An acclaimed Hollywood director, his name gave rise to an adjective to describe his style. Who is he? Here's a clue. In 2012, the Cinematheque is dedicating an already famous exhibition to him, created by MoMA and touring internationally. Paris is the only city in Europe to present it, bringing an unprecedented attendance for the institution: 300,000 visitors! Tim Burton's success struck again. A lonely child of the streets of Burbank (a residential suburb of Los Angeles), Tim Burton took refuge very early on in the cinemas of his city, falling in love with fantastic films and unusual people. After a stint at Disney as a graphic designer and animator, he managed to direct in 1987 with "Pee Wee Big Adventure", then upset Hollywood the following year with Beetlejuice. From then on, the director strove to reinvent the genre of fantasy, from the poetic marginality of "Edward with Silver Hands" and "Big Fish" to the pop universe of "Alice in Wonderland" or "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory", via the burlesque parody of "Mars Attack" and "Dark Shadows". Musical genre, cartoon, stop motion, commission for big franchises, the director doesn't stop at any format. At the origin of all these films, myriads of drawings, the director's first love, which are accompanied by paintings, sculptures, film extracts, dioramas. This is what the Cinematheque's exhibition wanted to show by bringing together some 500 pieces. Edward's costume with silver hands; the installations of the characters of the Funeral Wedding, animated frame by frame; drawings of the fatal and poetic characters he created as a child; the reverse side of the set of the projects that made his success and the sketches of those who were aborted: nothing is left aside to allow us to penetrate the rich Burtonian universe. Tim Burton is an artist and each of his films is the result of a visual reverie.