Some directors have a muse; not just the kind that inspires them to think about film, but one that inspires them to craft entire productions around them. Sometimes it is a wife or girlfriend, other times it is someone whose talent they simply admire. Hell, sometimes it is just a close friend who gets them thinking about film in a certain way and it brings them to include them in a number of films. Rarely do these relationships last forever, but when they do they can be magic. John Ford and his star John Wayne. Jimmy Stewart and Alfred Hitchcock. Clint Eastwood and then wife Sondra Locke. Kevin Smith and Jason Mewes.
Okay, so maybe they aren’t ALL magic. But many can be pretty great. Right now we have two world class directors who seem dead set on shooting movies *only* if they can star their current muses. Two such directors, and by some accounts the worst offenders, are Martin Scorsese and Tim Burton.
Scorsese seems to have his love of his muse mostly under control. Leonardo DiCaprio is a fantastic actor, one of the best out there, and seems to fit seamlessly into the various worlds Scorsese likes to set his films in. Often referred to as Scorsese’s new Di Niro, Marty has featured Leo in every single one of his feature films since 2002’s Gangs of New York. Each time DiCaprio has stepped into the role of the protagonist ranging from the upstart street thug in gangs to Howard Hughes in The Aviator, followed by the role of an undercover cop in too deep in The Departed and now as a federal marshal on the trail of an escaped mental patient in the wildly successful Shutter Island. With Dicaprio, Scorsese has found an actor with an immense amount of versatility as well as one willing to plumb the depths of his soul to play some pretty grim characters who are forced to make gut wrenching personal choices; and DiCaprio brings it every time.
But what of Tim Burton? Many have argued that he has taken his love of Jonny Depp a tad bit too far. First having worked with him on Edward Scissorhands 20 years ago, the two have teamed up seven times in a number of ever more strange productions that seem to polarize audiences and critics more and more with each passing picture. With Ed Wood the two seemed to craft something special and unique, capturing the essence of a legendary Hollywood figure while serving up an immensely entertaining film. But since then, they’ve made a series of misfires ranging in popularity. Sleepy Hollow was a cool movie that simply fell flat, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory was a fun but bizarre film that divided audiences, and The Corpse Bride felt hollow and failed to contain the magic of the Burton produced Henry Selick classic, The Nightmare Before Christmas. Sweeny Todd proved to be a film that audiences enjoyed, but fans of the musical loathed – arguing that Depp was no singer and was flat the entire time.
Now Burton/Depp are together again, this time with a sequel to Alice in Wonderland strangely titled Alice in Wonderland, but many are jokingly referring to as Mad Hatter: The Movie! Eschewing the original story for the sake of one set years later as Alice returns to Wonderland, the film more prominently features Depp’s titular Mad Hatter – a minor character in the original work. Making matters stranger still is that Burton has digital altered Depp’s eyes to make him look…different. And by different I mean…to look exactly like Elijah Wood. Which makes one wonder: why not just hire Elijah? He’s pretty good.
Will this bizarre outing work? And how many more of these re-teamings will we see – or will audiences tolerate before griping?
