Thoughts on Tim Burton's "The Nightmare Before Christmas" (1993)

Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993) is a Halloween classic for many people. Not a cult classic, but a classic nonetheless. While perhaps there is some wariness from the intellectual cohort, whomever they may be at any given time, saying things like “The Nightmare Before Christmas is the most overrated Halloween movie” etc. etc., I think the film deserves some thought. Indeed, much more thought.

I saw the film in the movie theater with my father when I was six years old. I was absolutely fascinated. For one thing, the animation in this film was like nothing I’d ever seen before. Contrary to the flat, two-dimensional animations of Disney’s princess movies, The Nightmare Before Christmas’s use of stop-motion animation added something almost tactile to my experience, really honing in an idea of the man-made, the creation and the creator, and the idea of building, which, I think, are all thematic components of the film itself.

Moreover, the film isn’t quite scary. It is a smart film, and children rarely get to see smart films which draw so much direct attention to the uncanny, and where the uncanny is not directly associated with evil. We all know Jack, the King of Halloween Town. And Sally and the doctor and the Mayor, and all the other citizens of Halloween Town. Although they like to scare people out of their wits, it is not a malicious violence, but something playfully disturbing instead. And furthermore, the story presents these characters as naïve, unaware of any world outside of their own, making them seem innocent and unworldly. To be presented with characters in a film such as this, that aren’t quite aware of the difference between right and wrong, is a refreshing thing for a child to see, especially when it’s explicit content is the ugly, the evil, the menacing, and the grotesque. These are characters disturbing and troubling, yes, but not so much what we can really pinpoint as evil.

It’s important to focus on Jack. Jack, feeling truly depressed after serving as the Pumpkin King of Halloween for many years, begins to dig deep to find out the source of his depression. He sings about it, and from his song we learn that Jack is tired of the sameness every year, the same actions and reactions, the same joke over and over again. I find his lyrics moving, and there’s a reason why his song is titled Jack’s Lament:

There are few who'd deny, at what I do I am the best

For my talents are renowned far and wide

When it comes to surprises in the moonlit night

I excel without ever even trying

With the slightest little effort of my ghostlike charms

I have seen grown men give out a shriek

With the wave of my hand, and a well-placed moan

I have swept the very bravest off their feet.

Yet year after year, it's the same routine

And I grow so weary of the sound of screams

And I, Jack, the Pumpkin King

Have grown so tired of the same old thing…

Oh, somewhere deep inside of these bones

An emptiness began to grow

There's something out there, far from my home

A longing that I've never known

I'm a master of fright, and a demon of light

And I'll scare you right out of your pants

To a guy in Kentucky, I'm Mister Unlucky

And I'm known throughout England and France!

And since I am dead, I can take off my head

To recite Shakespearean quotations -

No animal nor man can scream like I can

With the fury of my recitations.

But who here would ever understand

That the Pumpkin King with the skeleton grin

Would tire of his crown, if they only understood

He'd give it all up if he only could

Oh, there's an empty place in my bones

That calls out for something unknown

The fame and praise come year after year

Does nothing for these empty tears…

How can one not feel some sort of sympathy for a creature so obviously stuck in a place that he is sick of? It is not so much a yearning for something more, but instead, a yearning of new knowledge: there’s got to be something besides this, Jack seems to say. It is the fact that his world has lost all meaningfulness because it has become such a routine, something that has come to the point, for him, of going through the motions.

For those that have seen the movie, we know that Jack walks far enough from Halloween town one night, stuck in a daze of melancholy. And we know that he finds the circle of trees, each one with a different door symbolic of the holiday within. He happens to fall through the door with an evergreen tree on it, representing Christmas Town. And, as anyone would be, he becomes full of wonder and awe as he sees happiness, snow, joyous creatures, in-tune song, bright lights, presents, ornaments, and Santa Claus. He becomes determined to figure out how to bring the feeling – wonder and awe – back with him to Halloween Town.

