ITALY: The king of macabre fairy tales, Tim Burton, honoured with a gold lion award in Venice

U.S. director Tim Burton, sporting his trademark dark glasses and frizzy hair, turned up at the glitzy red carpet at the Venice Film Festival on Wednesday (September 5) where he received an award honouring his career. Johnny Depp, who has starred in many of his films, arrived to the delight of hundreds of screaming fans to award the director with a Golden Lion lifetime achievement award. Organisers of the festival, whose 64th edition runs until September 8, called Burton "one of America's bravest, most visionary and innovative film-makers." Wednesday was also dubbed "Tim Burton's Day" on the Lido, with the world premiere of the 3-D version of his 1993 film "The Nightmare before Christmas", a ghoulish animated musical set in Halloweentown. "I've been to this festival a few times, and each time I've come here I've just had this very special feeling about it, You grow up in Hollywood and that whole scenario and what you feel here is that there is just passion about movies. So that's what makes it special to me. It's not about business, it's not about finance, it's about just the love of movies. And so to get this at this point in my life I just think is an inspiration and I can always remember it and hopefully use that as an inspiration to keep going," Burton told Reuters in an interview. There was also a screening of some sequences from his next project, "Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street", an adaptation of the hit Stephen Sondheim musical again starring frequent collaborator Depp as the eponymous barber who seeks deadly revenge for his wrongful imprisonment. The movie also stars Helena Bonham Carter, Burton's partner with whom he has also worked on several movies. The couple have one child together and are expecting a second. "I don't know if it was ever that popular in terms of just mass culture as a musical. For musical aficionados ... it's probably my favourite musical just because of all the different elements, the horror, the humour, the drama and the beauty of the music all juxtaposed in there. I just felt like on stage the one thing that they don't have the opportunities to see the actors' faces and eyes, so this is a case where we almost felt like we were making a silent movie with music," said Burton. Burton's dark but often funny films have been described as fairy tales for adults although his off beat creatures are also popular with children. "He is a rare breed in today's cinema, beyond that he is a true original, a true artist, a true auteur. He's my favourite director and friend. Let's give him the thing," said Depp before handing him the Golden Lion. The 49-year old mixes critical acclaim, for titles such as "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory", "Corpse Bride" and "Edward Scissorhands", with box office hits that make him a major Hollywood player.

ITN Source | September 6, 2007

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