“We miss him, he’s here.” it is with these words that Thierry Frémaux greeted Tim Burton last October when he came to Lyon to receive the Lumière prize. A prestigious award for a director loved by all, whose films have shaken several generations. The movies, however, are less and less successful. So much so that, for many of his fans, Tim Burton has become a shadow of himself.
Some years ago, Albert Dupontel played Tim Burton as “a poet lost in Hollywood”. Today he seems more lost than ever, and less and less a poet. The golden age of him (Edward Scissorhands, batman the challenge Y ed wood) is far behind him. “Like joseph dante (gremlins), couldn’t pass the milestone of the 2000s,” laments cameraman Meeea. If his films still make money, they no longer arouse unanimity. Worse still, as soon as they are released, they are already forgotten.
The return of Tim Burton this Wednesday on Netflix with Wednesday, a series of which he is not the creator, and of which he has directed only four episodes, is done through the back door, with a touch of bitterness for his fans. Burton had already refused thirty years ago to transpose the addams family in the cinema, “for fear of doing the obvious”, recalls the journalist Julien Dupuy, co-author of a file on batman challenge in review rockyrama. “It’s quite ironic and sad that he would do that today.”
With its ersatz appearancenew adventures of sabrina, Wednesday it offers no form of redemption to Tim Burton. The series, by contrast, reminds us, often painfully, of getting stuck in the early 2000s, between Danny Elfman’s soundtrack repeating that of his previous films and the generic of the series that recalls that of Spiderman (2002) by Sam Rami.
“Burton was never a great director”
Although Tim Burton renounced any artistic ambitions in Wednesdayvideographer Vesper doesn’t see this as a sign of their decline: “It’s quite common for many directors whose name has been attached to series to only direct a few episodes themselves, for example like David Fincher with mind hunteror Baz Luhrmann with the go down to recite no one but them.”
“The sign that his career is at the end of its rope is simply the quality of his latest feature films. Sweeney Todd (2007) although each one places the cursor a little differently”, continues the specialist. For many, Tim Burton’s decline began in the mid-1990s, after the release of Mars attacks! (nineteen ninety six).
“It’s a movie that I really like, but it doesn’t have much to say. It is no longer inhabited”, laments Julien Dupuy. “Since Mars attacks!it just tries to float by continuing with the projects that don’t really matter,” adds Meeea, who sees in sleepy Hollow (1999) “his swan song” and in big fish (2003) “his last personal film”.
Perhaps Tim Burton, despite his undeniable qualities as a director, is not as brilliant as his fans have believed. “Burton has never been a great director,” admits Julien Dupuy. “If a filmmaker is someone who handles film linguistics admirably, it has never been fatal from this point of view.”
“Now Run”
Even Tim Burton shares this analysis. His favorite film from his filmography is Mr. Jack’s Strange Christmasa work whose story and designs he himself imagined, but which was directed by another, Henry Selick: “My films, I like them all, even the ugliest ones. There is one that I like a little more than the others, it is Mr. Jack’s Strange Christmasbecause it looks exactly like what I wanted to do.”
A joke that reveals the pride of the visionary director, “destabilized” according to Julien Dupuy by “the discovery that others were able to make of Burton”. “She’s also his biggest goose, so it was obvious that he’s quoting him,” Vesper analyzes. We can also see the symbol of Tim Burton’s resignation, broken by his experience in Planet of the Apes (2001) and its remakes ofAlicia (2011) and Dumbo (2019).
“The current studio model (and this matters to Netflix as well) doesn’t really fit very well with ‘visionary’ directors,” says Meeea. “You just have to see what various people like John McTiernan, Jean Pierre Jeunet, Martin Scorsese are saying. [sur l’absence de prise de risque des studios]. So now he’s running.”
“Burton has always had a rather complicated relationship with Disney worthy of a roller coaster of on and off, failure and success (Taram and the magic cauldron, Alicia, Dumbo),” explains cameraman Vesper. “He also said he no longer wanted to work with them when they asked him if he was tempted to do a Marvel. He may have become both cynical and tired about everything. Chaining the big machines clearly didn’t help.”
