His films have created a unique chapter in pop culture. With BEETLEJUICE BEETLEJUICE, Burton rediscovers and pays homage to his early days - a time when his anarchic spirit and eccentric imagination were free to run wild without the constraints of a ‘franchise’. His anarchic spirit and grotesque imagination were free to run wild.
Andreas Rauscher says so.

Twenty-five years after the first animated feature film series came out of nowhere, gothic and pop cinema titan Tim Burton has teamed up with comedy guru Michael Keaton and iconic actress Winona Ryder for a sequel that continues to tell the story of that scruffy, unruly, anarchic undead in a new chapter. Not only was this 1988 horror-comedy Burton's second masterpiece, it was the cornerstone of his creative universe, flipping the traditional framework of the genre on its head: when the biological exorcist encounters his difficult roommate, he actually orchestrates a subtle haunting plot just to help free the ghost under the weight of his burden.

No contemporary director-producer has as deliciously macabre a signature as Tim Burton. Known for his quirky characters and delightfully sinister settings, Burton displays an undeniable knack for the fantastic. Burton’s influence extends beyond the screen. After over a decade spent establishing a reputation primarily in the cinematic arts, in 2007 Burton released The Melancholy Death of Oyster Boy and Other Stories, a collection of short fiction. Then, in 2009, he received critical acclaim for an exhibition of his original artwork at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York. This multimedia collection was exhibited at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in 2011. As the variety and popularity of his works suggest, whether in an offbeat animated feature, a box-office hit, a collection of short fiction, or an exhibit in the visual arts, Burton pushes the envelope of the imagination with his uncanny productions and in doing so has emerged as a powerful force in contemporary culture. But with the hit series WEDNESDAY (2022), which he produced, and the sequel to BEETLEJUICE, it's as if Burton has taken a break from the aesthetic contemplation of the museum to return to the screen, returning to the beginnings of his anarchist style and leading the way once again.

A MADMAN FROM A HAUNTED CASTLE IN THE SUBURBS
In the 1980s and 1990s, the director, who was born on 25 August 1958 in the Los Angeles suburb of Burbank, revolutionised the traditional face of Hollywood with his determinedly dark fantasy style. Burton's childhood was spent in Burbank, close to the classic Hollywood film studios, and his later training in illustration at the Disney Training Centre of the California Institute of the Arts gave him early clarity on his artistic path, which was unwilling to follow the crowd.
The horror film genre is part of the foundation of Tim Burton’s personality and body of work. His philosophy of life and film is partly shaped by the possibilities he has long seen in the realm of dark cinematic fantasy. As a child, Burton saw in horror films and writing an inventive escape from drudgery and an outlet for aggressive or antisocial tendencies. In Tim Burton's work, surreal design meets stylised strategy, making his work a far cry from the bright and slightly monotonous idyll of suburban California. In particular, he was captivated by the work of Vincent Price and Roger Corman, who brought the stories and poems of Edgar Allan Poe to big-screen life in the 1960s. With Disney's support, he had already begun to build the atmospheric and claustrophobic anti-utopian world of the American way of life with his early short films VINCENT (1982) and FRANKENWEENIE (1984).

The horrific element in Burton’s filmography is perhaps most remarkable in light of how appealing his works are to children. In the short film VINCENT, young anti-hero Vincent returns to his childhood bedroom and fantasises about strolling through the London fog and meeting horror movie star and morbid playboy Vincent Price (the film's narrator). Subsequently relocating from Los Angeles to London, Burton bonded with Price, best known for his work on Roger Corman's adaptation of Edgar Allan Poe, who became an important mentor. In 1990's Edward Scissorhands, Burton portrayed the last of his characters, an eccentric but good-hearted child, while in FRANKENWEENIE, a creative boy uses electricity to resurrect his late beloved dog in a scene reminiscent of the Dr Frankenstein's classic tale.The films continue to reflect the anxieties and wonders he often experienced as a lonely child, some of which he seems to have never outgrown.

