The big top on the big screen : explorations of the circus in film / edited by Teresa Cutler-Broyles.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Cutler-Broyles, Teresa, editor.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Circus in motion pictures.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (173 pages)

Place of Publication:

Jefferson, North Carolina : McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers, [2020]

Summary:

"Circuses and film are a natural pairing, and the new essays making up this volume begin the exploration of how these two forms of entertainment have sometimes worked together to create a spectacle of onscreen alchemy. The films discussed herein are an eclectic group, ranging from early silent comedies to animated, 21st century examples, in which circuses serve as liminal or carnivalesque spaces wherein characters-and by extension audience members-can confront issues as far-reaching as labor relations, sensuality, identity, ethics, and more. The circus as discussed in these essays encompasses the big top, the midway, the sideshow and the freak show; it becomes backdrop, character, catalyst and setting, and is welcoming, malicious or terrifying. Circus performers are family, friends, foe or all of the above. And film is the medium that brings it all together. This volume starts the conversation about how circuses and film can combine to form productive, exciting spaces where almost anything can happen." -- Provided by publisher.

Contents:

(Re)producing the circus: defining circus cinema / P.A. Wilder

The "universal soul" of the American circus at mid-century / David Blanke

Spectrality and spectatorship: heterotropic doubling in cinematic circuses / Whitney S. May

The normal abnormal: the case of Circque du freak: the vampire's assistant / Lisann Anders

Horror movies, horror bodies: blurring the freak body in cinema / Jessica L. Williams

The spectacle of sensation in British film: Circus of horrors, Berserk! and Vampire circus / Fernando Gabriel Pagnoni Berns

After the glitter fades: analyzing Ingmar Bergman's cinematic representation of circus life / Kylo-Patrick R. Hart

Dumbo and the circus of childhood / Michael Charlton

Problematic participants and circus ethics: the human/nonhuman concurrence of Jacob and Rosie in Water for elephants / Rachel L. Carazo

Under the (bi)g top / Ayal C. Prouser

Liminal spaces and identity in Mirrormask / Teresa Cutler-Broyles.<br>

Notes:

Description based on print version record.

Includes index.

ISBN:

1-4766-3775-X