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

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. Pt. 1. The philosophy of the grotesque -- Art, being and contrast -- metaphysics, myth and purgatory -- Pt. 2. Interpolarity: binaries of the grotesque -- Tim Burton's two worlds -- Terry Gilliam's mythic madness -- pt. 3. Menacing invasions: the hazards of time and subjectivity -- The mundane and the catastrophic in the films of Joel and Ethan Coen -- Obliterating the subject in the cinematic world of David Lynch -- Pt. 4. Into the world and back again: from politics to paradox -- Politics, culture and the grotesque family in hippie-slasher-horror -- grim reveries, or the ambiguities "The concepts and theories surrounding the aesthetic category of the grotesque are explored in this book by pursuing their deployment in the films of American auteurs Tim Burton, Terry Gilliam, the Coen Brothers and David Lynch"--Provided by publisher