Importantly, Both Poe and Burton repeatedly construct antiheroes who exist in marginalized positions, are disfigured in some bodily or psychological sense, and are hypersensitive, asking more of their reality than it readily offers. Why these artists gravitated toward these genres and protagonists?Both Burton and Poe understood their use of fantasy as a medium of escape from insecurity, and they believed that insecure people were in a double bind. They are most likely to rely on fantasy as an escape from reality, and the works of Burton and Edgar Allan Poe use the theme of the dialectical interaction between insecurity and fantasy to fulfil the reader's need to escape reality. Although the Disney Company, which financed VINCENT, was unhappy with the final product, and the production process was fraught with clashes of cultural-industrial modalisms distinct from the Mickey Mouse House, the short film foreshadowed the unique charms of the Burton universe: surreal theatre styles, unconventional animation techniques, and quirky character settings that subverted the conventional image of gothic romance and suburban life. The surreal theatre style, unconventional animation techniques and quirky protagonist subvert the conventional image of gothic romance and suburban life.
DISNEY'S “ROADKILL”
Today, childhood as a site of consumerism has united with its long-standing romanticized emotional representation in products that are marketed effectively both to adults, for nostalgic reasons, and to children, who, by consuming products that represent cultural notions of an “ideal” childhood, become active participants in the creation of their own commodified mythology. In early attempts in television and Hollywood films (mainly by Disney) to “mass market childhood . . . childhood got branded sweet and cuddly, cute and tiny” and took place in fantasy realms of pure Disney, pastel palettes that reinforced the whimsical notion of the perfect childhood, as well as notions of gender-specific colors, that is, pinks, reds, and violets for girls and blues, greens, and browns for boys.
As a director, Tim Burton has created a specific color palette in many of his films. His first major hit, Beetlejuice (1988), introduced the viewer to deeply saturated colors that contrast markedly with monochrome images. The film is filled with deep lime greens, reds, purples, and midnight blues, a much different palette than that used in many other films geared toward children. Today, and in part due to the work of Burton, children’s visual geography has transformed from pastel pinks, blues, and soft yellows and greens to the more urbanesque color schemes that signify a Burton film.

Burton uses color’s unconscious discombobulation of the senses by juxtaposing its anarchic ambience with a dry, cold, concrete blandness that repels, even if that blandness characterizes the “socially correct” position, that is, the world of the living in Corpse Bride or the land of Halloween in The Nightmare Before Christmas. Tim Burton's predilection for gothic horror and the grotesque is very different from the cuddly animal figures that Disney promotes. In an interview with biographer Mark Salisbury, he admits that the fox he designed for the 1981 animation The Fox and the Hound looked more like the remains of an unfortunate ‘run over’ on a motorway. A few years later, Burton reunited with his team to create The Nightmare Before Christmas (1994), which he conceived and Henry Selick directed, as well as Disney's remakes of Alice in Wonderland (2010) and Dumbo (2019). Even more remarkably, in 2012, Burton reimagined FRANKENWEENIE as an animated feature film, with Halloweenland's skeletal overlord and his girlfriend (spliced with stark stitching) in the lead roles, demonstrating the profound impact Burton's work has had on the film industry in a remarkably short period of time. Burton's melancholic fringe characters, such as Edward Scissorhands or Winona Ryder's introverted Lydia, are a stark contrast to the glittering stars of the 1980s. In Edward Scissorhands, it's the pink suburbanites who are the real ‘monsters’, as well as the yuppie nouveau riche who tries to turn a desolate haunted mansion into a new urban landmark in BEETLEJUICE.

Many aspects of the idiosyncratic appearance and mise-en-scène of Burton’s films, which often blur the line between art and reality. For example, the sets and cinematography of Edward Scissorhands often deliberately focus the viewer on the fictional nature of the “real” suburban world being portrayed. The shadowy castle of the eccentric inventor becomes his haven, and when he steps into the sunny suburbs, it becomes a place of real terror. At first the inhabitants are intrigued by the melancholy visitor, but once the novelty wears off, there is suspicion, rejection and even open hostility. Edward's love for the young girl Kim is not spared. With his extraordinary imagination and unique perspective, Burton blends classic tales of misunderstanding and loneliness with visually stunning fairy tale elements, making him unique among postmodern anti-genre films, always portraying his almost innocent characters with affection.

In The Nightmare Before Christmas, the land of Halloween is warm and welcoming, while the human world is heavily guarded at Christmas. In the stop-motion animation CORPSE BRIDE, the colourful and vibrant underworld inspired by Mexico's ‘Dia de los Muertos’, on the other hand, the world of the living bound by red tape and monotonous colours seems pale and tragic. Burton's acute capture of the elements of horror and his profound depiction of the outside world inspired new associations that remain a defining feature of modern fantasy.
Similarly, in the opening credit sequence of Beetlejuice, the camera pans over what appears to be the town where the film is set, but at the end of the sequence the ostensibly real town transitions seamlessly (but surprisingly) into Adam Maitland’s miniature model of the town. Later in that same film, the line between art and reality is blurred even further when Denise Deetz’s drab sculptures become menacingly animated. Generally, it is possible to interpret much of Burton’s body of work as a meditation on the problematic border between life and fiction.

