Esteva - Sleepy Hollow

     

     After watching Tim Burton's film Sleepy Hollow and reading Irving's story, in which the movie is based, I came to the conclusion that Burton only utilizes the name of the character and the main phenomenon of the story – The Headless Rider. 
      One of the most notable examples of how Tim Burton only uses the name of the characters is which the main character of both, the movie and the story, Ichabod Crane. In the film Ichabod Crane is a man from the city who believes completely and without any doubt in reasoning, facts and evidence, which is completely opposite to what the story says. In Irving's story Ichabod Crane is a school teacher who spends most of his time surrounded by children and old women making stories about supernatural things like ghosts. This past statement obviously shows how these two same characters are entirely different in most aspects. Nevertheless, even though one could say these two characters are completely different they both share the main event in the story and the film, the visit to Sleepy Hollow. In Irving's story it develops differently to how it does in Tim Burton's film, but it still is the same main event in which the entire plot grows around. 
      Another difference between the story and the film is that in the film Tim Burton provides a back story for Ichabod Crane. In my opinion doing this he allows the audience to become more involved with the character and why he is the way he is. For instance, when Ichabod starts telling the story about what happen to her mother, the awful way she died, it becomes understandable to the audience why he it is so important to find out what really happened to each person and find out the real responsible for each murderer or situation. 

       It is also worth mentioning that in the book Ichabod Crane is kind of rejected by the town's people. The only people that completely accept him are the children and the old women, in contrast to TIm Burton's film were he has different kinds of relationships with various people. For example, one of his most important relationships in the film is with Katrina Van Tassel with who he is in love with. In the film Katrina, after a few ups and downs, she returns his love and the two of them end up together in the city. Nevertheless, in the story Katrina decides to stay with Brom Van Brunt, the typical small town hero. In my opinion, this specific situation seems rather interesting because in most of his movies Burton focuses on rejection. But in Sleepy Hollow he decided to let the main character fall in love and stay with the girl, opposite to movies like Batman where he always ends up alone at the end.