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Tim Burton honored with MoMA exhibition
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Tim Burton (Photo by CynSimp)
Burbank native and Academy Award nominee Tim Burton will be honored with an exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York City. Simply named Tim Burton, the exhibition will feature over 700 examples of his films, drawings, photographs, paintings, sculptures, and more -- many of which have never been displayed to the public.
MoMA Assistant Curator Ron Magliozzi, who co-organized the event, states: "There is no other living filmmaker possessing Tim Burton's level of accomplishment and reputation whose full body of work has been so well hidden from public view. Seeing so much that was previously inaccessible in a museum context should serve to fuel renewed appreciation and fresh appraisal of this much-admired artist."
Timothy Walter Burton was born in Burbank in 1958. He grew up on Evergreen Street, near Valhalla Cemetery, attended Providencia Elementary School, Luther Burbank Middle School, and graduated from Burbank High School in 1976. He preferred sketching to studying and drew early inspiration from Godzilla movies, Hammer horror films, and Ray Harryhausen animations.
After high school he enrolled at California Institute of the Arts where he was awarded a fellowship for the Disney animation program in his sophomore year. Burton's first job with Disney was as an animator for "The Fox and the Hound," but he felt stifled by the restrictive art of painting characters for individual film cels. Disney then enlisted his talents as a conceptual artist, first for the film adaptation of Lloyd Alexander's classic fantasy book "The Black Cauldron." His imaginings were deemed unsuitable for a Disney audience, but Burton was allowed to continue work on his own projects, including a poem that would later become his award-winning "The Nightmare Before Christmas," and his first short film, "Vincent," a stop-motion animation narrated by one of his heroes, Vincent Price.
Burton's next short film, "Frankenweenie," told of a young Victor Frankenstein who resurrects his pet dog that was hit by a car. It, too, was deemed unacceptable for Disney's G-rated audience. Burton was reportedly fired from Disney, but author Stephen King saw "Frankenweenie" and recommended Burton to an associate at Warner Bros. Studios who was working on a big-screen adaptation of the television character Pee-wee Herman. Paul Reubens, Warner Bros.'s star and co-producer, loved Burton's style and hired him to direct the feature film.
"Pee-wee's Big Adventure" was a surprise hit at the box office in 1985. Burton suddenly found himself on the Hollywood hot list, but opted for low-key television jobs while he awaited a script that piqued his interest. Three years later, that script became the cult classic, "Beetlejuice," starring Michael Keaton, Alec Baldwin, Geena Davis, and Winona Ryder. Produced for an estimated $15-million, the film grossed over $73-million in the United States, alone.
Having delivered two unexpected blockbusters for the studio, Warner Bros. Pictures entrusted Burton with his first big-budget movie, 1989's "Batman," which again delivered enormous box office returns. Burton's success allowed him the freedom to produce his own projects, including "Edward Scissorhands" and "The Nightmare Before Christmas," and to direct films that appealed to his unique sensibilities, such as a biopic of campy director "Ed Wood," and a re-imagining of "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory."
Burton's other films include "Batman Returns," "Mars Attacks," "Big Fish," "Corpse Bride," and "Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street," among others. He is currently in post-production on his upcoming film, "Alice in Wonderland," scheduled for release in March 2010.
Burton's stylized visuals have been called dark, gothic and macabre, and their evolution from boyish sketches to Hollywood blockbusters can be experienced through MoMA's comprehensive retrospective beginning November 22, 2009. Tickets for MoMA's Tim Burton are $20 ($16 for seniors, $12 for current students, free for children aged 16 and under) and can be purchased online. The exhibition is scheduled to run through April 26, 2010.
For more info:
Museum of Modern Art
Tim Burton official website
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