The 2022 edition of the Lumière Festival, held in Lyon, celebrates the work of Tim Burton. The director met his audience during a masterclass. Second part on his first blockbuster, “Batman”, and his most personal film.
Honored at the Lumière Festival on the occasion of the 2022 edition, Tim Burton took part in the exercise of the masterclass in front of a full theater this Friday, October 21. For 1h20, the American director answered questions from Thierry Frémaux, the director of the festival, the journalist Didier Allouch, but also from the public.
AlloCiné attended the event and invites you to relive this meeting through three parts. After a first part dedicated to his complicated relationship with Hollywood, light on his adventure around Batman and the films dear to his heart.
Warner Bros. Jack Nicholson in Tim Burton’s ‘Batman’.
June 1989, Batman mania invaded the United States. Derivative products are snapping up, as is the soundtrack sung by Prince, and the box office figures are soaring. Behind this phenomenal success, Tim Burton, a young director, signs his third film:
“Before Batman, I had never heard the term “franchise”. For me at the time it was new and therefore very exciting. But the funny thing is now people ask me what I think of the new Batman. And when I look back, I want to laugh and cry because I was criticized for making films that were too dark. Today mine look like Disney.”
Subsequently, Tim Burton explains the reasons that led him to adapt the adventures of the hero of Gotham City: “For me, it was psychology, this need to hide and this duality between light and dark. I had to find a connection between those themes and myself to be able to do that, to talk to the actors or the cinematographer. I had to feel things as much as possible.“
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Image taken from “Ed Wood”.
The director lingered a few moments later on the films that mean a lot to him. Among them, he cites Edward Scissorhands and Ed Wood, whose filming was one of his favorite experiences: “Cinema is a collaborative art. On Ed Wood, we were a strange little family. For me, this is the strongest and most difficult thing to create, but also the most pleasant..”
My films are like my children.
Another film of which he is particularly proud: The Nightmare Before Christmas. This feature film is directed by Henry Selick. Tim Burton is the screenwriter and producer. He tells : “It was a very specific, precise work and for once, everything happened as I had imagined..”
Aware that some of his feature films have not met with the same critical success, the filmmaker says he loves them all, “even the worst“: “They are like my children, they are special in their own way and they represent a moment in my life. Some have their flaws, but no one is perfect.”
Tim Burton meets his fans after the masterclass in Lyon:
Interview by Thomas Desroches, in Lyon, October 21, 2022.