BOY IN THE DARK

With an emphasis on production design as much as storytelling, the films of Tim Burton are studies in chiaroscuro. Perhaps no other director in the Technicolor age has worked so definitively in a monochromatic palette, setting his protagonists adrift amid dark shadows and shades of gray, reserving the more vivid colors to subvert the bleakness of his vision. Case in point: the terrifying pastel suburbia of his 1990 romance Edward Scissorhands, which stars Johnny Depp as Burton’s prototypical loner, untouchable, unwanted and unloved until he is adopted by the Avon lady and enchanted by her daughter. The Kansas City Public Library celebrates Burton with its free film series “An Attraction to the Horrific,” presented at the Central Library (14 West 10th Street, 816-701-3400). Edward Scissorhands screens today at 1:30; upcoming films, showing on Saturdays through Halloween, include Sleepy Hollow, Corpse Bride and Sweeney Todd. For more information, see kclibrary.org.

Saturdays, 1:30 p.m. Starts: Oct. 3. Continues through Oct. 31, 2009