“We all end up the remains of the day…”
In 2005, Tim Burton returned to the world of stop-motion with Corpse Bride, a delightfully macabre companion piece to The Nightmare Before Christmas featuring the voice talents of Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter, Emily Watson, Richard E. Grant, and Christopher Lee.
A rapturous showcase for the director’s ghoulish and whimsical sensibilities, the film (now streaming on Peacock) has since become a staple throughout the “spooky” month that is October.
Rather ironic, considering the plot of a young man who unwittingly finds himself married to a dead woman was inspired by a 16th century folktale straight out of Jewish tradition, which typically does not celebrate the pagan-inspired Halloween. Nevertheless, Judaism boasts its fair share of supernatural yarns to tell in the dark, many of which are collected in Howard Schwartz‘s 1991 book, Lilith’s Cave.
Tim Burton’s Corpse Bride was inspired by this Jewish ghost story
The legend that eventually led to Corpse Bride is titled “The Finger,” which Schwartz attributes to the life and times of famed Kabbalist, Isaac Luria (sometimes known as the Arizal), who made a career out of studying and teaching Jewish mysticism.
As the story goes, a betrothed young man named Reuven was walking in the forest with two friends one night when they came upon a root-like finger sticking out the ground. In jest, Reuven placed the ring intended for his bride on the appendage and recited the traditional Hebrew vow said by a Jewish groom on his wedding day: “Harei at mekudeshet li” (Behold, thou art betrothed unto me). Much to the trio’s surprise, however, a dead woman “wearing a tattered shroud” suddenly rose up from the earth and exclaimed, “My husband!”
Mazel Tov.
The terrified men ran all the way back to their town, determined to take the incident to their own graves. But on the day of Reuven’s real wedding, the corpse showed up to object, prompting the officiating rabbi to intervene and find a way to annul the accidental union between the living and the dead.
According to Schwartz’s recounting, the rabbi ultimately succeeded by arguing several points, one of them being that there was “no precedent for a claim on the living by the dead.” The corpse bride let out an unearthly shriek before returning to her usually-dead state, upon which the rabbi ordered the remains to be buried, “with proper ritual and at a greater depth,” so as to avoid a repeat of the incident in future.
“It tells us, ‘Be careful, don’t ever take an oath in vain,” Peninnah Schram, a professional Jewish storyteller and now-retired professor of speech and drama at Stern College in New York told Jewish Journal of the folktale’s moral in 2005. “‘Don’t take it lightly.’”
John August, one of the three credited screenwriters on Corpse Bride, explained to the outlet that the Jewish elements were removed “because Tim gravitates toward universal, fairy-tale qualities in his films.”
Tim Burton’s Corpse Bride is now streaming on Peacock!
