Once Upon a Time
The story began many years ago in a town which was already filled with more than its fair share of directors, actors and film studios. The place: Burbank, California.
It was there he grew up and spent his childhood as a young boy often dreaming and creating his own imaginary world. His head was filled with a dark and mysterious curiosity regarding all that surrounded him. He was often feeling around in the darkness for a sense of direction or a sense of self but, amidst all this confusion, there stood a boy with a dream of his own – there stood Tim Burton.
Burton was a strange young man. Born to a middle-of-the-road family living in a middle-of-the-road town, he grew up with a middle-of-the-road life. Burton, however, was no middle-of-the-road guy. He was a misfit from the outset - a square peg in a round hole, a big fish in a small pond. It was only a matter of time before the young Tim Burton would break free from his confusion, turn it around, embrace it, branch out and take on the world.
In 1979 he graduated from the California Institute of the Arts and undertook his first job in animation working for Disney on the film The Fox and the Hound (1981). This was not the kind of feature Burton had in mind, and during this period, he spent much of his spare time dreaming up his own animated adventures. In Burton’s mind was a whole new world, a macabre world, a world of twisted fantasies and a distorted reality.
It was during his time with Disney that he felt a real sense of what he wanted to become. Soon he began to make his own short animated films and to express his world through his drawings. These early images were to give way to a creativity and style that is incomparably and irresolutely Burton’s signature throughout film.
But is the style, look and feel of his films due to Burton and his vision, or is it merely a reflection of the work and styles of a number of people who surround him and who have had some input into every aspect of the development process of all Burton’s movies? This begs the question – is Tim Burton an auteur or merely a marketing dream?
And So It Begins
His films predictably have a sense of the obscure running through them. The main characters are always oddballs shunned by the society which surrounds them. Much like Burton, there is a real sense of the lost boy shining through from the dark depths of Burton’s own black humour. Burton himself has been known to acknowledge that these characters bear more than a slight resemblance to himself.
Indeed, he once described film making as a very “expensive form of therapy” and continued on, confessing to being “put in the weird category” when he was younger. “Once put in there you feel like an outsider, a foreigner. I felt like a foreigner in my own country”.
Tim Burton collaborates with the same people in many of his films. Composer Danny Elfman has worked on almost every Burton film ever made. Actors Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham-Carter (to name but two) have starred in many of Burton’s films and add to the overall tone with their quirky ways and individual looks.
So, would a Burton film be a Burton film without these stereotypes? Would it work without the actors, without the music? Could Burton get the same results by using some other actor? Is he the auteur he takes credit for, or are those around him all ingredients in one big cooking pot which, when blended together, create a certain flavour?
Even when he breaks form and does something you wouldn’t naturally associate with Burton, such as when he directed the musical Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (2007), he still keeps form by working with his regular collaborators, Depp, Bonham-Carter and also producer Richard E. Zanuck, with whom he has worked with on numerous other films, such as Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005) and Big Fish (2003).
Sweeney Todd is a dark musical movie about the infamous murderous barber of Fleet Street, London, in the 19th century. Many of us heard the horror stories when we were little, and Burton brought this horror story to life, incorporating his usual macabre, spiky and twisted look at the world.
Burton the Auteur? Words from Others
Barry Grant has written numerous works on auteur, genre and authorship. He once said that, when it comes to Burton, he feels “Tim Burton is an auteur with a consistent vision from film to film. Thematically he is very concerned with fantasy and imagination. While he may not have a discernibly consistent style like, say, Jean Renoir or Orson Welles, he does work within fantasy in a fairly consistent way.”
He certainly seems to be well-received within his field with nominations for Baftas, Oscars and many more awards. Indeed, he has won several awards working in this field, and I think it only fair to acknowledge the fact that Burton has most certainly made his mark! He has made it with his own inimitable style and in his own inimitable way - and it has to be his way. His style was always so distinct and individual, even before he became a top Hollywood player.
When he was a young boy sitting in his bedroom, the drawings and characters he created were virtually the same as those he creates today. His style is so unique and so true to his own form that he is without doubt one of the finest auteurs of our lifetime.
The turning point for Burton came in 1990 with the film Edward Scissorhands. This was both his first collaboration with Johnny Depp and also Depp’s big break into the movie business. Both Burton and Depp had huge success following Edward Scissorhands, and this saw beginning of a relationship that would see Depp and Burton work together in another five movies to date.
Depp himself notes Burton as having “vision” and being able to forge his own style of “creative atmosphere.” Burton describes his fondness for Depp and says that one of the reasons for his fondness is that Depp is “weird.” Burton tells us that he sees himself in the actor, and this enables him to bring out everything he needs from Depp on screen. When asked about why he uses Depp in so many pictures, he once said Depp was a “character actor in a leading man’s body… he changes with each film.”
There is no doubt the two men are close. Depp is godfather to Burton’s son.
It almost feels as though Burton is so obscure that he searches for like-minded people who empathize with him and with whom he can work time and time again. This close-knit group would sometimes seem to become like family to him, and when they all come together under his umbrella of creativity, then the magic happens.
Edwin Page, author of Gothic Fantasy: The Films of Tim Burton, is extremely familiar with Burton’s work and with his relationships with the actors he uses over and over again.
He spoke to me of the many reasons why he considers Tim Burton to be an auteur “these include notable trademarks, such as the use of a graveyard - which is seen in Beetle Juice, Batman Returns, Corpse Bride, The Nightmare Before Christmas, Big Fish, Sleepy Hollow and other films of his. Another of his trademarks is the alteration of the film studio logo at the start of his films”.
He then goes on to talk about the feel of a Burton movie. Most people who are familiar with his films will be familiar with the “certain atmospheric which Burton tends to lend his work, usually that of the gothic. He has a tendency towards quirkiness and black humour. This atmospheric is made clear in his films Planet of the Apes (2001), Charlie & the Chocolate Factory (2005) and Alice in Wonderland (2010), both of which follow in the footsteps of previous films, but which are noticeably darker and more gothic in nature, thus Burton has brought his own style to bear.”
What Tim Did Next
With so many successes under his belt and many more to come, Tim Burton is undoubtedly one of the finest directors of our time with his very own distinctive style. If you go to see a Tim Burton film, you always know what to expect, and you are never going to be let down. He currently has two more films in progress, both of which are due out in 2012.
Tim Burton continues to thrill audiences around the globe, and we can all take comfort from knowing our insights and journeys into his dark but comforting world are not over just yet!
Sources
- Tim Burton Collective, Lumplings, (Accessed April 14, 2011).
- Kermode, M., Guardian Unlimited, Tim Burton Interviewed by Mark Kermode , (Accessed April 14, 2011).
- Internet Movie Database (IMDB),Tim Burton, (Accessed April 14, 2011).
- BBC Collective, Tim Burton Interview, (Accessed April 14, 2011).
- Salisbury, M., Burton on Burton, Revised Edition, London: Faber & Faber (2006).
- Odell, C. & Le Blanc, M., The Pocket Essential Tim Burton, UK: Pocket Essentials (2005).
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