Titan Books’ Big Eyes is half encyclopedia & half art gallery
Tim Burton’s most recent movie Big Eyes was a welcome departure from the director’s Johnny Depp-fueled cartoons brought to life of late, and the complementary art book/behind-the-scenes chronicling of the movie’s making from Titan Books is a must-own for fans of the film. Whether you’re intrigued by the biopic re-telling of artist Margaret Keane’s career or the attachment of Burton, the book Big Eyes: The Film, The Art (click to purchase) thoroughly dissects both aspects of the true-life scandal and how it was brought to the big screen. With a large section dedicated to Keane’s art, the book is as much a behind-the-scenes look as it is a handheld art gallery.
Take a peek between the pages and read a little about what’s inside Big Eyes: The Film, The Art after the jump.
If you haven’t seen the movie, Big Eyes is a surprisingly tame Burton tale, but it’s a story told as much for the art (which Burton brings to life well) as the turmoil that unfolded around the canvas. Margaret Keane (played by Amy Adams) and her affinity for painting surreal portraits of doe-eyed children was out-shined by her husband’s ability to successfully sell the paintings under his name without her knowing. Tensions ran high, but the charade continued for several years, even after the pair had divorced, and things were finally settled in court. As a narrative, the Keane chaos is an interesting unraveling of artistic integrity and mixed feelings of fulfillment. As an encyclopedic roadmap detailing how the movie was made, Big Eyes: The Film, The Art feels like a documentary put to paper.
Titan Books does a nice job assembling their art books (their Alien: The Archive book is awesome), but reading through Big Eyes it was often the backstory and the making-of aspect that made me appreciate the book as a whole. Rather than flipping through page after page of concept art, it was the comments from Keane, the cast, the crew, and the director that helped bring this book to life, which was a pleasant surprise. That’s kind of how I felt about the whole project. Burton’s involvement, the abusive underbelly of the Keane success story, and even the hauntingly beautiful paintings themselves lent a subtle shadow to how I viewed the film, but it’s that beastly perceived nature paired with some good ol’ curiosity that brought me closer to the material.
Stepping behind the camera and following the footsteps of the film’s producers as they built their fiction around the facts was fun. Again, in a documentary-type style, the book almost took you by the hand and introduced you to the various characters and elements of production as the movie took shape, and hearing snippets from Christoph Waltz about wanting to work with Burton or how Amy Adams spent a few hours getting to know Margaret Keane is the sugar coating that we as film fans enjoy. The book is packed with behind-the-scenes peeks and production details shared from all sides of the process.
Around two-thirds of the way through Big Eyes: The Film, The Art, the book takes another surprising turn and simply transforms into a coffee table art gallery. The last third is filled with prints of Margaret Keane’s various paintings throughout the years. I’ve included a few of the full spread images below, but there have to be 40+ paintings that range from full spread to single page layouts within the last 60 or so pages of the book. It’s an exceptional collection of Keane’s work, and this section alone is worth keeping the book on your coffee table as a conversation starter.
If you’re a wanderer of the art world, a moviegoer who enjoys a soulful painting on occasion, a Tim Burton fan, or simply someone who can’t get enough real-life dramatic history, this art book is worth adding to your collection. It’s a nice little window into the beautiful disaster the Keanes created as well as how the film Big Eyes made its way to the big screen.
