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

by Schuy R. Weishaar

Overview

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 or1genre 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.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780786471867
Publisher:	McFarland & Company, Incorporated Publishers
Publication date:	10/26/2012
Pages:	219
Sales rank:	704,652
Product dimensions:	8.90(w) x 5.90(h) x 0.80(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

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.

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments     
Preface     
Introduction     

Part 1. The Philosophy of the Grotesque     
I. Art, Being and Contrast     
II. Metaphysics, Myth and Purgatory     

Part 2. Interpolarity: Binaries of the Grotesque     
III. Tim Burton’s Two Worlds     
IV. Terry Gilliam’s Mythic Madness     

Part 3. Menacing Invasions: The Hazards of Time and Subjectivity     
V. The Mundane and the Catastrophic in the Films of Joel and Ethan Coen     
VI. Obliterating the Subject in the Cinematic World of David Lynch     

Part 4. Into the World and Back Again: From Politics to Paradox     
VII. Politics, Culture and the Grotesque Family in Hippie-Slasher-Horror     
VIII. Grim Reveries, or the Ambiguities     

Chapter Notes     
Works Cited     
Index     

What People are Saying About This

David Lavery

"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." (David Lavery, Middle Tennessee State University.)

Editorial 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.

From the Publisher

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.

Middle Tennessee State University - David Lavery