Weird, Weird World: A Burton Backtrack

Sleepy Hollow is only the latest in director Tim Burton's ever-expanding oeuvre of inventively bizarre fairy tales

Today, the latest film from Tim Burton, the mind behind such quirky films as Pee-Wee's Big Adventure and Edward Scissorhands as well as megahits like Batman and Batman Returns releases the latest in his canon, Sleepy Hollow. From the looks of it, the film will fit right in with its freakish characters, dark, imaginative sets and the pervading sense of fantasy that can be found in all of Burton's work.

Burton became a household name in 1989 with the release of Batman; before that, he was relatively well-known as the director of the 1988 hit Beetlejuice and 1985's Pee-Wee's Big Adventure. Since Batman, Burton has enjoyed the special type of freedom that comes with success, working with bigger budgets and studios willing to take a risk on his ideas. But despite being embraced by Hollywood, Burton has managed to retain his distinctive cinematic flavor as well to provide entertaining and memorable films.

Burton's career began in 1976, when as an 18-year-old, the Burbank, Calif. native won a scholarship to attend the California Institute of the Arts (Cal Arts), a college founded by Walt Disney and featuring a program that, at that time, served as a training school for prospective animators. He joined Disney in 1979, working as an animator on The Fox and the Hound. Though he disliked the film's style and very little of his own work was used, he was hired as a conceptual artist for the studio's 1984 animated film The Black Cauldron, though again, few, if any, of his ideas made it into the finished product. But it was while working on Cauldron that Burton established several friendships within the studio that eventually allowed him to make Vincent (1982), a five-minute stop-motion short about a boy obsessed with Vincent Price, one of Burton's own idols.

After directing a live-action, all-Oriental cast version of Hansel and Gretel for Disney's new cable station in the same year as Vincent, Burton was then allowed to develop and direct "Frankenweenie", a 25-minute film that served as a precursor for all of Burton's work to come. In the short feature, ten-year-old suburbanite Victor Frankenstein (Barret Oliver of Neverending Story fame) reanimates his dead dog, Sparky. Filmed in black-and-white, with make-up on Sparky complete with little neck bolts and stitches, "Frankenweenie" was a modest success for the filmmaker that eventually opened the door for his first feature film: Pee-Wee's Big Adventure.

In Paul Reubens, the comedian who had crafted his bizarre alter-ego of Pee-Wee Herman, Burton found a comrade-in-oddness and the perfect start to work with on this all-important first film. With a story centering around Herman's search for his lost bicycle, Adventure led one on a surreal road trip across the U.S. complete with giant concrete dinosaurs, biker gangs and a memorable rendition of the song "Tequila." One of the sleeper hits of 1985, Pee-Wee's Big Adventure established Burton as a "bankable" director.

It was three years before Burton released his next film--Beetlejuice. Yet another twisted tale, centering this time around a pair of "newlydeads," the Maitlands, played by Alec Baldwin and Geena Davis and the "bio-exorcist" (Michael Keaton) they hire to clean out their home of its new yuppie occupants. The film, despite (or perhaps owing to) its weird atmosphere, unusual characters and occasionally cheesy special-effects, was yet another success for Burton, and he was then tapped by Warner Brothers to direct their biggest project at that time--Batman.

From the start, Burton's Batman promised to be a departure from the cardboard comic characterizations and situations found in the Superman films of the early '80s. First, Burton chose Beetlejuice star Keaton, known more as a comic actor than an action star, to play the title character--a move that sent comic book fans into an uproar. Burton also removed the Robin character, choosing instead to focus on the intense psychological make-up of Batman and his foe, the Joker (Jack Nicholson in one of his best roles). Once again, Burton's strong adherence to his own vision paid off, as Batman set box office records that were not to be surpassed until the release of another Burton film three years later --Batman Returns.

But before directing Returns, Burton made Edward Scissorhands, which stands to date as his most unusual, as well as his most personal, work. This fairy tale involves a mad scientist (played by Burton's idol, Vincent Price) creating a simulacrum of a young man (Johnny Depp) in his laboratory. He gives the boy scissors for hands until he can finish his work but dies before attaching the new hands. The boy lives a lonely life in the castle until he is discovered by an Avon lady (Dianne West), who takes him home to the pastel-colored suburbia below. The boy, dubbed Edward Scissorhands, tries to fit in this retro-'50s environment and falls for a the Avon lady's daugher, a local cheerleader (Winona Ryder). Adhering to the fairy tale style, true happiness is not to be had by an outcast like Edward, and he is soon driven back to his castle by angry, frightened townspeople.

Edward Scissorhands was the first in a trio of Burton's films to be set at Christmastime. It enjoyed moderate success, and remains the most earnest work in Burton's canon. It also forged a relationship between Burton and Johnny Depp, which would eventually lead to their working together on Ed Wood and, ultimately, Sleepy Hollow. In 1992, Burton returned to the familiar Batworld to direct Batman Returns. The story, focusing on Batman's struggle against both the Penguin and Catwoman, starred Keaton again, as well as Danny Devito and Michelle Pfeiffer in the respective villain roles. Though successful, the movie was perceived as being much darker than its predecessor, something that Burton disagreed with.

Burton's next project was the production of The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993), a stop-motion animated film based upon a three-page poem written by Burton while working at Disney. Disney gave Burton the go-ahead for the project, and while he didn't direct it, he was deeply involved in the development process. The story, set like Scissorhands and Batman Returns at Christmas, is about Jack Skellington, the ruler of Halloweentown and his suffering what amounts to a mid-life crisis. Upon discovering Christmastown, Jack believes that this is a way to re-invigorate Halloween, and he misguidedly tries to supplant Santa Claus, if just for one year. The movie was a success, given its low production costs and soon garnered a cult following that rivaled any of Burton's previous films.

1995 saw the release of Burton's next film, and his return to directing. Ed Wood told the story of Hollywood's most famous bad director (played by Johnny Depp), who, in the '50s, made a number of awful films, the epitome being the infamous Plan 9 From Outer Space. The film handles Wood's story delicately, never mocking the character but rather focusing on the earnestness that is at the heart of Wood's "best" work.

Now, Burton returns to more twisted territories with Sleepy Hollow. Working once again with Depp, who this time steps into the role of the idiosyncratic Ichabod Crane (now a detective and not, as readers of the original tale may recall, a schoolteacher), Burton's film looks like yet another plunge into unique style, his personal fantasies that are always so entertaining to the rest of the world. One of the few directors who can be said to have a "stable" of actors (including Depp, Jeffrey Jones and Lisa Marie, among others), Burton has made a name for himself through blockbusters that don't look like blockbusters, films that don't smash the audience in with over-the-top special effects, nor bore them with material they've seen a hundred times before. Each of his works has its own cult following--but they all have the same distinct flavor. Just as he adores the monster movies of the '40s and '50s, directors years from now will adore Burton's work and build upon it as he has done with his own idols, securing Burton's cinematic legacy.