Burton himself has gone from a misunderstood teenager to a symbol of artistic insecurity and outsiderhood beloved by millions. In Kierkegaardian terms, his defiant despair has become for many a model of authenticity. Furthermore, in a sense, his films give us all a small dose of immortality by making us feel young again. In doing so, Burton’s films do not simply remind us why we were afraid of so many things as children. They also remind us why the dark fantasies of our youth were sometimes enchanting and how innocuous they seem compared to some of the realities of our adult lives.
THE BURON-DEPP FILMS
Many actors and co-stars have become regulars in the world of Tim Burton's films, and none has been a bigger star than Johnny Depp. Johnny Depp has appeared in eight films directed by Tim Burton, most recently Dark Shadows (2012). The films featuring Depp invariably involve characters whose beliefs and actions raise questions about established social practices and norms and about how we are to understand each specific fictional world and our experience of it.
Burton found resonance in Depp, and together, as fashion trendsetters in the early 90s, they foresaw a profound shift from gothic style to emotional expression. It was the collaboration with Burton that transformed Depp from the youthful icon of the 21 Jump Street series into a versatile Hollywood superstar. Depp's portrayal of Edward, with his leather jacket and exploding head, is like an incarnation of the post-punk era, and his androgynous demeanour is both fragile and captivating.
Over the years, Depp has portrayed two distinct categories of characters in Burton's films, both of which go far beyond the traditional male image of the 1980s. One category was the introverted, sensitive loner, such as Edward and the investigator in SLEEPY HOLLOW, a style that continued in Jim Jarmusch's fantasy western DEAD MAN, in which Depp played William Blake, with big, helpless eyes and a shockingly rebellious demeanour, following with a shockingly untamed with the macho authority of the Wild West.

The other type, the extroverted and passionate outsider, bravely faces failure, a character archetype perfectly illustrated in Burton's biopic ED Wood with Depp. In one of Burton's most touching scenes, ED Wood confidently said before the premiere of PLAN9 FROM OUTER SPACE that the film would immortalise him. In the CURSE OF THE CARIBBEAN series, Depp's Captain Jack Sparrow not only subverts the gender boundaries of the adventure film, his hysterical performance carries on the tradition of Burton's grotesqueries, while his slightly awkward demeanour is reminiscent of the introverted protagonists of Burton's works.

The films with Depp are all based on established and familiar generic stories. His films develop quite clearly along conventional lines, and their generic features and structures are often familiar and transparent. The transgeneric character of Burton’s films offers both a foundation and a structure for narrative action but also a basis for Depp’s creation of characters. Burton and Depp juxtapose the horror film’s scientifically created figure, Edward (Johnny Depp), with the highly stylized American suburb that embodies routine, order, conformity, and a clear sense of community. I believe that the various roles played by Johnny Depp in Tim Burton's films are the visual embodiment of Burton's filmic persona, to which Depp himself has actively contributed.

THE LAUGHING ANARCHISTS
Tim Burton's film, from start to finish, is not just steeped in melancholy, it's full of anarchic banter and an appreciation of the absurd. In his feature debut Pee-wee's Big Adventure, the comedian rides a bicycle through Warner Studios to create mayhem. Along the way, he collects Godzilla, Father Christmas, and a heavy metal band with a hair dryer in a wild chase. My own first impression of Mars Attacks! was not a good one. I was still a big Burton fan at the time and it made me wonder if Burton had lost his mojo. What changed my opinion of it, however, was that it was not just a casual recreation of a 1950s flying saucer film, but a serious critique of the pro-government ideology embodied in it.

Burton's remarks on anarchism take us to the central theme of Mars Attacks! The original flying saucer films were diametrically opposed to the anarchist spirit. Their message was that, in the face of an alien threat, Americans must support their government and unite to defend themselves against alien destruction of their institutions. In Burton's own account, by contrast, Mars Attacks! revels in this destruction in a twisted way: Congress is wiped out, the President is humiliated and murdered, and the military is completely weakened when a particularly belligerent American general is shrunken by Martians and then trampled underfoot. Clearly, what attracted Burton was the Martians' disrespect for American institutions. Mars Attacks! ——The vastly underrated in the US but acclaimed in Europe, this anarchic spectacle of a film brings together stars such as Pam Griel, Jim Brown, Natalie Portman, Sarah Jessica Parker, Pierce Brosnan and Jack Nicholson... together in a 1970s-style disaster blockbuster. Armed with vintage toy laser pistols, the Martians destroy cities all over the world, eventually descending on the entertainment capital of Las Vegas. Tom Jones joins the survivors as he cheerfully sings It's Not Unusual, as if welcoming the end of the world, a scene that echoes the poignancy of Roland Emmerich's INDEPENDENCE DAY, released the same year.

