Recently released images from Tim Burton's upcoming Alice in Wonderland adaptation reminded moviegoers that the quirky London-based director possesses one of the most extravagant visual vocabularies of any filmmaker now working.
Underscoring that fact, New York's Museum of Modern Art kicks off a Tim Burton retrospective Nov. 22 with a collection of 700 art pieces produced by the goth maestro over the past three decades.
See also:
First Look: Tim Burton Takes Alice to Weird, Wild Wonderland
As a companion piece, the auteur behind fantastical spectacles Mars Attacks!, The Nightmare Before Christmas, Batman and a host of other morbidly twisted movies is publishing The Art of Tim Burton, a 434-page tome packed with more than 1,000 drawings, doodles, paintings and evocative concept art dating back to Burton's teen years in Burbank, California.
"Most of what appears in this book was never intended to be seen by anyone," Burton writes in a preface to the book, noting that his collaborators sorted through "40 years of notebooks, scraps of paper, napkins, etc." Author and co-editor Leah Gallo writes that Burton's intention is "to allow his fans a broad look inside his private pages."
To that end, the book is stuffed with a wild assortment of aliens, flying saucers, evil clowns and miscellaneous mutants embodying Burton's outsider sensibility. The book also includes commentary from Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter and other actors who have helped bring Burton's bizarre visions to life on the screen.
Packaged in both limited-edition lithograph ($300) and standard hardcover ($70) versions, The Art of Tim Burton can be pre-ordered from Steeles Publishing and will be available at the MoMA bookstore in New York and Forbidden Planet in England.
Wired.com's gallery offers an advance peek at the massive book, including several exclusive first looks at Burton's artwork.
Above: "Concepts for an Alien Project," 1984
Mixed media
"Alien Fighting Men," 1981-1983
Pen and ink, colored pencil
Burton's fondness for aliens is rooted in science-fiction movies and television shows from the 1950s and 1960s. Pre-dating his B-movie homage Ed Wood by a decade, the works above and below embody an ongoing exploration of otherworldly creatures that resonates in both his Earthbound fantasies and the filmmaker's hard-core sci-fi films.
"Snake-Tongued Alien," 1997-1999
Watercolor, pastel
"Mars Attacks! Page Spread," 1995-2004
Pen and ink, watercolor, glitter, pastel
Starting pre-production on Mars Attacks! immediately after completing Ed Woods, Burton later said he was subconsciously inspired to make an Ed Wood film with a big budget.
"You would be mistaken for thinking that some of Tim's rough sketches are rudimentary, loose or naive, for they hold vital information, demonstrate a great delicacy and a stunning vision," designer Ian MacKinnon remarks. "During his daily visits to our workshop, Tim would do his crazy little sketches of these alien invaders. The real strength in Tim's artwork is his appreciation of form with strong shapes and exaggerated proportions. With a few seemingly simple pen lines, he creates bold silhouettes."
"Brainiac + Superman Concepts," 1998
Mixed media
Burton spent a year developing the ill-fated Superman Lives movie for Warner Bros. His concept focused not on a superhero, according to The Art of Tim Burton author Gallo, but on "the struggles of a man from a different planet who never quite fits in."
"Ape Soldier Running," 2000– 01
Watercolor, colored pencil
Special-makeup-effects designer Rick Baker remembers working with Burton on his remake of the classic sci-fi picture Planet of the Apes. "Tim was trying to convey what he wanted for one of the apes, and I wasn't getting it," Baker says. "Seeing the blank look on my face, he pulled out his pencil and with a few strokes it all became clear. I wish all directors could do that."
"Clown Doodle Page," various dates
Mixed media
Burton brought his fascination with evil clowns to the big screen when he reinvented the Joker, but he's fetishized the creepy aspects of goofballs in makeup since childhood, when he used to watch Bozo the Clown on TV.
The ax-wielding, blood-spouting, bug-eyed carnival freaks, puppets and dummies that populate Burton's sketchbooks reflect a fondness for not-quite-human characters manifested in stop-motion adventures like Corpse Bride and The Nightmare Before Christmas.
