Beetlejuice director says internet is frustrating him

Director Tim Burton revealed that being online made him feel “very frustrated”.

Speaking ahead of a major career retrospective in London, he told BBC News: “Anyone who knows me knows I’m a bit of a technophobe.

“If I look at the Internet, I see that I’m depressed,” the 66-year-old said. “It scares me because I start to fall into a black hole. So I try to avoid it because it doesn’t make me feel good.”

The Design Museum’s World of Tim Burton, a collection of 600 items that organizers say “offers a rare glimpse into his creative process”, goes on display in the UK for the first time on Friday.

Burton is best known for directing films such as “Batman,” “Edward Scissorhands,” “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” and “Alice in Wonderland,” as well as “Beetlejuice” and its recent sequel.

Reflecting on his use of the internet, Burton said: “I get frustrated very quickly, maybe faster than other people. But it doesn’t take me long before I start clicking and starting to short-circuit.”

The filmmaker says staying busy and doing simple things like looking at clouds helps him feel better. He has a collection of ten giant dinosaur models in his backyard, including a 20-foot-long Tyrannosaurus rex.

Burton pulled out his phone and proudly showed us a photo of a 50-foot-tall brontosaurus. He bought the ones you find at amusement parks, adding that actor Nicolas Cage had “the real ones.”

Burton was born in a suburb outside Los Angeles, California, but has lived in London for the past 20 years.

“I’m a foreigner in my own country,” he told the BBC when asked how he chose the British capital. “When I came here, even as a foreigner, I felt more at home because that’s how I felt. A comfortable place.”

Burton had long been considered a “tortured outcast” and a self-proclaimed “eccentric.” As a child, he channeled his creativity into art, growing up watching classic horror movies and creature features, which fostered his love of monsters.

“Obviously, from ‘King Kong’ to ‘Frankenstein’ to ‘The Creature from the Black Lagoon,’ all the monsters are the most emotional. It’s the humans that scare me,” he said.

“They’re the angry villagers from Frankenstein – like the Internet – these nameless faces [Burton makes monster roaring noises] Monsters always have the most emotions and feel the most, even if they are viewed a certain way.

He added that “every monster usually has a certain pathos and a certain humanity” that humans lack.

Objects related to films from “Catwoman” to “Corpse Bride” are on loan for the new exhibition from Burton’s personal archives, the film studio and the private collections of collaborators such as designer Colleen Atwood.

What still scares Burton is the rapid advancement of artificial intelligence.

“It’s something I can’t even fathom,” he said, before referencing last year’s incident where artificial intelligence was used to turn Disney characters into Burton-esque characters.

“You really can’t understand it until it happens to you. But it was very disturbing: intellectually and emotionally disturbing. It felt like my soul had been taken away from me.

“It’s like other cultures say, ‘Oh, don’t take a picture of me because you’re taking my soul away’. That’s what it is. It takes away your humanity.”

“All I can say is, I understand when other cultures feel like your soul is being sucked out of you.”

Burton started out as an apprentice animator at Disney and made major contributions to stop-motion animation before directing blockbusters such as Batman (1989) and Batman Returns (1992).

When asked if he would return to directing a superhero movie, his answer was “no.”

“It felt very new at the time,” he recalled. “There was pressure because it was a big movie and it was a different interpretation of the comic book. So it was a pressure, but not the pressure you would experience now.”

When asked what he wanted to film next, Burton demurred. Maybe the horror classic Frankenstein?

“No, no,” he said with a smile. “I made my version with a dog [referring to his 2012 film Frankenweenie]. It doesn’t matter.

He admits he’s been buoyed by the recent success of “Beetlejuice” and the Netflix series “Wednesdays,” of which he directed four episodes.

“A trip to Hollywood is like Alice in Wonderland. You go up, down, sideways. That’s it,” he said.

“I realize now, maybe because I’m old too, that it doesn’t matter, I’ll do what I want to do. If you want to do it, fine. If not, then you don’t have to go on.” Travel with me ”.

More than 32,000 people purchased advance tickets to Tim Burton’s World, making it the largest advance ticket event in the Design Museum’s 35-year history.

Since 2014, the exhibition has been held in 14 cities in 11 countries.

Visitors can also see a recreation of Burton’s private studio, including a miniature version of Godzilla on his desk, reflecting his love of Japanese monster movies.

But Burton initially refused to allow the exhibition to come to London.

“It’s a strange thing to have 50 years of art and your life on display for everyone to see,” he said.

“However, working with the Design Museum for the last stop was the right choice. They understand art.”

Tim Marlow, CEO of the Design Museum, said: “Throughout his extraordinary career, Tim Burton deftly blended gothic horror and black comedy, melancholy and enchantment, quirky whimsy and fantasy to create fantastical movie world.

However, when discussing his success, Burton tells us that he refuses to use the term “Burtonian,” even though it is widely used in popular culture to describe his work.

“I never like this,” he said firmly. “I don’t want to be a thing. I’ve spent my whole life trying to be like a human being.”

Tim Burton’s World will run from 25 October 2024 to 21 April 2025 at the Design Museum in London.