With Big Eyes being released at the end of the month, it is the perfect timing to take a look at Tim Burton’s career who started in the film industry more than 40 years ago – and that’s without including is very own DIY shorts when he was a kid. With 29 director credits, including eighteen feature films, seven shorts, three TV productions and a documentary, Burton’s has been highly prolific so far, leading a career that not only includes some great box-office successes but also creating a whole distinctive cinematic world for his characters to evolve in. Burton’s gothic touch is recognizable from miles away, wether it is in its animation feature such as A Nightmare Before Christmas (1993), Corpse Bride (2005) or in his film such as Edward Scissorhands (1990) or Sleepy Hollow (1999). Every single one of his movie focuses on misunderstood outcast and puts them in a dreamy visual landscape. Lately, his features have been coming back to his first loves, after turning his short Frankenweenie into a stop-motion feature length film, the next instalment of the director seems to be directly inspired from earlier drawing. Next genius step or mark that the director his loosing his touch, we will know on the 26th of December.
Did you know?
* The director worked as an animator on Disney’s The Fox and The Hound (1981) and The Black Cauldron (1985).
* Mr. Burton is also a published poet, The Melancholy Death of Oyster Boy and Others Story was printed in 1997 and includes the director’s own illustrations of the stories.
* Tim Burton’s drawings have been gathered into a single book called The Art of Tim Burton. They are also part of an exhibition going around the world; after New York’s MoMA and Paris’ La Cinémathèque Française, The World of Tim Burton is now showing in Tokyo’s Mori Arts Center.
Tim’s Favourites:
* The iconic Jonny Depp
* His muse and wife Helena Bonham Carter
* Danny Elfmann, who signed the soundtrack of xxx of Burton’s films.
The Film You Should Watch: Tim’s first short whilst at Disney, Vincent (1982)
Tribute to Vincent Price, the short narrates in stop-motion the story of Vincent Malloy a seven year old that mirrors his life to parts of Edgar Allan Poe’s The Raven.
