Routledge Tim Burton: The Monster and the Crowd: A Post-Jungian Perspective

Tim Burton’s films are well known for being complex and emotionally powerful. In this book, Helena Bassil-Morozow employs Jungian and post-Jungian concepts of unconscious mental processes along with film semiotics, analysis of narrative devices and cinematic history, to explore the reworking of myth and fairytale in Burton’s gothic fantasy world. The book explores the idea that Burton’s lonely, rebellious ‘monstrous’ protagonists roam the earth because they are unable to fit into the normalising tendencies of society and become part of ‘the crowd’. Divided into six chapters the book considers the concept of the archetype in various settings focusing on: the child the monster the superhero the genius the maniac the monstrous society. Tim Burton: The Monster and the Crowd offers an entirely fresh perspective on Tim Burton’s works. The book is essential reading for students and scholars of film or Jungian psychology, as well as anyone interested in critical issues in contemporary culture. It will also be of great help to those fans of Tim Burton who have been searching for a profound academic analysis of his works. Review "Brilliantly confirms what we have been suspecting all along – that film studies drawing on Jungian psychology is a genuine advance, here to stay, and capable of extending itself across several generations of authors. Helena Bassil-Morozow approaches the key contemporary question of the relations between individual and crowd via a creative intermingling of a profound engagement with Burton's films and Jung's idea of individuation. The monster we meet in book and film sets off something massive in everyone – that's what this level of writing about the archetypal can do." - Andrew Samuels, University of Essex, UK About the Author Helena Bassil-Morozow has been teaching Film, Drama and Literature in various further education institutions and in private practice for over five years.