With Tim Burton's "Beetlejuice Beetlejuice" to premiere at the Venice Film Festival this week, the U.S. director's dark, oddball yet always tender cinematic approach looks poised for its latest success.
From "Edward Scissorhands" (1990) to "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" (2005), Burton's films are ageless works seen and re-seen from generation to generation without losing any of their eerie magic. Slated to kick off the prestigious festival Wednesday in an out-of-competition screening, Burton's "Beetlejuice" sequel is "the happy confirmation of the extraordinary visionary talent" of its director, in the words of festival head Alberto Barbera. It's a taste for monsters and the dark that non-conformist Burton has cultivated since his childhood spent in the Los Angeles suburb of Burbank, over the hill from Hollywood and home to the major film studios including Disney.
A loner as a child, but saved by a love of drawing, Burton -- who turned 66 Sunday -- says he always felt apart from others, one of those "weirdos" others consider strange. "I liked everything that was a little different, strange. I didn't fit into the classic categories," he said.
But the fantasy films and horror flicks that Burton turned to became a refuge, fueling his nascent interest in the creepy, kooky and fantastical. Decades later, Burton remains rather taciturn, preferring to create rather than explain his world populated by skeletons, ghosts and headless horsemen. He has cited "the element of mystery".