Alone and Tormented: Tim Burton's Vincent

    Anyone who knows Tim Burton well, might know that his first short film was his own poem adapted into a story called, Vincent. It's a stop-motion animated film that was made in black and white. Even though it is between five and six minutes, Vincent is a very entertaining short worthy of being watched over and over again. 

      Vincent Maloy is seven years old. He's always polite and does what he's told. For a boy his age he's considerate and nice. But he wants to be just like Vincent Price. There you have it. In his first short film comes Tim Burton's poem about a little boy named Vincent. This young man loves all things dark and spooky, including Edgar Allen Poe. But will his passion for things of that kind drive poor  Vincent out of his mind?

    Vincent is an interesting watch because it makes you try to put yourself in Vincent's shoes. You might try to imagine what it's like to feel Vincent's kind of madness and you wonder if he really was tormented by it. In the film his mother tells him that, "You're not possessed and you are not almost dead. These games that you play are all in your head." One opinion on Youtube that I heard suggested that Vincent is schizophrenic. I found this to be an excellent idea as far as mental illness goes, but Vincent doesn't quite show the symptoms of schizophrenia.  

     So Vincent is interesting, but is that what makes it entertaining? There are a few factors. First of all, you have the great narration of Vincent Price himself. Price along with his voice was well suited to this kind of story and told it like no one could have. His voice had feeling and created some of the foreboding extremely well. Secondly, the part that seems to be the most engaging and exciting is the ending scene. Truthfully, it's very intense in which Vincent becomes overwhelmed by "every horror in his life." "Overwhelmed" might be an understatement. That word is one way to put it, but for Vincent it appeared to be a nightmare that he could not survive.

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