Title: Blood Lines
Author: Richard Jordan
Publication: Total Film
Issue: April 2012
A deathly pale Johnny Depp stands on a cliff the long tails of his velvety jacket flapping wildly in the breeze. He drops to his knees at the edge, a look of confused horror across his face as he stares down into the abyss…
“CUT!”
The ground-shuddering whir of two gigantic wind machines comes to a halt and Depp gets up and dusts himself off as an army of production staff scurry onto the set, preparing for the next take. “Bella, you good?” shouts the formidable First AD from the grassy verge. There’s a short, nervous pause, before a disembodied female voice pipes up from the giant blue crashmat below… “Yeah. That was so much fun!”
It’s September 2010 and Total Film has travelled to Pinewood Studios, where Tim Burton is in the final phase of shooting his Dark Shadows — a twisted take on a cult ’60s/’70s TV favourite. Regular mucker Depp is playing Barnabas Collins, an 18th Century fish-canning magnate turned into a bloodsucker and buried by vengeful witch Angelique Bouchard (Eva Green), only to be dug up two centuries later in an alien-looking 1972. The ‘Bella’ currently scrambling to her feet, meanwhile, is Aussie actress Bella Heathcote, the young starlet playing Barnabas’ doomed (or is she?) lover, Josette DuPres.
“This scene is 200 years before the picture actually goes into full motion,” explains producer Richard D Zanuck, stepping out from behind a monitor. Dressed in crisply-pressed jeans and tucked-in, open-collared shirt with a healthy shock of white hair, the legend behind Jaws – here re-teaming with Burton for the sixth time — makes for a compelling tour guide. “She’s put in a trance and sent out there by Angelique” he continues, referring to Heathcote’s suicidal cliff jump. “Johnny jumps after her and survives… because he’s turned into a vampire.”
Descending the scaffolded cliff top with a light-footed swagger, Depp comes over to greet us with a friendly handshake, his face caked in face-whitening make-up. “Over the years all these vampire movies have come out and nobody looks like a vampire anymore.” he chuckles of his increasingly ghostly pallor. “I adored Dracula, from Bela Lugosi to Christopher Lee, Max Shreck in Nosferatu… all these wonderful horror Elms. So this was really an opportunity to sort of go into what really doesn`t exist so much anymore — that classic monster make—up.”
“It`s this idea of the sort of reluctant vampire — the tortured soul who feels at odds with the world.” chips in the animated Burton, taking a quick break from consulting with two rake-swinging set dressers on how to make sure the heath-covered cliff remains perfectly unkempt (“Just fluff it up or whatever”). Even the artists with tight black jeans a billowy black shirt and unwieldy, greying hair, the director is clearly excited to be working with Depp for the eighth time. “Johnny’s kind of a Boris Karloff or Lon Chaney-style actor” he enthuses. “There’s that whole theory of ‘mask acting’ – if you’re hiding behind a bit of make-up it allows something else to come out of you – and I find that fascinating.”
Don’t go expecting a typical ‘vampire movie’. Though… “It’s a little off-centre, like most of Tim’s pictures.” explains Zanuck. “‘This one is probably more off-centre than anything he`s ever done really; because it’s part based on a soap opera. You can`t categorise it with one word. It’s a supernatural horror comedy action picture. It`s the perfect blending of genres For Tim.”
Next, Total Film enters the cavernous entrance hall of Collinswood Manor, Barnabas’ grand, ancestral home. Huge sculptures of mermaids and sea gods line the walls and an impressive stone fireplace is flanked by two giant seahorses (a nod to the Collins` fishy legacy), while family portraits in chunky gold frames stare down from above. It’s almost typically Burton-esque, with more than a hint of Batman’s Wayne Manor in its gothic stylings.
It’s here that the undead Barnabas returns to find a whole new clan of his own descendants -including Michelle Pfeiffer’s matriarch, Cloe Grace Moretz`s rebellious hippie teen and Johnny Lee Millers ne’er-do-well uncle – with whom he must reintegrate. They’re the ultimate dysfunctional family… “What l liked about Shadows is it’s a story about family;” says Burton. “I grew up resisting family and then as l got older l realised what a strange and chaotic but important thing it is. [He has two children with his partner Helena Bonham Carter, who plays the film’s family psychiatrist Dr. Julia Hoffman.] I think all families are pretty weird…. We’ve just tried to link the supernatural elements into real issues that families face: like the feelings of a teenager growing up, when your body’s changing and you’re angry at everybody; or the challenge of trying to keep the family together – whether they’re alive or dead!”
