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Find out moreOn August 28, Tim Burton's new film, Beetlejuice, was released. It tells the story of a cynical ghost who strives for marriage. Let's take a closer look at what this film is all about.
- The story of Beetlejuice's origins is fascinating and full of creative solutions. The character was created by Tim Burton, who developed a unique plot together with screenwriter Larry Wilson. The idea came to Burton as a result of his fascination with the afterlife and eccentric characters.
The film, which became a cult classic, was released in 1988 and quickly gained popularity thanks to its unusual style, dark humor, and vibrant visuals. Beetlejuice, played by Michael Keaton, became the embodiment of an extraordinary character who combines comedic and terrifying traits.
The creators put a lot of effort into developing Beetlejuice's image, which has become a symbol not only of the film itself, but of pop culture in general. His distinctive phrases and extravagant appearance made him memorable and beloved among audiences. As a result, Beetlejuice didn't just appear on screen - he became an icon that continues to inspire new generations.
- What will be the plot of the new film?
- Who plays the key characters?
- Tim Burton, a renowned director and producer, makes extensive use of various cultural references in his films. His films are saturated with elements of pop culture, literature, and art, which gives them a special atmosphere and depth. For example, in "Sleepy Hollow" you can see the influence of the Gothic tradition and the works of Washington Irving, while "Edward Scissorhands" draws inspiration from fairy tales and romantic literature.
In addition, Burton often refers to classic films and animation, including Disney works and vintage horror films. His style is also permeated with references to comics and iconic characters, which makes his work recognizable and unique. Using such cultural elements, he creates worlds where surrealism and fantasy are intertwined, and viewers can find many familiar motifs and symbols, which adds an additional layer of interpretation.
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The Origin of Beetlejuice: The Story of the Character's Creation
It's been 36 years since the release of the first "Beetlejuice," but for the dead, the concept of age has no meaning. In 1988, Tim Burton, with experience working as an animator at Walt Disney Studios under his belt, by that time had managed to direct only one full-length comedy - "Pee-wee's Big Adventure." This success opened the door to the world of horror, which became his true passion.
The 1988 film Beetlejuice opens with a crisp, laconic scene that reads like a death certificate: a young couple, Adam and Barbara Maitland (played by Alec Baldwin and Geena Davis), tragically lose their lives in a car accident. However, after this tragic event, they realize that they can still haunt their house, but now as ghosts.
Some time later, the abandoned mansion becomes the property of the Deetz family, including Jeffrey Jones, Catherine O'Hara, and Winona Ryder. They begin a massive renovation in a modern style, which causes considerable discontent among the ghosts haunting the house. Unable to frighten the new residents with their attempts, the ghostly inhabitants decide to seek help from an experienced spirit known as a "bio-exorcist"—Beetlejuice, played by Michael Keaton. This ghost is renowned for his ability to wreak havoc on the world of the living.
However, it seems that Beetlejuice himself worked on the script from then on: the story disintegrates into a series of disparate scenes that are loosely connected. What is the source of the conflict between the Maitlands and the Deetzes? They are indeed very similar, it's just that some of them are alive and some are not.
What is the structure of the afterlife? Why do some characters end up on Saturn's moon Titan, and where do sandworms reminiscent of those depicted in Dune come from? What lies behind the fact that ghosts remain invisible, while the book "Handbook for the Recently Deceased" has physical form? Why do events sometimes take the form of a musical? What is the reason for Beetlejuice's desire for marriage? And finally, what does his strange name mean?
Tim Burton himself openly stated that "the final version of the script was essentially about nothing." He seems to have been more drawn to the process of experimentation, the desire to perfect the visual style and effects—challenging and expensive tasks, but at the same time, the director intentionally gave them the appearance of budget techniques, reminiscent of the old sci-fi and horror films he grew up with. Beetlejuice seems to contain the entire future Burton, like one of those dead men trapped in a car. The film embodies its unique aesthetic, combining graveyard motifs with a fairground atmosphere—Beetlejuice even briefly evokes Jack Skellington from The Nightmare Before Christmas, which wouldn't be released for five years. All of Burton's key ideas and emotions are concentrated here: the director himself noted that Beetlejuice is more about "perception and feeling" than anything specific.
Burton expressed bewilderment as to the reason for his film's enormous success. Nevertheless, Beetlejuice was warmly received by audiences and critics alike: it earned high praise from industry professionals and garnered impressive box office receipts, ranking 10th among the highest-grossing films of 1988. The film also won an Oscar for Outstanding Makeup and a Saturn Award for Best Horror Film. For Michael Keaton and Winona Ryder, this project was a significant step forward in their careers.
In 1990, Tim Burton immediately began planning A sequel to "Beetlejuice in Hawaii," in which the titular character was supposed to encounter the spirit of an ancient Hawaiian shaman, or kahuna, was planned. However, the director soon changed direction and focused on creating "The Batman," which delayed the script, and Beetlejuice never made it to Hawaii. Nevertheless, Burton didn't abandon the idea for a sequel and soon returned to it, collaborating with screenwriter Seth Grahame-Smith, with whom he had already worked on "Dark Shadows." Despite difficulties such as the COVID-19 pandemic and the Writers Guild of America strike, he still managed to complete the project.
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Theme and plot
In the Beetlejuice universe, the same amount of time has passed as in our world. The ghostly Maitlands have left their home, and with them the magic, leaving only the familiar flow of life. Lydia hosts a program about paranormal phenomena, tries to mend her relationship with her stepmother after the death of her father, and considers whether to accept the proposal of her persistent boyfriend and producer Rory. After the divorce and the tragic death of her ex-husband, their daughter Astrid has become more withdrawn and alienated. At the same time, Astrid develops feelings for her neighbor, a teenager named Jeremy. However, something seems off with Jeremy.
