When not making movies, the corkscrew-haired auteur has carved out a side career as a graphic illustrator and artist for nonfilm (and highly personal) projects, giving his brush and pencil free license to translate his creepy imagination to paper. Full Story »
Posted by Mark Gould
I would characterize this as an art and culture blog, and the piece is written as a review, not as objective journalism, although from my personal knowledge the facts that are used seem correct. I'm of the opinion that online journalism could enhance the area of arts and culture journalism, which beyond a few of the major dailies and weeklies, can be hard to find.
Like Clint Eastwood, Burton owes a lot of his success to the French, who have championed his work even as American audiences have typically blown hot and cold over the years. In his book on Burton, the Parisian critic Antoine de Baecque described him as one of the few major American directors who has been able to maintain his personal vision while working in the Hollywood system.
I agree; the Hollywood system isn’t configured to encourage and mentor directors who are out of the mainstream, tending to make a lot of Hollywood fare somewhat uniform in style and substance, lacking the uniqueness found in independent media.
Although a self-proclaimed master of the "macabre," most people know about Burton as a director of quirky and extremely popular mainstream films, including "Batman," "Ed Wood," "Edward Scissorhands," and "The Nightmare Before Christmas." This article interested me personally as an artist and designer who didn't know that Burton, perhaps not surprisingly, has taken his unique brand of visual art from his films and created quite a side career for himself as an artist and illustrator.