Creativity is like a tube of toothpaste

Has Tim Burton lost it?

I mean, is creativity something that you only have a limited supply of—like toothpaste—and once you use it up it’s gone? Is Tim Burton, at 53, squeezing out the last globs of his minty-fresh-flecked creative goo?

If my analogy is true, then I’d say Burton peaked somewhere in 2003 after directing Big Fish. This was before he started employing an incredibly talented, but now tiresome posse including Johnny Depp, composer Danny Elfman, and his domestic partner Helena.

It’s almost as if the combined forces of their supreme creative talent was just too much for the universe to handle, so that movies featuring all four of them ended up just being really terrible.

Take Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005)—a remake that never needed to happen. Watching Burton’s rendition of the 1971 version, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, is sort of like watching a skinny white girl on American Idol sing “Respect” by Aretha Franklin. It just can’t compare to the original.

So, you sit there thinking “no, no, no. Oompa Loompas are orange and have green hair…not Indian midgets in red pleather onesies.” Or, “no, no no. Willy Wonka was an eccentric badass…not a simpleton with daddy issues.”

Then came Alice in Wonderland (2010), which wholly lived up to its distinction as a Disney movie. That is, it was disappointingly…normal. Normal enough to become the tenth highest grossing film of all time. Yes, it was dark, but in a silly sort of “don’t be frightened children” way.  And, Wonderland, in all of its CGI-rendered loveliness, was somehow less convincing than the fantasy worlds Burton has, in other films, sculpted out of clay.

Adding to that list Sweeny Todd (2007) and his latest effort, Dark Shadows (2012), Burton hasn’t directed an original film (i.e. not a remake or derivation) in seven years. It seems he’s gotten into the business of rehashing classics that were just fine to begin with.

It wasn’t always this way.

Remember the Burton of the 90’s? Remember Beetlejuice and Batman, and Edward Scissorhands. Remember The Nightmare Before Christmas, which Burton didn’t direct, but that he created. That he pulled from the depths of his gloriously twisted brain! A movie so fantastic, with music so infectious, and a storyline so emotionally multi-dimensional—I laughed, I cried, I was scared shitless by the Oogie Boogie man—that I don’t hesitate to use the word “masterpiece” to describe it.

How many masterpieces would you say someone has inside of them? I think one is a hell of an achievement. One masterpiece and you are entitled to forever sit on a chaise lounge and be fed grapes by the sexy person of your choice. And Burton, by my count, is responsible for one of those and a string of really solidly great movies.

So, I can only assume that one thing is going on here: drained, like I said, of his creativity, Burton exists in nearly comatose-like state. He’s like, sitting in a chair somewhere with a blanket over his knees. He’s being spoon-fed alphabet soup. And, when the Hollywood executives come to visit with big plans for Shitty Remake X and Terrible Spinoff Y, he’s just so tired, he’s just so drained you see, that he just says, or rather mumbles: “Okay.” He lacks the energy to resist. And, he especially lacks the energy to dream up an unfamiliar cast and crew, so it’s back to his old standbys: Johnny, Danny, and his old lady, Helena.

Maybe he just needs rest. Some time off. A month in the Bahamas so he can get a tan. You know, to soak up some Vitamin D. This creative rut that Burton is in, is, I hope, a pattern that breaks with his upcoming film Frankenweenie, which comes out in October. It’s stop-motion, which immediately scores points with me. It features the voice talents of Winona Ryder and Catherine O’Hara–two Beetlejuice stars–which is, you know, neat.

It’s a remake, too. But it’s a remake of an original short film by the same name that Burton wrote and directed in the 80’s. It’s about a boy who brings his deceased dog back to life in his attic laboratory by harnessing the power of lightening.

It’s weird though…the plot of the movie seems familiar in some way. For some reason, I have this unshakable feeling that I’ve seen it somewhere before.

Rest in peace, idea babies

When it comes to ideas, I have lots of them. A shortage of ideas is not usually my problem.

My problem is, I start letting an idea develop and then bam! I smother it with a pillow of doubt and over-analyzation. I’ve killed a lot of idea-babies that way. I start imagining the furrowed brows of my audience and then I’m like:

No.

Just…no. Stop writing, Self.

I start to feel self-indulgent, which is a terrible way to feel. I start to count the times I’ve written the word “I,” which is a lot. Then I start to think about something like children in Africa with distended bellies and my creative momentum drains from my fingertips.

And, momentum is so important.

I start to think that I could be washing dishes, or cleaning my room, or doing something productive. I could build houses for Habitat for Humanity. I could be doing crunches.  I could really be doing anything else and it would be more helpful for everyone involved. (Note: Instead of actually doing those things I usually just escape into the blatantly sexist but oh-so-charming world of Mad Men…which is only helpful for the creators of Mad Men).

I think a lot of creative people struggle with this. At least, I hope a lot of creative people struggle with this—an imaginary audience throwing imaginary rotten fruit. A sort of “but who really cares” feeling mixed with the fact that you should be doing something more productive and less frivolous because maybe you’re just, well, really terrible at art.

But, who knows because your brain, as I’ve come to learn, is not particularly objective when it comes to assessing your creative worth. It’s easy to say things like “Adam Sandler is an imbecile” and be completely confident in your opinion. Actually, it’s not an opinion to you—it’s fact. But, when you ask yourself “Self, am I any good at this or should I just give up and start selling shoes?”, your self usually responds with a nebulous non-answer, or worse yet, encourages you to take that sales job at Payless. “It’s discount shoes for you!” says Self as it laughs manically. Your self is notoriously unkind.

You will never know! You will never know if you’re any good. You will never be convinced. Not with your asshole Self calling the shots. I’m telling this to you, furrowed-brow-audience, as much as I’m telling it to myself. It’s your choice. When the idea babies pop out of the womb of possibility, still slimy with the juices of hope, it’s your choice whether or not to feed them from the teet of confidence and let those idea babies grow.

It’s your choice—that is–unless all you want to do is make art. Then you’ve really got no choice but to keep those babies alive, even if they grow up to be homely and not too bright.