Burton incorporates much of the scenery of the story into
the film. It’s harvest season and everyone is preparing himself or herself for
winter. The city is filled with ghost stories and folklore, but the people of
the town are not mentioned too often in the story unlike the movie. A striking
difference between the story and the film is that Burton seems to take a more
dark approach to the atmosphere. He keeps the season the same, but there is a
much more eerie feeling to the town than in the story. The main character’s names are,
generally speaking, all the same, but the plot line is drastically different as
most of you probably noticed. Burton goes with a more murder-mystery like
approach where as in the original story there is more of a folktale approach.
One thing that I really enjoyed about Burton’s take on the story is that he
adds a second element of the supernatural through Katrina’s stepmother. The
Headless Horseman’s character is mysterious enough, but I really liked how
there was also an explanation behind why he cuts off people’s heads.
 |
| The town of Sleepy Hollow |
Burton
was trying to do more with Irving’s story, which is why he added so many
different elements to it. Perhaps Burton though that Irving’s ideas were good,
but that they needed some more background information and explanation. The Legend of Sleepy Hollow is a classic
horror story and I’m really happy that Burton decided to take his spin on it.
Johnny Depp was amazing as always, but I think that a certain element was
missing from not going by the original description of Ichabod Crane. Like I
said, Depp’s performance was amazing, but I think that if Burton maybe wanted
to win people over a little more, he should have gone by the original description
of Crane and made him less scientific minded and more greedy since in the
original story he just wants to marry Katrina for her land so he can turn
around and make a profit on it.
The
two stories are both well done for what they are and if you try to compare one
to the other it’s understandable why people might be dissatisfied or confused,
but something that needs to be remembered is that Burton was not trying to do
an exact remake of the story, he was just trying to fill in some background
information while adding a bit of his own flare.
I especially liked your point about how Burton chose to focus less on the people of the town than Washington Irving’s short story. The background of the town and the depiction of its inhabitants were a major focus in the original story. However, Burton does not depict the average day people like fish market men’s wives and schoolboys but, instead, the people in power. The only people that he develops other than the central characters are the people in the high court and authorities. I think Burton made this decision consciously to create commentary on the way that the system worked at the time. If not how the system worked at the time, how the system was starting to work at the beginning of the new century in the city. Comparing who Burton developed the most in his story with who Irving developed the most helps viewers notice the shift from nature and towns to the city and the shift from townspeople to city officials that was underway.
ReplyDelete-Leanne Reisz