Tim Burton: The Twisted Story of the Eccentric Filmmaker

2019, Performing Arts  -   9 Comments
5.41
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Ratings: 5.41/10 from 17 users.

Since he first burst onto the movie scene with his 1985 debut film Pee-wee's Big Adventure, director Tim Burton has amassed a reputation as one of the Hollywood's most unique and creative visual artists. In this documentary, Screen Rant attempts to dissect the influences the helped to shape Burton's unusual vision, and the peaks and valleys that have since come to characterize his career.

Over the course of a somewhat breathless 30-minute presentation, the filmmakers recount the echoes of Burton's childhood that you can already sense from his body of work, including his sense of alienation, his icy distance from his parents, and the classic monster movies that kept him company from an early age. Finding his initial expressions as an innovative artist, he further developed his skills and began transitioning into cinematic forms while studying at the California Institute of the Arts. A job as a Disney animator soon followed, though Burton's macabre vision was ill-suited for the company at the time.

The film contains a generous array of indelible imagery and film clips that do a fair job of representing the various stages of Burton's illustrious career. Many of these images have left a lasting impression on popular culture. We witness the visual evidence that connects the Gotham City of Batman to the masterpieces of German Expressionism. We appreciate the contrasts between the unique worlds Burton created for films like Planet of the Apes, Edward Scissorhands, The Nightmare before Christmas and Sleepy Hollow. We learn of Burton's reliance on anthropomorphism, a process that assigns human characteristics to animals or objects in his stop-motion works.

Finally, the film explores how Burton's career has come full circle as he's enjoyed unprecedented success with his live action adaptations of animated Disney classics like Dumbo. Along the way, the film introduces us to some of Burton's most frequent collaborators who have aided him in realizing his artistic vision for several decades.

Attractively produced and well observed, Tim Burton: the Twisted Story of the Eccentric Filmmaker is a brief, but satisfying dive into the work of singular cinematic artist.

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9 Comments / User Reviews

  1. Maitre Corbeau

    Agree with all that is said here. The pace is ridiculously much too fast.So is the editing.

  2. jake

    The documentary is not that bad, very informative and sums up perfectly the career of Tim Burton

  3. MsMilly

    Boo, talk about destroy what could have been a great biographical doco, Tim has done all the work for you. You put him to shame. I gave up at 7 minutes!

  4. Sharon Tucker

    The comments say it all. This should be more of a tribute to his greatness...but it is more of a tragedy! Tim deserves more. You missed the boat!

  5. Cindy

    Cut narration in half, create pauses and silence, time for viewer to take in the great visuals. A deeper, less screechy and manic voice over would have improved and honored the whole film. Much narration is repetitive, unnecessary. Burton's graphics and films are complicated visually and merit longer time to study as scenes shift. Editing is too 'cutty' -- actually undermines Burton's rich, dense and deeply engaging imagery and fight with the jabbering narration Whew. Too bad.

    1. John Follis

      Well said.

  6. Zozo

    Doesn't the narrator breathe? Way too fast, and bombarding of information. Pauses. Paragraphs. Jeeeesus.

  7. john

    The narrative is far too fast. I could only stand 5 minutes of it.

    1. Marie

      Same. Had to stop watching after 5 minutes because of that.