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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
List 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
About the author
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.
Summary
This wide-ranging celebration of the variety and complexity of international film comedy covers work from the days of silent movies to the present on a global scale, including Europe, the Middle East and Asia as well as the United States.
