But is it
kitsch? … Amy Adams as Margaret Keane in Tim Burton’s Big Eyes.
The irony of Big Eyes, Tim Burton’s film about the authorial stamp on a work
of art, is that it is nearly bereft of what makes Burton’s work so recognisable.
The deeper implications of this are a matter for Burton and his shrink, but for
us in the audience it’s a welcome recharge from a man whose last picture,
Frankenweenie, was merely a longer version of one of his earlier projects.
Big Eyes reteams Burton with screenwriters Scott Alexander and Larry
Karaszewski, who collaborated on the (dare I use the M-word?) masterpiece Ed
Wood. Both films are about a misunderstood artist, but the similarities end
there. The new film tells the strange but true story of Margaret Keane (Amy
Adams), a divorcee who arrives with her young daughter in San Francisco in the
late 1950s. She’s a bit of a mystery – women simply didn’t just up and leave
their husbands back then – but she takes great pride in her paintings. Her work,
at first mostly portraits of her daughter, takes the cute but sad form of
waif-like children with dark, enormous eyes.
Margaret finds a stable provider in Walter Keane (Christoph Waltz), a
real-estate man and “Sunday painter” of dull street scenes. What he lacks in
artistic spark he more than makes up for in loquaciousness and hucksterism. He
can’t get his or Margaret’s work exhibited in art galleries, so he works out a
deal to get the paintings shown in the Hungry I jazz club. When Walter argues
with the club owner (Jon Polito), he is fortunate enough to do so while the
press is watching. Amid the confusion, the paintings start selling and the next
thing you know, Walter is taking credit for Margaret’s work.
They don’t just sell a few portraits of “big-eyed waifs”; the paintings
become a national sensation. Despite the work being derided by serious art
critics as kitsch, Walter, with the aid of a columnist pal (Danny Huston), gets
it seen and admired by movie stars. He goes on television. The masses who can’t
afford a painting are soon buying cheaply produced posters. Even Andy Warhol
approves. Meanwhile, trapped in a darkened studio in their new googie-style
mansion, Margaret slaves away creating more “Keanes”.
The slow burn of Big Eyes is watching Margaret find the courage to confront
her husband, resulting in a fascinating, and funny, trial. Though it is set 50
years ago, Big Eyes is eerily a film of the moment. As we hear more testimonials
from the victims of Bill Cosby – himself a figure of Americana bordering on
kitsch – there are many who still refuse to take a woman’s allegations at face
value. CNN talking head Don Lemon’s ludicrous line of questioning to Joan
Tarshis lays bare the misunderstanding some people still have about abuses of
power. Margaret has her confidence and agency destroyed slowly and methodically.
Walter can stumble into his scheme, knowing that he’ll be able to rely on the
“woman’s place” argument when he needs reinforcement from a patriarchal system.
(A visit to a Roman Catholic confessional in which the priest tells Margaret to
just do as she’s told is among the more infuriating moments in the
film.)
The setting and the politics of the era are what keeps Big Eyes intriguing,
but much like the waif paintings themselves, the script isn’t exactly subtle.
There are many scenes in which we don’t so much get an insight into a
character’s thought processes through some deft observation, we get it because
the characters stand in a corridor and shout their inner conflicts at one
another. Shading from supporting players, even entertaining ones such as the
hipster gallerist (Jason Schwartzman) or the snobby New York Times art critic
(Terence Stamp), are really there to bark a point of view, and are not
gracefully threaded into the drama.
Tim Burton’s usual visual language peeks through sparingly. There’s that
fabulous house and then there are the paintings themselves, which harmonise
nicely with Burton’s established, playfully macabre iconography. Part of the
film’s problem, though, is that it’s hard to know if we should be celebrating or
laughing at Margaret’s work. Certainly we care for Margaret and the way Walter
has her trapped, but her character comes across as a cypher representing a great
number of issues without being a real individual. This movie wants to be an oil
painting, but ends up being more of a mass-produced, though good-quality
print.
Big Eyes is released in the US on Christmas Day, in the UK on Boxing Day and
19 February in Australia