Burton's anarchic narrative style is like a wild horse that has broken free and is heading straight for the ‘fourth wall’. Burton's works make clever turns before breaking the boundary between reality and illusion, allowing the fictional world to maintain its integrity. In Batman Begins, the protagonist's toys - from the Batmobile to the Batplane - are rendered in a deep colour scheme, while Jack Nicholson's Joker is transformed into an action painter in a city museum, wielding a bucket of paint. Jack Nicholson's Joker takes on the role of an action painter at the City Museum, armed with a bucket of paint, while Danny DeVito's Penguin rides an oversized rubber ducky through the sewers of Gotham City.
TEASING DEATH BY USING FREEDOM
One of the reasons why audiences may not be able to resist Burton's work is his repeated references to ghosts and places such as ‘the land of the dead’, suggesting the possibility of resurrection after death. Obviously, not only Dark Shadows, but also Frankenweenie and Beetlejuice can be said to be vivid interpretations of this possibility. This possibility seems to contradict the claim that Burton's work promotes authenticity. However, Burton's animation does not necessarily lead people to believe in an afterlife. Rather, it is easy to understand Burton's animations as a means of bringing death into direct dialogue with the viewer, thereby urging them to face death more openly and positively.

Burton's episodes often suggest the possibility of life after death; however, because of their unabashed emphasis on death, they weaken rather than strengthen belief in that prospect. Examples include Sally in The Nightmare Before Christmas and Emily in Corpse Bride. Rather than serving as beacons that inspire us with the hope of transcending death, they embody death and succumb to it.
Burton often juxtaposes death with life, as in the 1988 film Beetlejuice, which also features death, but does so in a more humorous way, in which the ghost Beetlejuice (Michael Keaton) helps Barbara and Adam Maitland (Geena Davis and Alec Baldwin) come to terms with the fact that they are ‘newly dead’. ‘The New Death’. In contrast to the crazy, mean-spirited real world, the netherworld is a fun place that subverts the Victorian idealisation of childhood, a strange inversion of innocence and naivety - Burton presents a dark, witchy, resilient and wise childhood utopia. In Burton's films, the acquisition of special knowledge does not come from a belief in magic, but rather from experiencing magic through colour, which is ultimately more readily associated with products that reflect the film's dark, saturated, urban and slightly ominous palette.

The realm of the dead in Beetlejuice reflects a tension between the real freedoms that being dead affords characters in the film—most notably represented in the Betelgeuse character, but also in the ability the dead have for spontaneous metaphysical travel and corporeal malleability—and the fact that the realm of the dead is populated by dead humans, whom the film paints as almost universally boring, even to the point that they have formed a bureaucracy to manage the afterlife as poorly as they had managed things in the realm of the living, complete with typists, complaint departments, waiting rooms, case workers, and instruction manuals for the newly deceased. But these forms of ruling the afterlife are mere fictions. Being dead seems to come with nearly unchecked freedoms, which the character of Betelgeuse embodies, while the governing bureaucracy that presides over day to day existence in the world of the dead are more concerned with keeping those freedoms as much of a secret as possible, as evidenced when the Maitland’s case- worker, Juno, warns them that they should by no means hire Betelgeuse (the bioexorcist) to help them get rid of the new (living) family that has moved into their house.

Betelgeuse's make-up, costume and characterisation make him more ‘a volatile, ambiguous mix of good-natured clown and decadent Weimar-era nightclub performer’ than a ghoul. As an outsider, Betelgeuse explores freedoms that the ‘normal’ representatives of the status quo regard as lewd or repulsive. Bettgers' love of burping, farting and crotch-grabbing makes him “what every 12-year-old boy wants to be”. Michael Keaton, who plays Betelgeuse, even comments in an interview with David Edelstein on the sense of liberation he experienced in acting for the role: “There are no bars, I can do anything I want under any rationality I want .... You show up on set and just go fuckin’ nuts. It was rave acting. You rage for twelve or fourteen hours ... It was pretty damn cathartic. It was rave and purge acting”.

Betelgeuse is the only character that completely embraces the freedoms afforded to him, and his only goal in the film seems to be enjoyment of those freedoms. He represents the carnival spirit in his manifestation of the material bodily principle, derisive language patterns, and degradation of the realm of spirits in defiance of the various guises of the official. The conclusion of the film also situates Betelgeuse within carnival time: his “death” scene in the film is ultimately regenerative; it is a rebirth that brings new opportunity.

BEETLEJUICE?BURTONJUICE!
Burton's obsession with art as a means of self-expression stemmed in large part from his feeling that he was not well adjusted to the world around him and was rarely fully understood by the rest of the world. By pouring his depression and fear into tales of melancholy and horror, Burton briefly transcended the limits of a life of poverty. There is a tendency to think that Burton's fantastical feasts were actually a means by which the director communicated his inner world to the audience. To this day, Burton's work continues to push the boundaries of pop culture design and artistic associations, stretching from the cinema screen to the comic book shop to the museum and everywhere in between.
As Burton has stated, “It’s why you struggle as a child and you draw and want to create. There is an impulse to be seen. For yourself: what you are. It’s always scary for me to show movies. I actually hate it; I feel very, very vulnerable. Because if you weren’t a verbal person, you weren’t this and that, you wanna let that be the thing people see you through.”


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