Tim Burton has a new flick this holiday season: Big Eyes, about Margaret and Walter Keane and the paintings of saucer-eyed waifs that made them famous and later infamous. It’s fantastic.
This was at a screening and Q&A yesterday afternoon. Burton in person is sort of verbally constantly tripping over himself as he (apparently) struggles to narrow a bunch of competing ideas and tangents into something comprehensible… which he manages, and is fascinating to listen to as he talks about his work. Waltz is just the totally charming movie star.
I know I probably should not take the trailer for this movie too seriously but here it is all the same:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YOavDSErmak
That said, I can take a guess why MaryAnn seemed more interested in this project than in more recent Tim Burton projects. It does seem to include a lot of her favorite themes and if nothing else, its take on the subject seems more original than the usual “great artist” biopic. Perhaps because not everyone recognized the subject of the movie as a great artist.
Indeed, it is usually considered anathema in most pop culture circles to take the work of Margaret Keane more seriously than black velvet Elvis paintings and portraits of dogs playing poker. Then again it has been argued on YouTube that one character in The Power Puff Girls was actually named after Ms. Keane in her honor. So go figure.