The troubled shoot that made Tim Burton “as sick as I’ve ever been” on a movie
The idea of Tim Burton working at Disney is nearly unfathomable: an uncompromisingly strange and unique voice that couldn’t be more different to the sugary, cookie-cutter films created by the famed studio. However, Burton secured his start in the industry drawing cartoon foxes for the company’s production of Fox and the Hound before claiming to lose his mind at the monotonous and factory-esque nature of their creative process. He then went on to make his directorial debut with Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure, the first inkling towards the gothic and other-worldly style that has defined Burton’s story worlds, with misunderstood, sometimes monstrous main characters that are often deeply lonely, reflecting Burton’s own feelings of isolation.
After gaining recognition for his subsequent film Beetlejuice, a trippy Halloween epic with a rag-tag ensemble of Hollywood misfits, Burton was offered the chance to direct the 1989 adaptation of Batman starring Jack Nicholson. It takes one outcast to know another, and Burton seemed like the perfect director to bring nuance and shade to the infamous character of Bruce Wayne, a reclusive and guarded vigilante that bears closer resemblance to a grumpy teenage boy, but whatever.
However, working with big studios hadn’t gone too well for Burton in the past. Known for his eccentric style and individuality (something that famously doesn’t always pair too well with an over-bearing Hollywood input), everyone was intrigued to see Burton’s spin on the classic tale. While the film was enjoyed by many despite its criticism for the handling of Wayne’s reveal to Vicki Vale and the bizarre inclusion of Prince’s music, Burton later spoke about the production’s challenges and the effect this had on his health.
Explaining: “I was probably as sick as I’ve ever been, on a movie, all the time. I was out of it. I was sick. See, the problem is, it was my first big movie. There’s all these people around. There’s a different energy. There’s no way to prepare. No way to prepare. More money. More tension. More fear. Everything: more, more, more. More. And I just let something happen, which I’ll try to never let happen again, which is to let the script unravel”.
The unravelling of the script that Burton speaks of is due to the input of multiple Hollywood producers who slowly started to eat away at the foundations of the story. People in the film industry are notorious for being fairly territorial and competitive about the creative process, often wanting to ‘one up’ and outdo other collaborators by offering new ideas that will give them the validation of another credit, and a writer’s credit is a great way to feel vital to the story.
Burton himself stated: ”People in Hollywood… it’s like animals peeing on little patches of ground. Unless they can do that, they don’t think they’re being creative. Hollywood is not real; it’s not founded on reality, so there’s a lot of subconscious paranoia. There’s a lot of deep-down fear, people thinking: ‘What’s my worth? Am I necessary to this process?’ It’s filled with that. And what happened on Batman.”
It’s easy to understand how an experience like this would have deterred a relatively new director from their craft, especially when feeling powerless in the company of very powerful people. But despite this, Burton has persevered in all his wonderful weirdness and has found the creative freedom that he deserves, maintaining the vibrancy of his vision in later films like Edward Scissorhands, The Nightmare Before Christmas and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Perhaps he isn’t the best fit for the studio system, but thank god because cinema would be far more boring without him.
