Overview

A wide-ranging survey of the subject that celebrates the variety and complexity of film comedy from the ‘silent’ days to the present, this authoritative guide offers an international perspective on the popular genre that explores all facets of its formative social, cultural and political context A wide-ranging collection of 24 essays exploring film comedy from the silent era to the present International in scope, the collection embraces not just American cinema, including Native American and African American, but also comic films from Europe, the Middle East, and Korea Essays explore sub-genres, performers, and cultural perspectives such as gender, politics, and history in addition to individual works Engages with different strands of comedy including slapstick, romantic, satirical and ironic Features original entries from a diverse group of multidisciplinary international contributors

Full Product Details

Author:   Andrew Horton (University of Oklahoma) ,  Joanna E. Rapf (University of Oklahoma)
Publisher:   John Wiley and Sons Ltd
Imprint:   Wiley-Blackwell
Dimensions:   Width: 17.00cm , Height: 2.50cm , Length: 24.40cm
Weight:   1.098kg
ISBN:  

9781119169550

ISBN 10:   1119169550
Pages:   584
Publication Date:   04 December 2015
Audience:   Professional and scholarly ,  Professional & Vocational ,  Postgraduate, Research & Scholarly
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   Out of stock  
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Table of Contents

Notes on Editors and Contributors ix Comic Introduction: “Make ’em Laugh, make ’em Laugh!” 1 Part I Comedy Before Sound, and the Slapstick Tradition 1 The Mark of the Ridiculous and Silent Celluloid: Some Trends in American and European Film Comedy from 1894 to 1929 15 Frank Scheide 2 Pie Queens and Virtuous Vamps: The FunnyWomen of the Silent Screen 39 Kristen Anderson Wagner 3 “Sound Came Along and OutWent the Pies”: The American Slapstick Short and the Coming of Sound 61 Rob King Part II Comic Performers in the Sound Era 4 Mutinies Wednesdays and Saturdays: Carnivalesque Comedy and the Marx Brothers 87 Frank Krutnik 5 Jacques Tati and Comedic Performance 111 Kevin W. Sweeney 6 Woody Allen: Charlie Chaplin of New Hollywood 130 David R. Shumway 7 Mel Brooks, Vulgar Modernism, and Comic Remediation 151 Henry Jenkins Part III New Perspectives on Romantic Comedy and Masculinity 8 Humor and Erotic Utopia: The Intimate Scenarios of Romantic Comedy 175 Celestino Deleyto 9 Taking Romantic Comedy Seriously in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004) and Before Sunset (2004) 196 Leger Grindon 10 The View from the Man Cave: Comedy in the Contemporary “Homme-com” Cycle 217 Tamar Jeffers McDonald 11 The Reproduction of Mothering: Masculinity, Adoption, and Identity in Flirting with Disaster 236 Lucy Fischer Part IV Topical Comedy, Irony, and Humour Noir 12 It’s Good to be the King: Hollywood’s Mythical Monarchies, Troubled Republics, and Crazy Kingdoms 251 Charles Morrow 13 No Escaping the Depression: Utopian Comedy and the Aesthetics of Escapism in Frank Capra’s You Can’t Take it with You (1938) 273 William Paul 14 The Totalitarian Comedy of Lubitsch’s To Be or Not To Be 293 Maria DiBattista 15 Dark Comedy from Dr. Strangelove to the Dude 315 Mark Eaton Part V Comic Perspectives on Race and Ethnicity 16 Black Film Comedy as Vital Edge: A Reassessment of the Genre 343 Catherine A. John 17 Winking Like a One-Eyed Ford: American Indian Film Comedies on the Hilarity of Poverty 365 Joshua B. Nelson 18 Ethnic Humor in American Film: The Greek Americans 387 Dan Georgakas Part VI International Comedy 19 Alexander Mackendrick: Dreams, Nightmares, and Myths in Ealing Comedy 409 Claire Mortimer 20 Tragicomic Transformations: Gender, Humor, and the Plastic Body in Two Korean Comedies 432 Jane Park 21 Comedy “Italian Style” and I soliti ignoti (Big Deal on Madonna Street, 1958) 454 Roberta Di Carmine 22 “Laughter that Encounters a Void?”: Humor, Loss, and the Possibility for Politics in Recent Palestinian Cinema 474 Najat Rahman Part VII Comic Animation 23 Laughter is Ten Times More Powerful than a Scream: The Case of Animated Comedy 497 Paul Wells 24 Theatrical Cartoon Comedy: From Animated Portmanteau to the Risus Purus 521 Suzanne Buchan Index 545

Reviews

And of course, it very much is. An important subject needs an important companion. This is it. That's all, folks. ( Reference Reviews, 1 January 2014) This work is indispensible for any student or scholar who, in the spirit of Rabelais, Swift, and Chesterton, will laugh while studying film images. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Lower-division undergraduates and above; general readers. ( Choice, 1 July 2013)

This work is indispensible for any student or scholar who, in the spirit of Rabelais, Swift, and Chesterton, will laugh while studying film images. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Lower-division undergraduates and above; general readers. ( Choice, 1 July 2013) And of course, it very much is. An important subject needs an important companion. This is it. That's all, folks. ( Reference Reviews, 1 January 2014) This work is indispensible for any student or scholar who, in the spirit of Rabelais, Swift, and Chesterton, will laugh while studying film images. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Lower-division undergraduates and above; general readers. ( Choice, 1 July 2013)

And of course, it very much is. An important subject needs an important companion. This is it. That's all, folks. ( Reference Reviews, 1 January 2014) This work is indispensible for any student or scholar who, in the spirit of Rabelais, Swift, and Chesterton, will laugh while studying film images. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Lower-division undergraduates and above; general readers. ( Choice, 1 July 2013) This work is indispensible for any student or scholar who, in the spirit of Rabelais, Swift, and Chesterton, will laugh while studying film images. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Lower-division undergraduates and above; general readers. ( Choice, 1 July 2013)

Author Information

Andrew Horton is the Jeanne H. Smith Professor of Film and Media Studies at the University of Oklahoma, USA. An award-winning screenwriter, he is also the author of twnty-eight books on film, screenwriting and cultural studies, including Screenwriting for a Global Market (2004), Writing the Character-Centered Screenplay (2nd edition, 2000), and The Films of Theo Angelopoulos (2nd edition, 1999). His screenplays include Brad Pitt’s first feature film, The Dark Side of the Sun (1988), and the award-winning Something in Between (1983), directed by Srdjan Karanovic. He has led screenwriting workshops around the world as well as across the United States. Joanna E. Rapf is Professor of English and Film & Media Studies at the University of Oklahoma, USA. She writes regularly about film comedy, with recent essays on Woody Allen, Jerry Lewis, Roscoe Arbuckle, Harry Langdon, and Marie Dressler, and has edited books on a range of subjects including Sidney Lumet, On the Waterfront, and Buster Keaton.

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