To make sense of her life and support her daughter, Lydia is forced to repeat the name "Beetlejuice" three times. Meanwhile, in the afterlife, Beetlejuice faces his own problems: he is haunted by his evil ex-wife, Delores, who sucks the souls of all the ghosts she encounters. This series of events leads to the worlds of the living and the dead becoming intertwined again - just in time for Halloween and, naturally, with terrible consequences.
In The hour-and-a-half film combines a surprising number of elements: there are creatively dead characters, genuinely witty jokes, the origin story of Beetlejuice, and several musical numbers. Other aspects of the universe's mythology also find their place, making the second film perhaps even overly familiar and predictable. However, unlike the first film, this one feels much more cohesive: all its components are harmoniously integrated, forming a coherent story about how three generations of women from one family strive to achieve mutual understanding. In this process, they are helped in some way (but more often than not, on the contrary, hindered) by both living and dead men.
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The cast of the new
Both Michael Keaton and Winona Ryder eagerly agreed to participate in the project: Keaton shared that he had dreamed of a sequel for years, and Ryder noted that her character, Lydia Deetz, had become an integral part of her life. Catherine O'Hara also reprised her role as Lydia's stepmother. The film also features an impressive cast of talented actors. The role of Astrid, Lydia's daughter, went to Jenna Ortega, who previously collaborated with Tim Burton on the series Wednesday. In this context, it's hard to imagine someone more suitable for this role than the new icon of Gothic cinema.
In this project, Ortega resembles her character from the TV series about the Addams Family: her gaze is full of a dark gleam, and her lips are compressed in a displeased grimace. Although her character does not dress in black and does not openly believe in paranormal phenomena, we can still feel it. Jeremy, Astrid's love interest, played by Arthur Conti, also evokes associations with Tyler from Wednesday, and the character development in both cases is quite similar.
Willem Dafoe plays a detective investigating an assassination attempt by a "Mr. Juice" from the afterlife. According to the plot, in his past life, he was a low-quality action actor, which allows Dafoe to happily embody all the typical cliches of the genre. Furthermore, his character has severe head injuries, as part of his skull is missing, and his brain is visible from the outside. However, after working on Yorgos Lanthimos's The Poor, the Poor, Dafoe is already accustomed to complex makeup.
One of the victims of janitor Delores was a heroine played by Danny DeVito, known for his role as the Penguin in the film "Batman Returns." The role of Beetlejuice's ex was played by Monica Bellucci, now Tim Burton's partner.
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The constituent elements of the film
Beetlejuice
Among the directors whose work influenced Tim Burton are Robert Wiene, Friedrich Murnau, and Fritz Lang. These masters of cinema created their expressive and dark films in the turbulent Germany of the 1920s and 1930s. Burton learned much from them: for example, the character Beetlejuice, with his black eyeliner and unkempt hair, recalls both the sleepwalking Cesare from Wiene's The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari and Rotwang from Lang's Metropolis. Similarly, the set design in Beetlejuice, with its distorted shapes and unusual structures, echoes the streets of Dr. Caligari.
Midway through the film, a black-and-white flashback suddenly appears, revealing Beetlejuice and Delores's backstory when they were still alive. Beetlejuice narrates the events in Italian. Interestingly, Burton chose to present this backstory in the style of black-and-white Italian horror films of the 1950s and 1960s, which are distinguished by their subtle and sometimes disjointed atmosphere, almost like hallucinations. This is also a kind of declaration of love for the work of Federico Fellini, whom Tim Burton holds in high regard. He previously compared the first Beetlejuice film to Fellini's works, noting that they also lack a clear plot. In the second film, Burton intended this scene to serve as a prologue to Fellini's film.
In the first film, Beetlejuice has the protagonist lead the Dietzes and their assembled guests into a frenzy of joy, accompanied by the melody of "Day-O (The Banana Boat Song)," a Jamaican work song similar to "Bloody Crap." The song was reimagined by Harry Belafonte in 1955 and soon became a hit. Later in the film, it is performed by a children's choir at Charles Dietz's funeral. Another tune that Beetlejuice seems to have taken a liking to is the disco version of "MacArthur Park," recorded by Donna Summer in 1978. In this scene, he makes guests sing during his spontaneous wedding to Astrid.
In the afterlife, there is also a "Soul Train", which is reminiscent of the famous American the 1970s musical television show Soul Train. In this regard, Burton does not miss the opportunity to organize a full-fledged musical number in the soul genre.
In his new film, Burton clearly draws ideas from Oscar Wilde's The Canterville Ghost. In this tale, the American ambassador's family, possessing a down-to-earth and complacent character, acquires an ancient estate and proves indifferent to the attempts of an old ghost to frighten them with blood stains and rusty chains. The only one who empathizes with the spirit is the ambassador's romantic daughter, who takes his fate to heart.
The characters created by Tim Burton are often eccentric creatures who do not find their place in the usual reality and are sensitive to unusual phenomena. For example, Lydia, played by Winona Ryder, is able to see ghosts. Her daughter Astrid is also worth mentioning. Beetlejuice is also a significant figure, also defying the strict rules of the afterlife and preferring to dalliance with the living, albeit terrifying them half to death.
According to Burton, the afterlife is remarkably reminiscent of our reality. Nevertheless, the theme of death continues to fascinate the director, and this is explained not only by his fascination with Gothic aesthetics and his habit of spending time among graves from an early age. The fact is that death represents the final transition from the familiar to the unknown, which opens the door to creativity. According to Burton, the most terrifying creatures aren't ghosts at all, but designers who decorate bourgeois interiors. As another writer once noted in his tale of the afterlife, "the housing problem only spoiled them."