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

U.S. director Tim Burton arrived at the Venice Film Festival on Wednesday (September 5) where he was honoured with a career 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. There was also a screening of some sequences from his next project, "Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street". "This festival, this city, it's like cinema itself, it's very very special and therefore it means a lot to me," Burton, sporting his trademark dark glasses and frizzy hair, told a news conference. "It's actually a lot more beautiful looking thing than a bald, naked guy, it's very nice, it's very pleasing, so it's very special to me," he added, referring to the Oscar statuette that he has never won. He has been nominated once. Asked what kind of books and stories triggered his imagination as a child, he said: "In terms of fairy tales, I didn't read any, in the sense that, you know, monster movies and films were sort of fairy tales for me." Burton said he was currently working on "Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street", an adaptation of the hit Stephen Sondheim musical again starring frequent collaborator Johnny Depp as the eponymous barber who seeks deadly revenge for his wrongful imprisonment. "I've never been a big musical fan in terms of films but I am just working on one now, Sweeney Todd, which I love, it's my favourite musical because it mixes horror movies and music together which is nice and I think this is a great challenge for me," said Burton. Burton 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. The 49-year-old director will attend the award ceremony on Wednesday evening where heart-throb Depp is due to hand him the Golden Lion.

ITN Source | September 6, 2007

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