Features typical of the expressionist style
Special features, narrative elements, style, codes and conventions, symbolism, lighting, character type.
Deeper meaning cultural context, political and social
Values and attitues and ideologies
Edward Scissorhands is one of the movies that is influenced by German Expressionism.
Burton uses his artistic reputation to adapt the structure and conventions of the traditional fairyatale to a contemporary American, suburban setting. Burton sets his story in a contemporary American suburb. He has given each generation represented in Edward Scissorhands its own system of symbolic shorthand representing the different ears they grew up in, different times associated with different tasted, each expressing a particular aestheic. The parents generation is characterized by familiar 50’s and 60’s icons; the confromist, consumer-led boom of those years represented by lava lamps, functional interiors and social rituals like the barbecue. The surrealist elements of expressionism can be seen in the setting. All the houses in the town are built in the same consistent shapes, arranged nearly along the entire road with their pastel palletes. The castle is dark, curved. There are also some trees with no leaves. All these unnatural realities is one of the styles of German Expressionism.
German Expressionism was an artistic movement that preceded World War 1 in Germany, and culminated in the 1920’s with Expressionist cinema. It was an extremely influential genre that showed cinema could be an art form, not just a source of