Tim Burton: Nine monster movies that inspired him1 min read
Reading Time: < 1 minuteTim Burton’s gleefully macabre aesthetic is currently on display at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art – the exhibition that bears the filmmaker’s name and runs through Halloween brings together more than 700 drawings, paintings, photographs, film and video works, storyboards, puppets, concept art, costumes and other movie memorabilia.
During a recent interview with the Los Angeles Times, the Burbank-born director talked about the influence classic monster movies have had on his life’s work, and picking up on that theme, the museum this weekend will launch a Saturday Monster Matinee series spotlighting nine films that are close to Burton’s heart. Here’s a look at the lineup:
“The 7th Voyage of Sinbad” (1958): Directed by Nathan Juran, the film was the first of three “Sinbad” movies Columbia produced that special effects pioneer Ray Harryhausen designed and animated with the dazzling stop-motion technique he called Dynamation.
It took Harryhausen 11 months to complete the painstaking work on the film, which features creatures including a cyclops and a cobra-woman; Sinbad (Kerwin Matthews) even has a sword battle with a skeleton. The late Bernard Herrmann, who is the subject of several centenary celebrations this year, penned the score. Three years ago, “Sinbad” was selected for preservation in the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress. Screens Saturday.
