The Films of Tim Burton: Animating Live Action in Contemporary Hollywood

Description

Most Tim Burton films are huge box-office successes, and several are already classics. The director's mysterious and eccentric public persona attracts a lot of attention, while the films themselves have been somewhat overlooked. Here, Alison McMahan redresses this imbalance through a close analysis of Burton's key films (Beetiejuice, Ed Wood, Batman, Edward Scissorhands, Sleepy Hollow) and their place within the filmmaking industry. She argues that Burton has been a crucial figure behind many of the transformations taking place in horror, fantasy, and science fiction films over the last two decades. McMahan also demonstrates how Burton's own work draws on a huge range of artistic influences: the films of Georges Melies, surrealism, installation art, computer games, and many more. The Films of Tim Burton is the most in-depth analysis so far of the work of this unusual filmmaker - a director who has shown repeatedly that it is possible to reject mainstream Hollywood contentions while maintaining critical popularity and commercial success.

Alison McMahan is an award-winning screenwriter, author, and filmmaker. She is the president of Homunculus Productions, LLC. Her most recent film is Bare Hands and Wooden Limbs (2010) narrated by Sam Waterston. She is currently in post-production on the feature documentary The Eight Faces of Jane (2013) and the short documentary Gluteus Maxximus (2012). She has over twenty years of experience in film production, both in the U.S. and abroad, producing, directing and writing industrials, training films, and short fiction films. More information on her film work can be found at www.HomunculusProds.com. She is the author the award-winning book Alice Guy Blache, Lost Visionary of the Cinema (Continuum 2002), which was translated into Spanish by Plots Ediciones and has been optioned by the PIC agency to be made into a documentary film. She is also the author of The Films of Tim Burton: Animating Live Action in Hollywood (Continuum 2005) as well as numerous newspaper and scholarly articles on film and new media, www.AliceGuyBlache.com and www.FilmsofTimBurton.com. Full list of publications can be found at www.AlisonMcMahan.com. She is currently working on a historical novel.

"McMahan's verbal lucidity is as impressive as the visual designs of Burton's films, and much more accessible. From Burton's early campy stop-action tribute to Vincent Price (Vincent) through his blockbuster films like Batman, the author paints this director's oeuvre as an intertextual, idiosyncratic, and fascinating set of projects. However, what is unique about McMahan's approach is her larger cultural and contextual concerns with "animating live action in contemporary Hollywood," considerations that inform and direct her lively analysis. She is as interested in narrative, marketing, mythmaking, CGI and SFX, and the music of Danny Elfman as she is in the individual films. She closes with an invitation to consider other alternative postmodern directors such as Barry Sonnenfeld (Men in Black). Summing Up: Highly recommended. All readers; all levels." - Choice, January 2006 -- T. Lindvall * Choice *