while Todd has been gone, the close-up camera angles show the low key lighting, shadowing one side of Ms Lovett’s face. This deliberate use of lighting makes the viewer automatically suspect there is a dark and sinister side to her and that something strange is happening in her pie shop  As we later find out, this is, in fact, the case when she begins turning the corpse’s of Todd’s victims into meat pies. In Sleepy Hollow this technique is also very prominent. An important scene displaying this was the establishing shot of the town of Sleepy Hollow. It immediately, like the Sweeney Todd scene discussed, alerted the viewer that something wasn’t right about the small township. It’s gloomy setting with a combination of lowkey lighting on every building, as well as the cemetery as you enter the town, creates a sense of unease within the reader. We ask ourselves what has happened here previously? And more importantly, what is going to happen in this place? This visual feature of chiaroscuro lighting is a key gothic fiction convention that Burton uses in both visual texts, that through making the reader feel uneasy about what they are viewing allows them to experience a different side of life that they are not used to.

The second technique that Burton uses in both texts that fulfil a common gothic convention of power and constraint is symbolism. The use of a bird in a cage translates across both Sweeney Todd and Sleepy Hollow. In Sweeney Todd, we the daughter, Johanna, of gothic protagonist, Sweeney Todd, become under the control of Judge Turpin in his large estate. In the first scene where we see Johanna, there is a high angle mid shot from next to a finch cage in her room where she sings a song in what could be described as the tone of a small bird. Within this shot, we can see the window where Johanna views from. In combination with her chirpy bird voice, muntins crossing the window like a birdcage shows perfectly the situation she is in being trapped inside Judge Turpin’s estate under his control, unable to do as she pleases. The use of a high angle shot represents this control of Turpin, relating perfectly to the common convention of power and constraint. In Sleepy Hollow the idea of a bird trapped in a cage is shown in a different way, however, portrays the same message. We see this symbolism represented by an optical illusion where Ichabod Crane spins a thaumatrope with one side displaying a cage and the other a bird. When spun, like Sweeney Todd, it shows a bird in a cage. The bird, in this case, represents Katrina whose stepmother is Lady Van Tessel; the one who controls the headless horseman. Katrina is under close watch and command from her stepmother and once again, like Johanna in Sweeney Todd, is unable to fully do as she pleases. However, at the end of the film, we see that this changes and Katrina is ‘free’ like an uncaged bird when her evil stepmother is killed. This visual feature used by Tim Burton in both films fulfils the common gothic convention of power and constraint which in turn leads once again to the viewer feeling uncomfortable with these situations which are a standard in gothic fiction. 

The use of flashbacks is also another visual feature that Tim Burton uses in the visual texts Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street and Sleepy Hollow. This technique once more fulfills the common conventions of gothic fiction; this time the convention of a gothic protagonist. In Sweeney Todd, an important scene where we see the use of a flashback is when Todd has just returned to this old town. We see him with his wife and baby daughter walking through a market flooded with pretty flowers and plants. With these intense colors and the scene being over saturated as a whole, the viewer sees what Todd’s life used to be. However, after this flashback, we see the scene return back to monochromatic lighting and the now extremely pale Todd representing the dark and troubled life he now lives. A scene in Sleepy Hollow where we see a key flashback is when young Ichabod Crane is very afraid of the storm that is happening. However his mother reassures him that it is alright by showing him the 
thaumatrope which he enjoys watching. This scene is in colour and by having high key lighting, it once again alludes to the gothic protagonists loving and happy past. This is in contrast to his now mysterious and bizarre life he now leads represented by the monochromatic colouring seen throughout the rest of the film. Not only does this visual feature of flashbacks directly link to chiaroscuro lighting but it allows the reader to greater understand what the characters have been through and the changes they have experienced. In having a character having a normal happy life but then having one more of a dark and secret nature, this is a key part of the gothic Fiction convention of a gothic protagonist.

In conclusion, Tim Burton uses many techniques to fulfil the common conventions of gothic fiction, however, three key ones that show these are the use of chiaroscuro lighting, symbolism and flashbacks. Through this, Burton not only makes the viewer uncomfortable but also allows them to understand and relate a situation they are not used to, to themselves and society around them.