Specters of slapstick & silent film comediennes / Maggie Hennefeld.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Hennefeld, Maggie, 1984- author.

Series:

Film and culture

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Comedy films--History and criticism.

Comedy films.

Silent films--History and criticism.

Silent films.

Women comedians.

Women in motion pictures.

Human body in motion pictures.

Sex role in motion pictures.

Genre:

Criticism, interpretation, etc.

Physical Description:

xvii, 358 pages ; 23 cm.

Other Title:

Specters of slapstick and silent film comediennes

Place of Publication:

New York : Columbia University Press, [2018]

Summary:

"In Specters of Slapstick, Hennefeld focuses on silent film comediennes and the function of the female body in early slapstick. Laughter is a kind of grating against the absurdity of society, argues Hennefeld. But while male bodies in slapstick tried to violently fight or "escape" their surroundings--slipping on a banana peel and falling, for example--female bodies exhibited a fluidity that reflected an attempt to morph into their changing surroundings. In one slapstick film, a maid humorously cuts off her limbs in order to finish all her household chores in time. In others, women transform into fairies or spiders; all underscore an attempt to assimilate their bodies to the demands of changing environments. This eradicates the traditional opposition between performer and audience, making the "laughing spectator" a more active part of the film experience. As Hennefeld analyzes early slapstick film historiography in light of this theory, she examines larger themes like the evolution of gender, the body, and their place in cinematic comedy"-- Provided by publisher.

Contents:

Early cinema and the comedy of the female catastrophe

Female combustion and feminist film historiography

Slapstick comediennes in transitional cinema: between body and medium

The geopolitics of the transition film comedy: American Vitagraph versus French Pathé frères

D.W. Griffith's slapstick comediennes: female corporeality and narrative film storytelling

Film comedy aesthetics and suffrategette social politics

Radical militancy and slapstick and slapstick political violence.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9780231179461

0231179464

9780231179478

0231179472

OCLC:

1013721339