On the couch with Tim Burton
A screening room is where we caught up with Tim Burton whose latest film, “Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children”, a screen adaptation of the children’s book with Eva Green in the title role, will be released this autumn. Comfortably seated, we set out to discover what goes on in the mind and on the wrist of this most unconventional of directors.
When the blonde heroine of Alice in Wonderland falls down the rabbit hole, time goes haywire, symbolised by the perpetually late White Rabbit’s pocket watch, which the Mad Hatter declares to be exactly two days slow!
What about you, Tim? Are you habitually late?
I can be late, although I never plan to be. You have these people whose watch is synchronised to an atomic clock, and who wave it under your nose telling you how “cutting-edge” and “ultra-precise” it is, implying that YOU, the guy with the ordinary watch, are totally has-been. Of course, you can have the very latest technology on your wrist, no matter how perfect your watch, it can never make up for lost time! [chuckles]
What's the first thing you look for in a watch?
It all depends who I’m buying it for. If it’s for me, it’s not so much the design that interests me as the history behind it. I enjoy looking at photos that have yellowed with age, postcards from the last century… they transport you back in time in the wink of an eye. It can be quite moving, you know, like when you buy a pocket watch from an old antique dealer, or chance upon a vintage clock. When you ask about it, he’ll tell you when it was made and about its different features. He might even go as far as to reveal who it once belonged to. Who cares if it’s all baloney. For a few minutes, thanks to everything the gentleman has told you, you’ve played out an entire film in your head!
In my latest movie, Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children, young Jacob uses photos as clues to unravel his past and find out more about his late grandfather. I liked the idea of this teenager who finds some old photos and turns them into a story. It’s exactly how I feel with vintage watches. When you look at them, pick them up, listen to them ticking, they’re really sharing moments from a past life. I find that quite beautiful, poetic. I have to look at a watch and know straight away that it’s the one. It has to be “love at first sight”!
And if you were choosing a watch for a lady?
Not the giant, glow-in-the-dark dive watch. Unless the lady in question spends her life underwater! [laughs]. I’d look for a watch that was both understated and original. Gold and precious stones aren’t on my list. I prefer a watch with character to something bling-bling. How much I love someone isn’t measured by the amount of money I spend, but by the time I spend tracking down the elusive and perfect item.
Is there a place where you disconnect from time? Somewhere you really don't feel like checking your watch?
In a movie theatre. That’s where I’m happiest. You know, I’ve always considered myself to be someone normal. I don’t try and understand who I am. The very word “normal” strikes me as strange, even just saying it. In fact I’m not really sure what being normal means!
What's Tim Burton's house like? A gothic castle?
Not a castle, but the house of an artist, Arthur Racob, a man who had a huge influence on me. What is now my bedroom used to be his studio, where he showed his drawings and other artworks. The house has good vibes. I’m happy to live there. I don’t want to be the “tortured artist”, you know. Living in constant darkness isn’t for me. But I do believe we need a conflictual energy if we’re to give the best we can. When you’re told “no” a hundred times a day, there comes a point when you feel you have to surpass yourself. Where does creativity come from? I have no idea. I’ve tried millions of therapies and still don’t have the answer. I remember one psychiatrist in particular who sat opposite me and stared me in the eyes for an hour, without uttering a word. At the end of the session, he told me I was perfectly well and my only problem was that I was incapable of communicating. I answered that it takes two to have a conversation! All that cost me $100 for the hour. He never saw me again.