This next part I find fascinating. Jack, in good spirits, attempts to explain Christmas Town to the citizens of Halloween Town, and any child would even know that something is well, not quite right. The citizens think that presents are supposed to be surprises full of dead animals, limbs off of human carcasses… read on:

[JACK]
Listen, there were objects so peculiar
They were not to be believed
All around, things to tantalize my brain
It's a world unlike anything I've ever seen
And as hard as I try
I can't seem to describe
Like a most improbable dream
But you must believe when I tell you this
It's as real as my skull and it does exist
Here, let me show you
This is a thing called a present
The whole thing starts with a box
[DEVIL]
A box?
is it steel?
[WEREWOLF]
Are there locks?
[HARLEOUIN DEMON]
Is it filled with a pox?
[DEVIL, WEREWOLF, HARLEQUIN DEMON]
A pox
How delightful, a pox
[JACK]
If you please
Just a box with bright-colored paper
And the whole thing's topped with a bow
[WITCHES]
A bow?
But why?
How ugly
What's in it?
What's in it?
[JACK]
That's the point of the thing, not to know
[CLOWN]
It's a bat
Will it bend?
[CREATURE UNDER THE STAIRS]
It's a rat
Will it break?
[UNDERSEA GAL]
Perhaps its the head that I found in the lake
[JACK]
Listen now, you don't understand
That's not the point of Christmas land
Now, pay attention
we pick up an oversized sock
And hang it like this on the wall
[MR. HYDE]
Oh, yes! Does it still have a foot?
[MEDIUM MR. HYDE]
Let me see, let me look
[SMALL MR. HYDE]
Is it rotted and covered with gook?
[JACK]
Hmm, let me explain
There's no foot inside, but there's candy
Or sometimes it's filled with small toys
[MUMMY AND WINGED DEMON]
Small toys
[WINGED DEMON]
Do they bite?
[MUMMY]
Do they snap?
[WINGED DEMON]
Or explode in a sack?
[CORPSE KID]
Or perhaps they just spring out
And scare girls and boys
[MAYOR]
What a splendid idea
This Christmas sounds fun
Why, I fully endorse it
Let's try it at once
[JACK]
Everyone, please now, not so fast
There's something here that you don't quite grasp
Well, I may as well give them what they want
And the best, I must confess, I have saved for the last
For the ruler of this Christmas land
Is a fearsome king with a deep mighty voice
Least that's what I've come to understand
And I've also heard it told
That he's something to behold
Like a lobster, huge and red
And sets out to slay with his rain gear on
Carting bulging sacks with his big great arms
That is, so I've heard it's said
And on a dark, cold night
Under full moonlight
He flies into a fog
Like a vulture in the sky
And they call him Sandy Claws
Well, at least they're excited
Though they don't understand
That special kind of feeling in Christmas land
Oh, well...

Jack “gets” it even in some small way: that’s the point of the thing, not to know – he says, when describing what the present is. And there he hits the jackpot, maybe the point, for him too, is to not get so caught up in the meaning of Christmas in order to recreate it, but instead, to enjoy the feeling he received when he experienced it for himself, if only for a short while. But he doesn’t get this, and oh how sorry I felt and still feel upon watching him borrow the Doctor’s supplies and tools and then try to run experiments on the objects, looking for the meaning of Christmas by first reading “the Scientific Method” then trying to analyze a snowglobe or an ornament! The problem with studying these objects is that they are simply visions, nothing more; creations, similar to the ones in Halloween Town, meant to celebrate a holiday, whose meaning itself, must be found out through story and myth.

Jack, who ends up ruining Christmas as he tries to “help” Sandy Claws (even as he tries to fully immerse himself in Christmas Town, he can’t quite relinquish his innate need for the horrific and thus names “Santa Claus”, “Sandy Claws”), finally realizes that he’s made a huge mistake:

[JACK]
What have I done?
What have I done?
How could I be so blind?
All is lost, where was I?
Spoiled all, spoiled all
Everything's gone all wrong
What have I done?
What have I done?
Find a deep cave to hide in
In a million years they'll find me
Only dust and a plaque
That reads, "Here Lies Poor Old Jack"
But I never intended all this madness, never
And nobody really understood, well how could they?
That all I ever wanted was to bring them something great
Why does nothing ever turn out like it should?
Well, what the heck, I went and did my best
And, by God, I really tasted something swell
And for a moment, why, I even touched the sky
And at least I left some stories they can tell, I did
And for the first time since I don't remember when
I felt just like my aold bony self again
And I, Jack, the Pumpkin King
That's right, I am the Pumpkin King, ha, ha, ha
And I just can't wait until next Halloween
'Cause I've got some new ideas
that will really make them scream
And, by God I'm really gonna give it all my might
Uh oh, I hope there's still time to set things right
sandy Claws, hmm

And yes, we know that Jack wasn’t malicious, he didn’t want to ruin anything, he just wanted to have a bit of fun, so we forgive him. And we are happy that he realizes, that yes, he did “taste something swell”, he did “touch the sky”, and he did create “some stories they can tell”. And there again, he hits the jackpot: it’s the story, in the end, that creates the most wonderful feeling of all, and it does not have to produce meaning – it does not have to produce any object at all – but instead wonder and awe in the vision itself.

- F