Overview

This book provides a groundbreaking exploration of silent film performance. It combines close reading of silent screen acting with theoretically informed analysis, stressing the overlap between different performative arts, such as film and stage acting, dance, mime, and pantomime. The boundary between silent and sound films is also challenged. Anna Pavlova’s acting in The Dumb Girl of Portici is read through Freud’s work on the uncanny, disability studies, and notions of intermediality. Vladimir Mayakovsky’s performance in The Young Lady and the Hooligan is approached as a silent soliloquy and a representation of loneliness. Ivan Mozzhukhin’s tour de force in The Late Mathias Pascal is discussed through a queer failure lens, while Pola Negri’s presence in Hotel Imperial is analysed with the aid of texts on wartime anxiety. Harald Kreutzberg’s stunning number in Paracelsus is examined in the light oftheories of mime and pantomime, arguing for its subversive potential in a Third Reich sound film.

Full Product Details

Author:   Elisabetta Girelli
Publisher:   Springer Nature Switzerland AG
Imprint:   Springer Nature Switzerland AG
Edition:   1st ed. 2021
Weight:   0.173kg
ISBN:  

9783030751050

ISBN 10:   3030751058
Pages:   112
Publication Date:   21 June 2022
Audience:   Professional and scholarly ,  Professional & Vocational
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   Manufactured on demand  
We will order this item for you from a manufactured on demand supplier.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1: Introduction.- Chapter 2: Sign of the Uncanny: Anna Pavlova in The Dumb Girl of Portici (1916, USA).- Chapter 3: Performing Loneliness: Vladimir Mayakovsky’s Silent Soliloquy in Baryshnya i Khuligan / The Young Lady and the Hooligan (1918, USSR).- Chapter 4: Re-booting the Self: Ivan Mozzhukhin and Queer Failure in Feu Mathias Pascal / The Late Mathias Pascal (1926, France).- Chapter 5: ‘Our Bravest and Most Beautiful Soldier’: Pola Negri, Wartime, and the Gendering of Anxiety in Hotel Imperial (1927, USA).- Chapter 6: Silent Performance Beyond Silent Film: Harald Kreutzberg in Paracelsus (1943, Germany).- Index.

Reviews

“The book is resoundingly successful. It is rich, passionate, meticulous, detailed, subjective in places, surprising and never less than fascinating and rewarding. If nothing else, for anyone trying to teach students the potential of detailed textual analysis or seeking to adopt such an approach for the first time in their own work, this is an absolute must-read.” (Simon Brown, Early Popular Visual Culture, February 21, 2024)

Author Information

Elisabetta Girelli is Honorary Senior Lecturer in Film Studies at the University of St Andrews. She has published widely on performance, stardom, silent film, Queer Theory, and cinematic representation.

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