A Belated Christmas Present: “Tim Burton’s Nightmare before Christmas - The Film, The Art, The Vision”

To begin with, Tim Burton’s Nightmare before Christmas: The Film, The Art, The Vision is a great book that shows all the artistic stuffs behind the birth of the greatest and the most artistic Christmas movie ever made, Nightmare before Christmas. I won’t give detailed information about the story of the film because I believe most—if not all—of you already know about it. (Well, if you don’t know yet, you can read it here.)

Nightmare before Christmas is a one-of-a-kind beauty, with an extraordinary artwork. It’s a stop motion animation movie that uses clay puppets as the actors and though I don’t know how many frames are there per second, I believe it took a long, long, tiring process for the crew to move the puppets and take the pictures. And how many faces should they make for each puppet of the characters to present all emotions and dialogues in the movie?



The characters in the story are so unconventional and definitely “un-Christmas-esque.” Like Jack Skellington, the prince charming of the Halloween Town who gets so bored of trick-or-treating business and wants to try something new as doing the job of Sandy Claws (Santa Claus). There’s also the Frankensteinish girl, Sally, the only person who understands Jack and foresees that Jack’s mission to “serve” Christmas will only cause a mess. There are still many others like the Halloween Mayor, the Evil Scientist, and of course Oggie Boogie.

The art in Nightmare before Christmas is fascinating, delicious if I may say. Though it’s directed by Henry Selick (Coraline), the taste of Tim Burton’s cinematographic style is still very apparent in the movie. It still shows the gothic nuance though not as haunting and gloomy as Sleepy Hollow or Edward Scissorhands, but in my opinion this film is a little bit darker than Corpse Bride.
The design of the characters and the environment of the Halloween Town are amusingly creepy. Of course nobody will address them as pretty, but they do look amusing (if not funny) and beautiful. And that’s what this book is all about. This book shows how each character and setting was built from scraps, literally, until finally they “acted” and are used in the filming process of the scenes.

There will be no end in discussing the artistic works and achievements of this movie, like the gorgeous catchy scores composed by Danny Elfman (Tim Burton’s Batman, Simpson theme) that are sang by the characters in the movie. It will be difficult to explain them all and the only way to catch all of those beauties is simply by watching the movie.
Frank Thompson didn’t write this book to present the wonderful magic of the movie. He wrote this book so everyone can see that the movie is a great artistic project. For me, Nightmare before Christmas is one of the most artistic movies I ever watch, and I wanna show it to you. That’s why I give this book as a (belated) Christmas present. So, enjoy!

DOWNLOAD THE FREE EBOOK HERE.

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