“The impression that he was spitting in my face”
Tim Burton was also a victim of his own obsessions. Quickly rising from the fringes to the top of Hollywood, the director soon realized what he stood for. “His best film of his is still batman challengebecause it’s a film that escapes him,” says Julien Dupuy. “As soon as he makes a film about Ed Wood [un réalisateur de série Z, NDLR]Even if it’s a masterpiece, there’s something that’s broken.”
“As soon as there was acceptance of who he was and what he did, the old me no longer had a reason to exist,” continues the specialist. “Then the worst thing that could happen to him happened: becoming a brand. That was everything he was built against when he was a kid.” And for the first fans of him, it was a great shock. first with big fishwhere Burton “celebrates a certain normative life”.
The real snub happened later with his adaptation of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005). “I had the impression that he was spitting in my face. You can’t make a movie like that without being drenched in cynicism. There is a vengeful impulse towards his characters, coupled with a systematic desire for self-citation”, outraged Julien Dupuy. “Some of his movies are my favorites, but I don’t like what he’s become.”
Wednesday suffers the same deficiencies when immersing her heroine in a universe as strange as she is, laments Meeea: “What is the use of having a character like Wednesday if you put her in a universe where everyone is like her? It is seeing her evolve in a world that is out of tune. If they’re all the same, it’s probably not interesting.”
A director who has become a parody of himself
when it is prepared Planet of the ApesTim Burton turns to the great make-up artist Rick Baker, known in particular for his work on the video clip for suspense. Rick Baker declines the offer, stating that he refuses to want to do “Tim Burton jumpsuits.” “It was the first time I heard that and it was terrible because it meant that he had created his own standard,” recalls Julien Dupuy.
His cinema has since become a parody of himself: “He may have ended up locking himself in his gimmicks,” explains Vesper, “and he hasn’t been able to find the right balance between maintaining his identity and the themes that are dear to him. “. avoiding copying and pasting the same story, with the same main actor ad nauseam.” “I think that’s now what the studios are asking him to do,” adds Meeea.
For Vesper, “her salvation would perhaps come from a more independent and personal project, carried out by surrounding herself in a different way and taking into account certain criticisms made several years ago, given the lack of diversity of her characters, for example.” Meeea feels that he should resign: “Many directors like De Palma were left with nothing. He would have a better place as a producer.”
Paradoxically, it was becoming a parody of itself that did not die in a totally creative way. His films remain “always consistent with their themes and contrivances that mix fantastic, macabre and freakish stories,” Vesper comments. “Even the presence of Eva Green in three of them (Dark shadows, pilgrim lady, Dumbo) makes sense as it fits perfectly into a Burtonian universe”.
On screen, Tim Burton’s malaise
These films are also exciting to understand Burton’s discomfort and his resignation from the cinema. Within Dumbo (2019), Burton thus identifies with the elephant and confides his despair at being reduced to a fairground beast by the multinational Disney. “Anyway, all of his movies are personal,” Meeea notes. “Mars attacks! for example, it allowed him to ‘kill’ the elites by leaving two versions of Burton in charge (the young goth and the sweet dreamer).”
large eyes (2014) also talks about his professional schizophrenia, between the personal projects for which he no longer has the strength and the blockbusters in which he intervenes as a technician, Julien Dupuy analyzes: “It’s not a very good film, he’s not very handsome, but for On the other hand, I couldn’t help but think that he was referring to him through the couple formed by Amy Adams and Christoph Waltz, but these metafictional aspects are insufficient to make good films.
Against this background, it’s hard to expect anything from Tim Burton. “Afterward, I can’t help but go there,” Julien Dupuy agrees. “Dark shadowsfor example, I saw her very late”. Impossible to blame who has contributed so much to viewers around the world: “It’s already fantastic to have offered so many memorable films in the life of a director,” Vesper insists.
“It can’t be easy telling yourself that the best of your career is behind you, after that he can see it differently!” adds the cameraman. “When a guy touches people like that, the rest is just literature,” concludes Julien Dupuy. “You have to know how to lick your wounds. For me, it’s also a mark of Tim Burton’s value. The fact that he didn’t last only underscores the magic of his early films.”
Source: BFM TV
