What Is The Style Of Tim Burton's Direction?

Director Tim Burton has gained a reputation for a surreal gothic style, while retaining a traditional commitment to narrative storytelling. Having made a series of animated shorts in his early career, Burton's first feature length film, Pee-Wee's Big Adventure in 1985 used a cartoon sensibility for live action. He applied similar techniques to horror comedy Beetlejuice in 1988, before taking box office heavyweight Batman (1989) and crafting a uniquely dark vision. Despite Burton's experimental approach and saturated gothic designs, the film went on to become a major success. He took a more low-key but stylistically consistent approach to 1990's Edward Scissorhands, before returning to the Batman series in 1992, but despite continued box office success decided to end his relationship with the franchise. 1994's Ed Wood and 1996's Mars Attacks! saw Burton develop a mixture of exaggerated realism and cartoon spectacle. In 1999 he directed Sleepy Hollow, a condensation of previous Gothic themes, before struggling with remake project Planet of the Apes in 2001. In 2003, Big Fish re-established Burton as one of the masters of magical realism in cinema, themes he would sustain into 2005's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, as well as more Gothic animation in The Corpse Bride.