Tim Burton or Guillermo del Toro or Terry Gilliam

Terry Gilliam .... specially as he was such an important part of the visual nature of MONTY PYTHON, that got us so very involved and laughed at so many silly gags, a huge ... absolutely HUGE throwback to a lot of American vaudeville stuff in the early days of the 20th century.

Tim Burton, by comparison, had has been a lot more popular in America, because his kind of humor was making fun in someways, at a lot of American film in the 30's, 40's and 50's, and a lot of this is kinda lost in the whole process ... by comparison, I would say that Terry Gilliam is considerably more literary and artistic, although I would not wish to suggest that Tim is not as good as Terry ... they are both excellent.

The only knock I have on Tim is that he is not as original as he thinks ... I have not enjoyed a lot of his films as they do not seem to me to be "serious", and sometimes it is as if they are being done ... just for fun. I, very much doubt that Terry does films, just for fun, they all have a very deep and personal direction and attention, that is often times very scary ... his psychic visual moments are very fast and scary, but because they are in a thing that we think is not serious, the detail on it is left behind.

My feelings are ... that Tim is trying to be cool and please an American TV audience, rather than create a work that is original and capable of sustaining its ideas and concepts.

BUT, in the process, you get some things that are just outstanding ... BEETLEJUICE would probably not be as much fun were it not for the actor going crazy and nuts about everything he did ... and the funniest thing, just to give you an idea how intelligent and attentive the actor is, he ended up in a production of a Shakespeare play ... and what does he do? The reverse of what Tim Burton does ... he pulls up a Monty Python, something only an American could probably devise and have fun with ... and if you don't see him delivering his lines while "horsing" around, you have not seen the best moment in that whole film!

Kudos go to Tim, for allowing the actor to go free and crazy in his film, something that Terry Gilliam has been famous for, from the first day ... probably something he learned from Monty Python, that you must let the actor "live" his character as long as possible, because it gets zanier and zanier as time goes by ... and you see all the time in Jonathan Pryce, in Robin Williams, and quite a few others, although I am of the opinion that many of the American actors were not as well versed, or comfortable in the art of the ad-lib and improvisation ... which is very evident in a lot of the American arts ... Broadway will do yet another musical revival instead of something original!

All in all, a tough vote and sell. Tim Burton, does deserve some credit for his work ... although I do not think that he has continued to create such insane and amazing films, like Terry has ... but perhaps that is my taste for the work, and not necessarily a knock on the director at all ... visually and film wise, Terry is much more in touch of the cinematography of it all, than Tim is ... and Terry's visuals have always left us ... just wow'd to not end.

Nice poll, though ... it really brings out the nuts and bolts on their work.