Tim Burton

I think I have posted enough of his films already so that now I should post something about Tim Burton himself. I chose the funny "ten decades" interview with Burton and Depp about the production of "Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street" (2007). I think other than the fact that the interviewer's mistake is hopelessly funny, such occasions are to be treasured, as unexpected situations always reveal something more... It also illustrates well the humour that is always there in a Burton movie, inseparably fused together with the eerie bits. Sweeney Todd is a remake of Stephen Sondheim's musical about a homicidal barber, a Victorian urban legend who appeared in penny novels of the late nineteenth century and revived in the musical in 1979. As in so many Burton movies, Johnny Depp takes the lead role. I also included a trailer from Sweeney Todd here.

Other than the films already mentioned before some further titles I feel obliged to mention are "Batman" (1989) and "Batman Returns" (1992), "Edward Scissorhands" (1990) and more recently "Alice in Wonderland" (2010). I also anticipate his future "Dark Shadows", a vampire legend with Johnny Depp based on a BBC series, scheduled 2012. All these have that silverish dark Gothic environment, Burton so much excels in creating. I have also decided to include something from Batman to the end of this post. Now, that Nolan's series is out, this topic is even more interesting. I like both adaptations, as they show two different sides of the same story. One of my favourite characters, the Joker, the epitome of madness, is especially interesting for me in both adaptations, and I think I will come back to that in a later post. But here, I will just post a short scene of the fabulous Jack Nicholson playing the role of the Clown Prince of Crime. His performance fits into Burton's half humorous half sad gloom, and indeed in only forty seconds, you are convinced that Nicholson's Joker takes the fun of killing seriously...