Four days of a dreamer

PostED ON OCTOBER 19 2022

With two days to go before the Lumière Award is conferred upon Tim Burton, we take an evocative look at four moments in a career like no other.

1979, interior, daytime, office at Disney. Its occupant is 21 years old and has messy hair. A gifted drawer, he joined the company dreaming of working on his own creations, of very personal inspiration, willingly macabre, since he has a fondness for horror films, Vincent Price and Edgar Poe. Instead, he is forced to draw the harmless Copper and Tod of ‘The Fox and the Hound’, not really his thing.

So, whether it is myth or reality, he passes the time: he hides in his closet, learns to sleep with his eyes open, and grinds his teeth until they bleed. A vampire in Mickey's house? Since childhood, young Timothy Burton has always felt like an alien. Fortunately, Warner has invited him to direct his first film, ‘Pee-wee’s Big Adventure’. Legend has it that Stephen King himself, after seeing Burton’s second short film, ‘Frankenweenie’, handed the tape to the studio himself. Happy endings exist even for freaks.

Tim Burton on the set of Batman, 1989

Winter 1988, interior, daytime… or night-time, we don't know anymore. Locked up in a London studio, our hero, dressed in black and with his hair in a dishevelled state, is keeping a low profile. He is barely 30 years old and is directing ‘Batman’ at a time when superhero flicks are few and far between. The pressure he is under from producers is proportionate to the massive 35-million-dollar budget. Warner's stock even dropped when the young filmmaker insisted on casting Michael Keaton, a ‘funny guy’, in the role of Batman, angering loyal fans; Burton doesn't know what to do with a soundtrack composed by Prince, while he holds on to the symphonic score of his musical pal, Danny Elfman. To make a long story short, Burton stands his ground, and is right: the movie is a box-office smash, grossing over $400 million, while remaining true to its dark romanticism. Let Burtonmania begin!

Late summer 1993, interior, daytime. Tim Burton is still in the studio, the scene is a reconstruction of a night shoot, the film within the film is by the ‘world's worst filmmaker’, aka Ed Wood, which pits an old Hungarian actor, a fallen horror star, against a rubber octopus who is trying to gesticulate as best he can. The film recounts the rambling odyssey of a pseudo-filmmaker, adept at cross-dressing, surrounded by unlikely companions: an amateur psychic, a vampire announcer, and a brutish wrestler. Together, they share a utopia of a cinema of the imaginary, even if it is meagre and campy. Tim Burton, with his wild hair, identifies with them all. The film is a magnificent ode to cinema, culminating in an imaginary scene where Ed Wood meets Orson Welles, a way of saying that, regardless of being good or bad filmmakers, they share the same passion and are in the same line of business. Johnny Depp's powerfully naive and exalted performance as Ed Wood and Martin Landau's brilliant portrayal of Bela Lugosi are unforgettable. In competition at the 1994 Cannes Film Festival, ‘Ed Wood’ went home empty-handed, and we are still cross with the jury for ignoring its auteur's ‘8 ½’.

Ed Wood, 1994 © DR

November 2009, interior, evening. The most eagerly awaited opening of the New York autumn, at the prestigious MoMA, is welcoming a creator who is hardly used to being celebrated in museums - except for a famous scene in ‘Batman’. We imagine that Tim Burton, 51 years old, as time goes by, will wear a black suit and have a messy head of hair. The exhibition devoted to his graphic work will be a colossal success: it shows the degree to which the ‘marginal’ filmmaker has become a major artist and, above all, how his work, for both live-action and animated films, all started with the stroke of his pen. He scribbles strange creatures, long-faced teenagers who look like him, monsters who have not chosen to be monstrous, poor things. These sketches are the basis of his imagination, they are found in all his movies; they are his signature. With Tim Burton more than with anyone else, cinema is first and foremost a visual art.

Aurélien Ferenczi

Screenings of the day:

Frankenweenie by Tim Burton (2012, 1h27)

Villa Lumière Wed. 19 2pm in VF

Sleepy Hollow by Tim Burton (Sleepy Hollow, 1999, 1h45, int -12ans)

Décines Wed. 19 2:30pm

Corpse Bride by Tim Burton et Mike Johnson (2005, 1h17)

UGC Confluence Wed. 19 2:30pm in VF

Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure by Tim Burton (1985, 1h31)

Cinéma Opéra Wed. 19 4:45pm

Ed Wood by Tim Burton (1994, 2h07)

UGC Confluence Wed. 19 6:30pm

Big Fish by Tim Burton (2004, 2h05)

Francheville Wed. 19 8:30pm

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Tim Burton (2005, 1h55)

Lumière Bellecour Wed. 19 8:30pm