A Sneak Peek Inside Tim Burton’s Head (and MoMA’s Show)

　　NEW YORK—Members of the press got a treat today when the Museum of Modern Art held a preview of sorts for its fall blockbuster: a retrospective on fantastical filmmaker Tim Burton, 50, whose largely macabre movies include Edward Scissorhands, Beetlejuice, The Nightmare Before Christmas, and, most recently, Sweeney Todd. (Burton is also in postproduction for his take on Alice in Wonderland, due in theaters in March 2010.) The show — which one could interpret as something of a ploy to lure museum visitors, although really, who cares? — was announced last month, but this morning’s briefing served to further whet appetites and shed a little more light on the museum’s plans.

　　The exhibition differs from other, more traditional film shows in that it is not a history of a particular filmmaker’s work or the process of his filmmaking, said MoMA Assistant Film Curator Ron Magliozzi, who organized the exhibition with curatorial assistant Jenny He and Chief Curator Rajendra Roy. It is instead an exhibition of art made by Burton — a conglomeration of more than 700 “drawings, paintings, photographs, storyboards, moving-image works, puppets, maquettes, costumes, and cinematic ephemera” (a number of which can be seen in the photo gallery to the left), according to the media release, illustrating nothing if not the director’s vast prolificacy. (So prolific, in fact, that Magliozzi compares him to Warhol.)

　　Some 550 of those pieces come from Burton’s personal collection, meaning that most of them have never before been seen by the general public, let alone any public. Burton, who was present at the MoMA preview, said he had not looked at most of the pieces for years and described the experience as a “reenergizing process” and a way of reconnecting with himself. Apparently, he essentially gave Magliozzi free rein over his archives, allowing MoMA to pull what it wished for the show.

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　　To give a taste of what the museum has up its sleeve, Magliozzi screened clips from two rare Burton films, which, along with his other non-features, will be shown in the heart of the exhibition, in MoMA’s galleries. (Accompanying the exhibition will be screenings of Burton’s feature-length films in the museum’s theater.) The first, Doctor of Doom (1980), is an early amateur short that spoofs foreign horror films in a hilariously low-budget way. The second Magliozzi described as a “lost” Burton work: Hansel and Gretel, a 16 mm film made in 1983, when the director was working at Disney. It played on the Disney cable channel on Halloween night, never to be seen again — much to the frustration of die-hard Burton fans — until now. A clip showed a Japanese Hansel and Gretel; an absurd, somewhat androgynous-looking witch; a candy house that bleeds paint; and an extremely creepy, talking gingerbread man. “It’s hard to imagine that on the Disney Channel,” Burton said after the clip ended. Indeed.

　　Burton himself — a master at suggesting the dark underside of everything he touches, and in some ways a modern-day Edward Gorey, to this writer’s mind — seemed a tad uncomfortable in the polished setting that is MoMA. One reporter picked up on this, asking Burton, who answered questions while constantly shifting his weight from side to side, how it felt being there, particularly as an honoree.

　　“I didn’t grow up in a museum culture,” he answered. “I think the Hollywood Wax Museum was my first museum.” Later, when asked what his hometown of Burbank, Calif., is like, he quipped similarly cleverly, “Have you ever seen Dante’s inferno?”

　　Overall, he seemed to handle the whole ordeal with a blend of California ease (despite the fact that he now spends much of his time in London) and genuine appreciation. And, of course, humor. Asked how his parents took the news of his retrospective, he pointedly emphasized their surprise. “Often with people in my position, it’s either success or jail,” he elaborated, to general amusement. When another journalist congratulated him on staying out of jail, he quickly responded, “There’s still time.”

（来源：Artinfo，点击参看译文）