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layfully creepy, undeniably fascinating and instantly recognizable. The style of director Tim Burton is as unique as a fingerprint, with the lasting impression of a fingerprint left in blood. Each of his films is unmistakable. The bizarre toy-box coloured journey through a child-like fantasy. The fadedpastel suburbia of a youth with scissors for hands. An infectious neon-Gothic carnival of the afterlife. Batman and Joker brought to the big screen with an appropriate blend of dark reverence and whimsical terror. He's a fan of Bollywood, Johnny Depp is the godfather of his son, and he has a thing for featuring dismembered or dead dogs in his films.
the early years
Timothy Walter Burton was born August 25, 1958. Growing up in the typical 1950s American suburb of Burbank, California, he never quite fit in with the shiny, happy, popular people of his neighbourhood. He did not do well in school, nor did he retreat to the solace of books. Rather, he painted, drew and enjoyed monster movies. He loved Godzilla , idolized matinee actor Vincent Price, and adored the Hammer Film Production horror films of that era such as The Curse of Frankenstein , Dracula and The Mummy . The work of master stopmotion and special effects artist Ray Harryhausen on The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms and The 7th Voyage of Sinbad , would inspired him to shoot his own crude stop-motion animation films in his back yard. “Vincent Price, Edgar Allen Poe, those monster movies, those spoke to me”, said Burton. The culmination of his interests led to his enrolment in the California Institute of the Arts after graduating High School, then on to Disney where he worked uncredited as an animator on films like The Fox and the Hound and TRON . While working in the 30
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concept art department at Disney, Burton befriended Rick Heinrichs, who then produced Burton's first short film Vincent and then his first life-action short Frankenweenie . It was after actor Paul Rubens saw Frankenweenie, that he chose Burton to direct the cinematic spin-off of his fictional stage act character, Pee-Wee Herman . It was this break, directing a movie about a man-child's eternal love for his bicycle, that set Burton on his way towards becoming one of the most noticeable directors in film.
Burton & Film
“Movies are like an expensive form of therapy for me”, says Burton, who’s been going to his particular brand of therapy for almost three decades now. Here is a quick rundown of Burton’s directorial therapy sessions throughout the years (films he only produced have been omitted, with one exception):
1980s: His first film, Vincent (1982) (http://goo.
gl/cwTA) is a five-minute black and white stop-motion movie based on a poem he wrote as a child (http:// goo.gl/yNf6), depicting a young boy who fantasizes that he is his idol Vincent Price (who provided the narration himself). A parody and homage to the 1931 film Frankenstein , Burton's second film Frankenweenie (1984) follows a young boy named Victor who liked to make movies starring his dog, Sparky, who gets hit by a car. Victor reanimates Sparky after learning about electrical impulses in school, and the angry-mob affront-to-god trope plays out in full, yet with a happy ending. Burton’s first feature-film, Pee-wee's Big Adventure (1985) is also his first partnership with Danny Elfman. Burton put in every type of scene possible in film, while Elfman matched each one with appropriate music, treading diverse musical waters. Beetlejuice (1988), a blend of bizarre horror and jan 2010
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