Masters of the Grotesque

The Cinema of Tim Burton, Terry Gilliam, the Coen Brothers and David Lynch

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by Schuy R. Weishaar

Type

Studies

Subject

Director > Tim Burton, Terry Gilliam, Coen Brothers, David Lynch

Keywords

Tim Burton, Terry Gilliam, Coen Brothers, David Lynch, characters

Publishing date

2012

Publisher

McFarland & Co

Language

English

Relative size

Physical desc.

Paperback • 219 pages
6 x 9 inches (15 x 23 cm)

ISBN

978-0-7864-7186-7

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Book Presentation:
The concepts and theories surrounding the aesthetic category of the grotesque are explored in this book by pursuing their employment in the films of American auteurs Tim Burton, Terry Gilliam, the Coen Brothers and David Lynch. The author argues that interpreting these directors’ films through the lens of the grotesque allows us1to situate both the auteurs and the films within a long history of the grotesque in art and aesthetics. This cultural tradition effectively subsumes the contribution of any artist or genre that intersects it but also affords the artist or genre—the auteur and the genre filmmaker—a pantheon and an abundance of images, themes, and motifs through which he1or she can subversively represent the world and our place in it.

About the Author:
Schuy R. Weishaar teaches English and philosophy at Richland Community College in Decatur, Illinois; he also teaches writing and literature at Trevecca Nazarene University in Nashville, Tennessee. He lives in Illinois.

Press Reviews:
"I must begin by confessing that Masters of the Grotesque is a book I wish I had written. It is, however, a better book than I ever could have done…more theoretically sophisticated, more incisive, more far-reaching. Weishaar is a gifted writer, able to wrestle big ideas down to earth, drag them out of that very-20th-century Plato’s cave we know as a movie theatre and into the light, putting them to critical use and then plunging back into the cave once again, more than ready to persuade the still-imprisoned of his new understanding."—David Lavery, Middle Tennessee State University.

See the publisher website: McFarland & Co

See the complete filmography of Tim Burton on the website: IMDB ...