Yes, yes, I know. He's the man who brought us the remake of Planet of the Apes, a sub-par Alice in Wonderland, inflicted Winona Ryder on an unsuspecting public and inaugurated the emo movement. All unforgivable, I admit. But I have a stirring confession to make: I love, and have always loved, Tim Burton.
There are two films that scared the holy living crap out of me at a very young age. The first was Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (I was four and Dracula had freaky eyes). The other was Beetlejuice. Beetlejuice, in fact, scared me so badly I had nightmares for a week and had to sleep with the lights on. That striped snake thingie was totally under my bed. What bothered me the most was not a specific moment in the film – although the part where the ghosts begin to decay in their wedding outfits was certainly troubling – but the whole mis en scene. Burton's films have a weird sensibility about them that is difficult to define. He has a very precise, instantly recognizable style – the pale faces, the black and white stripes, the extreme make-up, the Danny Elfman score. It's a style that you either like or you don't; that you either relate to or find stupid. Beetlejuice was fun because it indulged in anarchy without fully giving way to it; because it allowed weirdness to exist for its own sake.
If my childhood was characterized by Burtonian antics, my adulthood has allowed me to appreciate his weirdness even more. I prefer Burton's weird conceptualization of the Batman universe in Batman and Batman Returns above Nolan's darker than dark, seriouser than serious graphic novel approach. Not being much of a comic book fan to begin with, the glee with which Michael Keaton, Jack Nicholson, and Kim Basinger indulge in their slightly (or very) crazed sides in the first Batman is more appealing than Christian Bale's guttural whine. Batman Returns has the trifecta of weirdness in Pfeiffer, Devito and Walken (not to mention Keaton again). I'm sure that I could not care less if those films adhered to comic books, graphic novels or whatever else they're supposed to adhere to. They were firmly tongue in cheek, among the first superhero films, and never took themselves too terribly seriously.
Burton's best films are grotesques; celebrations of the weird, yes, but with the 
discomfort of seeing the 'normal' people caricatured as far far stranger than the outcasts. But what I like most is Burton's ultimate lack of judgment. Edward Scissorhands produces a mockery of the suburban landscape, with the cookie cutter houses and bright pastels, yet the final impression is not one of judgement, not an 'us vs. them' mentality. His outcasts are searching for acceptance for what they are, not what anyone (the viewer included) wants them to be. The films prize the family unit, strange, absurd, creepy, but accepting and loving.
Burton never really makes fun of his subjects, as outlandish as they are. The normal world never comes off quite as badly as it might seem. Diane Wiest's suburban mom in Edward Scissorhands might seem like a conformist at the start, but by the end of the film she does everything she can to look after her own children and the scissorhanded foundling. Catherine Harris in Beetlejuice might seem inexcusably pretentious, even cruel, for most of the film, but she's redeemed by her acceptance of the weirdness around her, her eventual indulgence of her stepdaughter's otherworldly friends. The family unit is formed through acceptance, expanded upon to include normals and outcasts. Burton's world-view is remarkably accepting of all types.
Burton is not a very good narrative director – his best plots revolve around simple fairytale-like structures that are homages to old school horror and sci-fi. Mars Attacks, perhaps his most disturbing, gleeful and vitriolic homage to everything sci-fi, is an Ed Wood film writ large. His best serious work, Ed Wood, reads more as a Hollywood drama than anything else, but the passion and pathos with which the film treats the worst filmmaker of all time is undeniable. Sleepy Hollow, one of my personal favorites, is a new version of Hammer Studios, with the spurting blood, the heaving bodices, spinning heads, crazy ghosts and the self-satisfied investigator. Burton's films are full of references, but they always carry his stamp, which you either are happy to join with or reject.
I admit that Burton's style is not for everyone. You have to be willing to accept the extremity of the costuming, the pallid young men and pixieish girls, and, under most circumstances, the presence of Johnny Depp. There's no defense against Planet of the Apes (it was ridiculous); Alice in Wonderland and even Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (although I did enjoy that one) are not among Burton's best films. But look at the films he has made: Batman, Batman Returns, Big Fish, Corpse Bride, Beetlejuice, Mars Attacks!, Ed Wood, Edward Scissorhands. I've always been willing to give Burton the benefit of the doubt. Sweeney Todd was one of the most remarkable experiences I've had in the cinema; the buckets of blood and the darkness of the outlook jarred somewhat with Burton's usual optimistic position, but I will defend it as one of the better contemporary musical films. I've yet to see Dark Shadows, but y'know, I'm going to. The Avengers was not Whedon's gift to God, and I have a sneaking suspicion that Dark Shadows does not represent the apocalypse of movie-making.
Regardless of how loyal he is to the originals – comic books, TV shows or stage productions – Burton's films are usually dependable to be what they set out to be: celebrations of strangeness, fascination with darkness that only rarely turns into nihilism. No matter how often his characters may seem to dwell in the shadows, they almost inevitably come into the light.
