2009 and 2010 will see the release of two films by master visionary directors — Alice in Wonderland by Tim Burton and The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus by Monty Python alum Terry Gilliam. In a world that’s full to the brim of remakes and reboots, unoriginal thought after unoriginal thought, you’d think we’d be happy to see some artistic ingenuity. And before you start: yes, I’m aware that Alice in Wonderland is in no way a “new” idea, but it’s been quite a while since it has been brought to life on screen effectively.
This got me thinking though, with the release of Alice in March and Parnassus this coming December, that here we have two directors whose stylistic flair is almost inseparable from their body of work. Each has had their share of blockbuster successes as well as flops. When they flop, they tend to flop hard. I’m looking at you, Adventures of Baron Munchausen.
However, there seems to be a double standard at play: Burton has suffered through a vast amount of criticism in the past decade or so for continuing to adhere to his style of gritty, scratchy curvature and the grotesque, while Gilliam is associated with the word “visionary” as much as any working director today. Why is this? Is there some landmark in the directors’ bodies of work that justify these claims, or is it simply a matter of personal taste?
Gilliam gets praise immediately for his association with Monty Python — his artistry and involvement with the group that revolutionized comedy in the modern age solidifies his status as “important.” His Monty Python and the Holy Grail is an absolute classic, as is Brazil. He got some of the best performances out of Bruce Willis and Brad Pitt with 12 Monkeys. But then he’s got others: the aforementioned Munchausen, the critically panned Tideland, and the horrible Brothers Grimm.
Burton’s career kicked off with a bang — Edward Scissorhands is often considered his finest, followed by the blockbuster Batman and its sequel. He’s often associated with The Nightmare Before Christmas (a film he didn’t direct, but had incredible stylistic control over). But somewhere between those films and Big Fish, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and Sweeney Todd, he fell out of favor with many.
This doesn’t seem to be a matter of possessing a classic embedded in your name — I would consider Nightmare, despite how Hot Topic culture has soiled the name, to be a classic of Burton’s. It seems to be a matter of engineering your films in a manner that matches your style. Gilliam has always been able to evolve his visuals — the design of 12 Monkeys is nothing like Holy Grail, but both are characteristically Gilliam. On the other hand, Burton collides his aesthetic with the subject material in ways that don’t necessarily congeal — Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is an example of a story that simply doesn’t benefit from his designs.
I have a lot of hope in both Alice and Parnassus, though — the latter seems to be a wonderfully diverse film with Gilliam’s prevalent sense of bravado, while Alice seems to be diminishing Burton’s usual flair in an effort to capture the essence of the original story. This is Tim Burton’s chance to prove he’s an excellent storyteller once again, and not simply a great artist with an acquired taste. To see both of these directors go head to head within four months of each other is an exciting prospect.
