August 25, 2023 Tim Burton celebrates 65 years, of which more than half he spent behind the camera, trying to transfer his vision of the world and his poetics to the big screen, confirming himself – especially between the eighties and nineties – as one of the most interesting, innovative and unusual directors of his generation. If we wanted to be extremely brief, we could say that Tim Burton is the director of the excluded, dreamers who have no place in a society that is always on the run and always too distracted, pretending to understand that above all it is necessary that everyone exists. He is the director of those who paint beyond borders, those who defy expectations and who have managed to maintain a thirst for wonder even in reality, which very often seems like a theater for a horror play. The poetic Tim Burton, who needed an actor who, like him, would feel like an outsider. If Tim Burton’s characters feel out of place in the society they should belong to, then Tim Burton has always felt like a proverbial fish out of water in the shiny, corrupt and often rotten world of Hollywood. To do this, the director needed someone who felt the same way, someone who could convey this sense of alienation from the present while living in the middle of it. And it is not surprising that the choice fell on Johnny Depp.
Edward Scissorhands, Birth of Friendship
On a hill above an unnamed Californian town with terraces of pastel villas stands an old Gothic castle. An ink blot in a reality full of soft and delicate colors. Behind these thick and lonely walls wanders Edward, a boy with scissors for hands, abandoned by his creator before he had a chance to complete the building. Edward is one of the most beloved “monsters” in Tim Burton’s filmography: a naive and pure creature who is forced to cross the confines of his sanctuary to enter a society that first idolizes him and then turns his back on him, even pushing him away. him back like a terrible nightmare that should be gone the next morning. But it is not fear or horror that drives the citizens’ intentions, but the realization that Edward is special, as they can never be, that his diversity demonstrates all the malice of the so-called “normal”. And take on the role of this artist who doesn’t have the hands to always shape the world the way he wants to, Johnny Depp, who with this 1990 film marks the beginning of his friendship and collaboration with Tim Burton. The two almost become the face of the same coin, able to look in the same direction and see the same story.
Other movies Tim Burton and Johnny Depp have made together
“I didn’t think films could be considered art because there’s always a commercial aspect, but Tim Burton is a real artist. He is a visionary who does not compromise.”. These words are also reported Virgin Radio – which Johnny Depp used to describe Tim Burton and what it meant and meant to him to work with a director who not only didn’t want to change him, but understood his need to be involved in films that were urgent and at the same time a story that he deserved to be told. Here’s what’s after Edward Scissorhands in 1994 he will arrive Ed Wood A film about a real-life director of the same name is considered the worst in history. Like Tim Burton, like Johnny Depp, Ed Wood was also an artist who was not appreciated by Hollywood, an outsider who wanted to tell his vision of the world, his poetics, while trying to make science fiction films. A character that, as the director himself said during his participation in the Rome Film Festival in 2021, Tim Burton felt very close to himself. And that Johnny Depp liked to play.
So, in 1999 it arrived. Sleepy Hollow Mystery a dark film that combines horror and comedy based on an old Halloween legend. Once again, Tim Burton decides to entrust the main role to Johnny Depp, with whom he then collaborates again in 2005 with Chocolate Factory AND Corpse Bride. While the second was just about giving voice to a character, Johnny Depp once again indulges his director and immerses himself in the production of an extravaganza that will reach its peak in 2010. Alice in Wonderland, where Johnny Depp plays the Mad Hatter. A feature film, the last one that seems to underline the veracity of the words uttered by Johnny Depp: Tim Burton is a master of his craft, and when he had to “bend” to computer graphics and CGI in general, he was gobbled up. His story was hidden by special effects.
Before Alice in Wonderland, however, in 2007 they signed another great collaboration, Sweeney Todd – The Wicked Barber of Fleet Street a very black musical inspired by the play of the same name produced on Broadway by Sondheim and in turn inspired by both terrible pennies (Victorian horror) namesake, both Count of Monte Cristo Alexandre Dumas. Johnny Depp returns to holding blades between his fingers to express himself with cuts and knives, as in Edward Scissorhands, but this time his character is cruel, gloomy, thirsting for revenge. Of the revenge that would become the weapon that would kill him and defeat him.
Tim Burton and Johnny Depp’s latest collaboration dates back to 2012, when the director decides to bring to the big screen a story that entertained him on television when he was young. Dark shadows. Here, Johnny Depp plays a vampire doomed to misfortune, struggling with a toxic relationship that undermines all his chances of falling in love and thus experiencing the sweet taste of true love. Tim Burton once again decides to use comedic tones for stories deeply rooted in horror and creates a black comedy that didn’t convince everyone.
Since then, Tim Burton and Johnny Depp have not made a feature film together, to the point that many have wondered if their friendship ended along with a creative collaboration. To calm these fears, Tim Burton himself took care, who said at a press conference held at the Rome Film Festival: “Of course I will work with him again. He is my friend. He is the one I care about “.