Tim Burton at 50: the hero's mid-life crisis

Abstract

It is difficult to predict the development of Tim Burton's career now that his original protagonist, the eccentric creative mourning the loss of his father, is dead – or rather, now that the child element of the protagonist is gone. To find a way out of his ideological crisis, Burton has been trying different directions, including a female protagonist and reviving an old character that belongs to the times when Burton's heroes were still ‘children’ as well as ‘monsters’.

Keywords:

• Tim Burton
• the monster
• Jungian studies

Notes on contributor

Helena Bassil-Morozow is a cultural philosopher, film scholar and academic writer whose many publications include Tim Burton: The Monster and the Crowd (Routledge, 2010) and The Trickster in Contemporary Film (Routledge, 2011). Helena is currently working on another Routledge project, Jungian Film Studies: the Essential Guide (co-authored with Luke Hockley). Her principal academic affiliation is the University of Bedfordshire, Faculty of Creative Arts, Technologies & Science.