“Beetlejuice” (1988): As a scabby, croaky and shady ghost, Keaton was the wild man in this Burton hit that also starred Alec Baldwin and Geena Davis. “From an art perspective, I don’t know how you get better than ‘Beetlejuice.’ In terms of originality and a look, it’s 100% unique. If you consider the process of taking something from someone’s mind — meaning Tim — and putting it on the screen, I think that movie is incomparable.”
How did Keaton find the tombstone lunacy of the character? He had the wardrobe department at the studio send over a large rack of clothes representing different centuries and he pieced his screwball apparition together in front of the mirror. “I wanted him to be pure electricity, that’s why the hair just sticks out,” Keaton said. “At my house I started creating a walk and a voice. I got some teeth. I wanted to be scary in the look and then use the voice to add a dash of goofiness that, in a way, would make it even scarier. I wanted something kind of moldy to it, too. Tim had the striped-suit idea and we added the big eyes. I think that movie will go forever because it’s 100% original.”
Michael Keaton is being celebrated this week with an American Cinematheque career retrospective. Batman will screen Saturday as part of a six-film Keaton retrospective at the Aero Theatre in Santa Monica. On Friday, Keaton will be on hand for Beetlejuice and Multiplicity and take questions on stage from Cinematheque programmer Grant Moninger.