"The Joker," 1989
Pastel
Burton helped make superheroes hip again with his 1989 Batman movie. He transformed DC Comics' rich gallery of characters in his own image, including this wild-haired incarnation of the Joker, brought to life onscreen by Jack Nicholson.
"Willie Wonka," 2004
Pen and ink, watercolor
Johnny Depp invested Willie Wonka with an unsettling edge, when Burton adapted Roald Dahl's children's story in 2005's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Writer John August says his meeting with Burton only lasted a few minutes: "Tim told me what he didn't want: smug Disney children."
"I always feel relief wandering into Tim's office and seeing the scenes and characters pinned to the walls," says August, who also penned Big Fish for Burton. "He's translated and internalized those elements for the movie, and it inspires me to write things he'll want to draw."
"Bowling Ball Head and Pins," 2000
Watercolor, colored pencil
The World of Stainboy webisodes and animated shorts enable Burton to indulge his surrealistic impulses untethered by traditional Hollywood narratives. This scenario features a bowling bowl confronted by a talking rooster.
"The Red Queen," 2008
Pen and ink, colored pencil
Burton's reimagining of Alice in Wonderland, took shape through a series of rough sketches, including this early portrait of the Red Queen as filtered through Helena Bonham Carter's persona. "I never know if I'm going to be in a Tim Burton film," says Carter. "Usually he says, 'It had to be you because look, I've drawn you.' In the case of the Red Queen, he produced a picture of this very angry, red-faced, large-headed queen. With my eyebrows."
"The Mad Hatter," 2008
Pen and ink, colored pencil
Burton's favorite actor, Johnny Depp, is rendered here as Alice in Wonderland's Mad Hatter.
Depp appears in dozens of Burton's sketches, dating back to 1990's Edward Scissorhands. "Tim is an ideal conspirator when advancing into battle on the studio front," Depp says.
"Tim With Chinese Security," 2006
Pen and ink, watercolor
A compulsive doodler, Burton routinely ends a day of jet-lagged travel with a crinkled pile of food-stained napkin sketches. During a 2006 visit to China location-scouting the now-scuttled Ripley's Believe it or Not project, he scribbled a rare self-portrait that reflects his reputation as the perpetual outsider.
Partner Helana Bonham Carter says Burton's fame represents a "triumph of the lonely, misunderstood outsider child he once felt he was. Tim's the most understood misunderstood person I've come across in the world."
"Corpse Boys," 1993
Color Polaroid
Prepping his production of The Nightmare Before Christmas (directed by Henry Selick), Burton photographed heads from the puppets featured in the film (above). Describing the black velvet portrait (below) devoted to the same theme, co-editor Gallo writes: "Tim liked the idea of the question marks: What is Corpse Boy, really?"
"Corpse Boy," 1992
Acrylic on black velvet
"Pet Cemetery," 1982
Pen and ink, marker, pencil
Burton's morbid sense of humor meshes with gothic visions of doom in dozens of black-and-white drawings replete with poison bottles, hangings and graveyards. Here's a rendering for the Frankenweenie concept, first produced as a 1984 live-action short and now being revived by Burton as a feature-length stop-motion picture.
Image © Disney Enterprises
"Well Endowed," 1980-1990
Water color, pencil
Some of Burton's characters never wind up on the big screen. "Tim's sketchbooks are his diary," writes Gallo. "He takes people who strike him in some way and pens their memory into his sketchbook, accentuating the characteristics that most strike him." Burton's gift for distortion bears comparison to the rabid caricatures inked by Ralph Steadman, who collaborated with the late Hunter S. Thompson.
"Battle Spread," 1980-1989
Pen and ink, watercolor
This drawing expresses Burton's childlike fascination for things that go bump in the night. Helena Bonham Carter says: "Tim's 5-year-old son and he both love to draw monsters. Sometimes it's difficult to tell who drew what. And I mean that as a compliment to both."
See Also:
- White Rabbit Has Pink Eye in New Alice in Wonderland Image
- Tim Burton Gives Cheshire Cat a Toothy Grin in Alice
- Depp Makes Surprise Appearance at Alice Screening
- First Look: New Alice in Wonderland Trailer
- Tim Burton Gets a Show at New York's Museum of Modern Art
- DIY Animation Drew Tim Burton to 9's 'Stitchpunk' Story
