Tim Burton’s America

One thing Burton is not credited with enough is how he has become one of the great chroniclers of his homeland. Through the prism of his inimitable style (the great Burtonesque), he has revealed America to be both lunatic asylum and wonderland, and a source of endless fascination. You could say that Burton has built a mythology of America that draws from all the countercultural currents he has such affection for, as well as his own peculiar upbringing in Burbank, in the shadow of the studios. The lecture will show how his portrait of America takes many forms: the outlandish satire of Pee-wee’s Big Adventure and Mars Attacks!, the surreal suburbia of Edward Scissorhands, the grand gothics of Sleepy Hollow or Dark Shadows, the folkloric realms of Big Fish, through to his subversion and homage to some great American traditions (the superhero of Batman, the musical of The Corpse Bride, the carnival of Dumbo, the Hollywood dreams of Ed Wood). It will also question what he has to say about his country, which seems to embody both the suppression of the unconventional and a celebration of its diversity and art (all of which apply to Burton). A complex picture emerges – that America is the most Burtonesque country in the world.