Unlike anything currently available, A Critical Companion to Tim Burton is a comprehensive, up-to-date analysis of all the works of one of the world's most renowned directors and artists. Written by some of the top scholars working in fields as diverse as philosophy, film and media studies, and literature, all chapters of this book illuminate for both scholars and fans alike the entire artistic career of Burton, giving attention to both his early works and his global blockbusters.
Introduction Section I: Constructing Worlds Chapter 1: Burton's Bowl: Constructions of Space in the Films of Tim Burton by Jeffrey Andrew Weinstock Chapter 2: The Abject, Carnivalesque, and Uncanny by Fran Pheasant-Kelly Chapter 3: The Dark and the Darker: The Meaning and Significance of Dark and Light Colors in Tim Burton Films by Orsolya Karacsony Chapter 4: Traces of Surrealism in the Work of Tim Burton by Sabine Planka Chapter 5: Tim Burton's Artists of Death by Elsa Colombani Chapter 6: The Interconnectivity of Elfman's Film Scoring and Burton's Narrative by Andrew S. Powell Section II: Fairy Worlds and Nightmares Chapter 7: Nightmares and the Struggle for Existence in Alice in Wonderland and Planet of the Apes by Antonio Sanna Chapter 8: Reading Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas with Paul Tillich by Christopher M. Cuthill Chapter 9: Deconstructing (and Reconstructing) the Fairy Tale in Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas and Corpse Bride by Alissa Burger Chapter 10: Mars Attacks! as Fractured Fairy Tale under Tolkien's Principles of Recovery, Escape, and Consolation by Nicole Pramik Chapter 11: The Heroic Journey of Ed Wood by Carl Sobocinski Chapter 12: The Paranormal Hero as a Boundary-Crosser by Maria Dicieanu Chapter 13: Miss Peregrine's: New Home for a Peculiar Problem by Trip McCrossin Section III: Identity and the World Chapter 14: A Colonial Tapestry: Race and Ideology in Pee-wee's Big Adventure by Florent Christol Chapter 15: Willy Wonka as a Contemporary Dandy by Radoslaw Osinski Chapter 16: Batman, Burton, and the Puzzle of Identity by Kyle Alkema and Adam Barkman Chapter 17: Fools on the Hill: Tim Burton's Nietzschean Outcasts and Heidegger's das Man by Siobhan Lyons Chapter 18: "My Whole Life Is a Dark Room": Nostalgia and Domesticity in Beetlejuice and Edward Scissorhands by Renee Middlemost Chapter 19: Tim Burton and the Determinist Impulse by Brent Peters and Adam Barkman Chapter 20: Doll Doubles: Female Identity in Tim Burton's Stop-Motion Films by Donna Mitchell
