This four-part, so-far-untitled documentary series about the rise and rise of Hollywood’s least likely marquee-name director starts out with a tribute from Christopher Walken that will be very hard for the next three instalments to match. In that inimitable… sta-cc-a-to… WAY… of his, the Sleepy Hollow star recalls his former dance teacher saying to him: “Chris, show me something I never saw before. And that’s what Tim does. Every time.”
That, by any metric, is a high bar, and, for the first hour of this docuseries at least, the hyperbole is justified: Whether Tim Burton’s 39-year career in feature films — one imagines the imminent release of Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice must have scuppered the nice, round 40 — will keep viewers glued to the next three is another matter. But while Tara Wood’s documentary is clearly in the director’s corner, it does, convincingly, chart the most unlikely of outsiders’ rise to the top without ever rewriting history to reframe it as a jolly David and Goliath story — in fact, it’s pretty much in your face about that. This, after all, is the guy who, as a kid, idly doodled the Spoodle (half spider, half poodle), and whose art teacher at school, though she cheered him on, might have been a little daunted by his macabre creativity (“Everything you can’t imagine, he drew”).
For those who checked out of the increasingly mannered, style-over-script Burton universe that set in after Planet of the Apes (2001), Wood’s doc is a welcome reminder of how much of a disruptor he was back in the day. Born in sunny Burbank, 1958, under the least Gothic of circumstances, Burton fought the inclement fortune of a polite, suburban existence in a way that now seems even stranger than it might have done at the time. His acting appearances in his Super-8 shorts (a memorable one finds him being eaten alive by a beanbag) may now seem at odds with his camera-shy reputation, but his future as a director starts to make more sense with his growing confidence as an animator, notably with his 1979 student film Stalk of the Celery Monster.
What happened to Burton next must surely be a doc in the making, if not about him per se but about the culture at Walt Disney Productions, where he was almost immediately hired as an apprentice. After Walt died in 1966, the middle managers moved in, and the animation department had been stifled ever since. Burton himself isn’t a voice in this episode (aside from archive), but Helena Bonham Carter speaks for him, saying, “He hated his time at Disney.” It’s clear, though, that he was inspired there. We hear of The Nine Old Men, who worked with Disney from the ’20s to the ’80s, and, despite the age gap, were every bit as frustrated as Burton was. In any case, the Disney years are a weird period in his resumé, since, for all his complaints, they did bankroll his calling-card films, Vincent (1982) and Frankenweenie (1984).
In short order, this gets us to his late-’80s movie career, starting with Pee-wee’s Big Adventure, then the surprise-hit Beetlejuice, and the almost unimaginable big step-up to Batman. Though there are some candid conversations here — notably from his regular composer Danny Elfman, who also supplies the show’s perfectly all-encompassing title music — we’re now in traditional talking-head doc territory. This, in itself, is no bad thing, especially when former “miserable TV star” (not his own words) Johnny Depp recalls his nervousness upon realizing that he was up against Tom Hanks, Michael Jackson and — most surprising of all — Tom Cruise for Edward Scissorhands. But can it sustain?
It’s hard to judge from one episode, but, if nothing else, Burton is a very good example of a director to follow through the studio system. The auteur theory is practically designed for him; a director who only has story and character credits on his films (so far), and yet you know damn well who made them. For that, at least, a tip of the hat is due — and this docuseries is here for it.
Title: ‘Tim Burton Untitled Docuseries’ (Episode One)
Festival: Tribeca (NOW Special Screening)
Director: Tara Wood
Sales Agent: Fifth Season
Running time: 1hr 5 min