{"id":1861,"date":"2012-03-11T13:40:41","date_gmt":"2012-03-11T19:40:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bmovienation.com\/?p=1861"},"modified":"2012-03-11T13:40:41","modified_gmt":"2012-03-11T19:40:41","slug":"tim-burton-exhibition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.bmovienation.com\/?p=1861","title":{"rendered":"Tim Burton Exhibition"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Peopled with lonely little monsters, dancing corpses and boggle-eyed creatures from the underworld, Tim Burton\u2019s cult universe hits Paris this week with a show that journeys through his life\u2019s work.<\/p>\n

Some 500 sketches \u2014 the starting point for all Burton\u2019s films \u2014 whisk visitors deep into the director\u2019s surreal inner world, with gothic doodles dating back to his misfit childhood in Burbank, a bland suburb of Los Angeles.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese are things that were never meant to be seen by anyone,\u201d the filmmaker said in introducing the travelling exhibit, titled Tim Burton.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut I am so grateful to the creators!\u201d<\/p>\n

Film clips, photos and props complete the picture, from a pumpkin-headed scarecrow from the 1999 Sleepy Hollow, to a life-sized Martian Anatomy chart from the 1996 Mars Attacks, or black rubber masks from Batman in 1989.<\/p>\n

When Ronald Magliozzi went rifling through Burton\u2019s accumulated possessions, the curator initially planned a show looking back at his career.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe discovered he had these vast archives,\u201d he told AFP. \u201cHis parents had saved every last drawing he had ever done. We realized this would be an exhibit of Tim Burton\u2019s art \u2014 art that we didn\u2019t even know existed.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gems include Burton\u2019s earliest animated film, made in 1974 and unearthed by a former art teacher: a 33-second long, gory attack by a pair of pliers on a green plasticine monster.<\/p>\n

Burton\u2019s world is always shot through with humour.<\/p>\n

\u201cI never try to make it just dark. I\u2019m always drawn to material that\u2019s both funny and sad, light and dark,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Paired with witty little poems, his sketches come under headings like \u201cChildhood\u201d, full of bandaged little mummies, or \u201cCouples\u201d, one of them of a man and woman tucking gorily into eachother\u2019s shins.<\/p>\n

\u201cDrawing keeps your hands busy. And it keeps depression at bay,\u201d said Burton, who doodles constantly, including on restaurant napkins \u2014 with dozens from the Paris Ritz lined upon display.<\/p>\n

Glow-in-the-dark creatures, all eyes and tentacles, spin on a carousel like a kind of \u201cmonster-go-round\u201d, while a gallery of polaroids from the 1990s features a macabre mother and child, deathly blue and covered in Frankenstein stitches.<\/p>\n

When the show was unveiled in New York, \u201cthe art world was a little rude \u2014 perhaps that\u2019s the best way of putting it,\u201d said the director.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut the best compliment I got was from kids, who thought \u2018Well if he can do it, maybe I can as well.\u201d<\/p>\n

Looking back to his own childhood in Burbank, home to both Disney and Warner film studios, he remembers a deadening place to live, \u201cwith no sense of history, no sense of culture, no sense of passion for anything.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cGrowing up, I was made to feel like an alien,\u201d said the director, who sought refuge in B-movies and horror stories \u2014 in which \u201cthe monsters were the most interesting characters.\u201d<\/p>\n

Burton sees a kinship between his work and Europe\u2019s fairy tale tradition, and insists that when it comes to scariness, \u201cKids are the best judge of what they can take.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cFairy tales are basically horror stories. They have always been a way for kids \u2014 in a symbolic way \u2014 to start to understand the world.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMy three-year-old watched Alice in Wonderland and loved the scary parts!\u201d<\/p>\n

Today, Burton gives thanks for crossing the path of inspiring art teachers, \u201cOnes who just said \u2018Draw what you feel, draw what you can.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThat changed my life,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Later on, working as an animator at Disney \u2014 during a period when he now reckons he was suffering from depression \u2014 Burton would hide in closets to nap during the day.<\/p>\n

But he also remembers that time, in the early 1980s, as \u201ca fertile period\u201d: \u201cThey sort of locked me in a room and let me draw whatever I wanted.\u201d<\/p>\n

Thirty years on, Magliozzi says Burton\u2019s ability \u201cto work as an independent filmmaker within the Hollywood system, is what makes him unique.\u201d<\/p>\n

Burton himself says he \u201crealised very early on that every film is a struggle to make \u2014 which is a good thing in a way\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cOnce you get labelled a weirdo, they always think there is something wrong with you. \u2018Is he going to do something crazy?\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cBut I never quite understood their take on it,\u201d he said. \u201cI always felt quite normal.\u201d