Big Fish in His Own Pond

A wound? Burton would prefer that no one confuse the art with the artist, but he makes it tough. Many of his earlier films are responses to growing up in a family that couldn't express itself. His father, a parks employee, and his mother, who ran a gift shop, rarely touched their two children, says Burton, and at age 10, he left his family and moved in with his grandmother. He never fully reconciled with his father before the elder Burton's death in 2000, which could be why he was driven to direct Big Fish. "My father died, and my mother was ill, so I read the script," he says, "and I feel like it captured a thing that was always quite difficult for me to put into words. That relationship, it just, you try to talk about it, and it doesn't, it didn't ... Well, you can never really talk about it. You know, these issues are just in you. So I thought I'd just show it."

Burton may live in his own space, but it is not juvenile, and it is not sealed. While he refuses to attend industry events like the Oscars — "It's a popularity contest, and based on my growing-up experiences in school, I lost" — he loves having movie people around him. "I enjoyed working with animation a little," he says. "But I love actors and sets and all of that. It's just more fun. No matter what you're doing, you stand back, and it's like there are all these people standing around in funny clothes looking at you and ... Maybe I seem to them like the most foul-tempered, sealed-off zombie creature, but I get such incredible joy. It's like a wonderful, absurd dream." Just real.