Facing that challenge is Michelle Pfeiffer as the stoic Elizabeth Collins Stoddard. Herself a fan of the original show, Pfeiffer phoned Burton as soon as she heard he was making the film…”I was like, ‘Wow. I haven’t heard from you in like 20 years!”‘ remembers Burton, who first worked with the actress on l992`s Batman Returns. “It brought back how much I enjoyed working with her. Her Catwoman was one of my favourite performances in any movie I’d worked on. I remember how she impressed me by letting a live bird fly out of her mouth and dancing around on rooftops with high-heeled shoes. On this movie she had trouble walking down the stairs in heels, so she`s gone down on that level – but on every other level she was great!”
From where we’re standing, though, the Collins’ household isn`t looking too healthy. In the middle of the hall’s tiled floor lies the shattered fragments of a colossal chandelier, surrounded by torn curtains and scorched upholstery. Unless we’re very much mistaken, this set has played host to a destructive action set-piece… “I call that the never-ending scene!” laughs Eva Green, the one-time Bond girl who stars as Barnabas centuries-old magical nemesis, Angelique. “It’s a complicated scene mid we filmed it for many weeks. They called it the battle royale! It’s her and Barnabas having a domestic. I was on wires and Johnny was making fun of me because he knew I`n1 scared of heights. But yeah, we just beat each other up — it was very funny.”
You’re not bored yet?” asks Depp with a wry smile, patting us on the shoulder. Not at all. Total Film has reached our final destination: Collinsport, Maine — a fictional ’70s fishing town created in staggering detail atop a platform surrounding Pinewood’s gargantuan outdoor water tank (here doubling as a boat-filled harbour). It’s a little slice of vintage America; the streets are lined with muscular Mustangs and brightly coloured Plymouths: retro Coca-Cola signs hang over the drugstores and bars: the ‘Crusty Claw’ cafe advertises its “freshly boiled crab and lobster” on authentically scrawled chalk boards. It’s here that Barnabas and Angelique’s rival fish-canning factories sit, looming, at opposite ends of the port…
The film’s period setting is in fact a nod to its origins, Dork Shadows aired from 1966 to 1971 in the States and became a cult hit thanks to bizarre storylines, wobbly sets and campy melodrama. “I remember sprinting home from school to see it.” laughs Depp, who bought the rights to the show through his own production company before tempting Burton on board. “I loved it – this soap opera with gothic vampires. Jonathan Frid [the original Barnabas] was such a striking presence — there’s a sliver of him here.”
‘There are other inspirations to be found, too. As Total Film walks through the streets of Collinsport, we spot the magnificent ‘Roxy’ theatre sporting a poster for Dracula AD. I972 — a Hammer ‘classic’ in which Christopher Lee’s ancient Count is unleashed on swinging London. “I showed the DOP and the cast The Legend Of Hell House and Dracula 72 — they were the only two reference points we used.” says Burton (he neglected to show the uninitiated cast any Shadows episodes for fear they would ape the “terrible acting”). “Hammer’s always been popular to me — the trend started when I was five years old and those inspirations stay with you. Those movies are the reason why I like making movies.”
Still, even Burton acknowledges that Shadows was a tough sell to the studio — but does he think it will be a tough sell to audiences in a summer full of superheroes and sequels? “Oh probably, yeah. I never know, honestly,” he admits matter-of-factly. “Any novel ever made could have gone either way. One of my favourites, Ed Wood, was the biggest bomb I ever made. I never try to predict. I learned early on — I’d done a couple of movies like Beetlejuice and Batman and I thought I could do whatever I wanted, and then Edward Scissorhands was the hardest movie ever to get made. Up until a few years ago, if I said I wanted to use Johnny in a movie it was like ‘Er, I don’t know…’ and now they beg you to use him. So things change, but I still get notes like, ‘Ooh, that’s a bit dark.’ I got that on Batman and now that looks like a light-hearted romp!”
