'SCISSORHANDS' CUTS TO TIM BURTON'S CORE

By Susan Spillman

From USA Today, 12.10.1990, Final Edition

After last summer's super smash Batman, 32-year-old director Tim Burton found himself in an enviable but uncomfortable spot.

"Everybody was asking 'What are you going to do next?' I started getting advice. ... Once you start getting advice, it's hard to ignore it. It's hard to remain you."

But Burton tried to. His Batman follow-up is Edward Scissorhands, a very personal project that grew out of a sketch he drew while in high school.

And like the director's earlier features--Batman, Pee-wee's Big Adventure and Beetlejuice--Edward combines Burton's vivid visual style with his penchant for mixing reality with whimsical absurdity.

Starring Johnny Depp (nearly unrecognizable as Edward), the movie is about a young man created by a reclusive inventor (Burton's idol, Vincent Price, in a cameo).

Edward is human in every way except for the sharp shears he has for hands. The inventor, you see, died before finishing Edward's digits. As a result, an itch becomes a self-inflicted gash; an enthusiastic gesture, a stab; a loving embrace impossible.

"The images of scissors for hands has been floating around in my mind since I was a teen-ager," Burton says.

Dressed from head to toe in black, lounging on a black couch in his office while sipping coffee (not black) from a black mug, Burton explains: "It's so dramatic ... not being able to touch anything."

Burton grew up in Burbank, Calif., watching old horror films and drawing cartoons. In the ninth grade, an anti-litter poster he designed won top prize in a local refuse company contest and his artwork adorned Burbank garbage trucks for a year.

After graduating from art school, he went to work as an animator at Walt Disney. At 23, he directed Disney's award-winning animated short, Vincent, a homage to horror actor Price. His first live-action feature was Pee-wee.

Though scripts are currently being readied for Batman and Beetlejuice sequels, Burton says he hasn't decided whether he'll do either. "I'm not against sequels, but I don't think they're easy to do."

During the filming of Edward near Tampa, "People were always telling Tim he looked like Edward and I really felt for him," recalls the film's writer, Caroline Thompson. "It seemed so awkward."

Burton--tall and pale and thin like Edward--is uncomfortable with such comparisons and says he doesn't really see a resemblance. "I shy away from that. I did so (resisted comparisons) during the film because I had to. I would have been too interiorized ... I would have needed years of therapy if I did."

He does, however, admit to knowing how Edward feels.

"I went through a time where I wasn't making any kind of connection (with people), like ages 3 through 29," he says, bursting into laughter. "I feel better now. That was in my teens and early 20s. I don't feel quite as dramatic now. ... I'm a happy depressive."