Tim Burton Gets Lifetime Achievement Award (Perhaps Twenty Years Too Early)

Posted by Mister Hand (misterhand@filmschoolrejects.com) on September 6, 2007

Actor Johnny Depp and Director Tim Burton in Venice

Lifetime Achievement Awards tend to lose their luster when they get passed out like candy. Recipients are given the award based on what they have achieved over a lifetime, which can be a pretty long stretch. Maybe it’s just me, but I expect the honoree to basically have one foot in the grave. Perhaps you would want to award one as soon as possible to, say, a director who is a heroin addict or displays self-destructive behavior, but who has nonetheless achieved great things.

As far as I know, Tim Burton is a healthy not-quite-fifty year-old. Nonetheless, he has been awarded a Lifetime Achievement Award at the Venice Film Festival. Don’t these people know that fifty is the new forty?

John Campea over at The Movie Blog apparently agrees with me that Burton is one of the most consistently overrated directors of our time. Nevertheless, Burton brings a lot to the table: a distinctive visual style that is uniquely his own, a fearless devotion to telling non-Hollywood-friendly stories, and a workmanlike devotion to his craft. But he’s not even fifty years old yet, guys. I’m not saying he’s undeserving, I just think we’re jumping the gun a little.

Furthermore, I believe that Burton is a director who has spent the last decade in a transitional period. (For those of you who may be unfamiliar with that term, it’s normally a nice way of saying an accomplished artist’s work has sort of sucked lately.) But I believe in this case the term “transitional” is more than just a platitude. I believe Burton is working through stylistic break from his early movies and will soon move on to creating a body of work to rival his heyday. Twenty years from now, if Burton creates his undisputed masterpiece of cinema, the Lifetime Achievement awarders are going to be left with egg on their face.

Meanwhile, other great directors who are still alive and facing their twilight years go unnoticed. Many of these directors haven’t experienced the commercial success Burton has enjoyed. Why don’t we seek those guys out and give them some honors?

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