Details

Notes on Editors and Contributors ix <p>Comic Introduction: “Make ’em Laugh, make ’em Laugh!” 1</p> <p><b>Part I Comedy Before Sound, and the Slapstick Tradition</b></p> <p>1 The Mark of the Ridiculous and Silent Celluloid: Some Trends in American and European Film Comedy from 1894 to 1929 15<br /><i>Frank Scheide</i></p> <p>2 Pie Queens and Virtuous Vamps: The FunnyWomen of the Silent Screen 39<br /><i>Kristen Anderson Wagner</i></p> <p>3 “Sound Came Along and OutWent the Pies”: The American Slapstick Short and the Coming of Sound 61<br /><i>Rob King</i></p> <p><b>Part II Comic Performers in the Sound Era</b></p> <p>4 Mutinies Wednesdays and Saturdays: Carnivalesque Comedy and the Marx Brothers 87<br /><i>Frank Krutnik</i></p> <p>5 Jacques Tati and Comedic Performance 111<br /><i>Kevin W. Sweeney</i></p> <p>6 Woody Allen: Charlie Chaplin of New Hollywood 130<br /><i>David R. Shumway</i></p> <p>7 Mel Brooks, Vulgar Modernism, and Comic Remediation 151<br /><i>Henry Jenkins</i></p> <p><b>Part III New Perspectives on Romantic Comedy and Masculinity</b></p> <p>8 Humor and Erotic Utopia: The Intimate Scenarios of Romantic Comedy 175<br /><i>Celestino Deleyto</i></p> <p>9 Taking Romantic Comedy Seriously in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004) and Before Sunset (2004) 196<br /><i>Leger Grindon</i></p> <p>10 The View from the Man Cave: Comedy in the Contemporary “Homme-com” Cycle 217<br /><i>Tamar Jeffers McDonald</i></p> <p>11 The Reproduction of Mothering: Masculinity, Adoption, and Identity in Flirting with Disaster 236<br /><i>Lucy Fischer</i></p> <p><b>Part IV Topical Comedy, Irony, and Humour Noir</b></p> <p>12 It’s Good to be the King: Hollywood’s Mythical Monarchies, Troubled Republics, and Crazy Kingdoms 251<br /><i>Charles Morrow</i></p> <p>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<br /><i>William Paul</i></p> <p>14 The Totalitarian Comedy of Lubitsch’s To Be or Not To Be 293<br /><i>Maria DiBattista</i></p> <p>15 Dark Comedy from Dr. Strangelove to the Dude 315<br /><i>Mark Eaton</i></p> <p><b>Part V Comic Perspectives on Race and Ethnicity</b></p> <p>16 Black Film Comedy as Vital Edge: A Reassessment of the Genre 343<br /><i>Catherine A. John</i></p> <p>17 Winking Like a One-Eyed Ford: American Indian Film Comedies on the Hilarity of Poverty 365<br /><i>Joshua B. Nelson</i></p> <p>18 Ethnic Humor in American Film: The Greek Americans 387<br /><i>Dan Georgakas</i></p> <p><b>Part VI International Comedy</b></p> <p>19 Alexander Mackendrick: Dreams, Nightmares, and Myths in Ealing Comedy 409<br /><i>Claire Mortimer</i></p> <p>20 Tragicomic Transformations: Gender, Humor, and the Plastic Body in Two Korean Comedies 432<br /><i>Jane Park</i></p> <p>21 Comedy “Italian Style” and I soliti ignoti (Big Deal on Madonna Street, 1958) 454<br /><i>Roberta Di Carmine</i></p> <p>22 “Laughter that Encounters a Void?”: Humor, Loss, and the Possibility for Politics in Recent Palestinian Cinema 474<br /><i>Najat Rahman</i></p> <p><b>Part VII Comic Animation</b></p> <p>23 Laughter is Ten Times More Powerful than a Scream: The Case of Animated Comedy 497<br /><i>Paul Wells</i></p> <p>24 Theatrical Cartoon Comedy: From Animated Portmanteau to the Risus Purus 521<br /><i>Suzanne Buchan</i></p> <p>Index 545</p>

<p>“And of course, it very much is. An important subject needs an important companion.  This is it. That’s all, folks.”  (<i>Reference Reviews</i>, 1 January 2014)</p> <p>“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.”  (<i>Choice,</i> 1 July 2013)</p> <p> </p>

<b>Andrew Horton</b> 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 <i>Screenwriting for a Global Market</i> (2004), <i>Writing the Character-Centered Screenplay</i> (2nd edition, 2000), and <i>The Films of Theo Angelopoulos</i> (2nd edition, 1999). His screenplays include Brad Pitt’s first feature film, <i>The Dark Side of the Sun</i> (1988), and the award-winning <i>Something in Between</i> (1983), directed by Srdjan Karanovic. He has led screenwriting workshops around the world as well as across the United States.<br /><br /> <p><b>Joanna E. Rapf</b> 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, <i>On the Waterfront</i>, and Buster Keaton.</p>

From the very dawn of the era of moving pictures, filmmakers from Hollywood to Hong Kong have been playing it for laughs. Yet despite comedy’s levity as a form, the legendary French auteur François Truffaut called it ‘by far the most difficult genre, the one that demands the most work, the most talent, and also the most humility’.<br /><br /> <p>This wide-ranging celebration of the variety and complexity of international film comedy covers work from the days of silent movies to the present, and from around the world, including Europe, the Middle East and Asia as well as the United States. These specially commissioned essays map the myriad ways that comic films have reflected and influenced history, culture, politics, and social institutions. As well as engaging with different strands of comedy such as slapstick, romantic, satirical and ironic, the Companion tackles mixed comic genres, individual performers and directors, and broader topics including gender and social-political issues in comedy. Each subject is placed in its formative social, cultural and political context, while the multidisciplinary international contributors ensure a depth and breadth of perspective.</p>

<p>“’Make 'em laugh!’ may be a Hollywood musical imperative, but exactly how to make em' laugh-- and what it means when they do-- is harder to figure out. For this provocative, eclectic, and, yes, amusing compendium of essays, editors Andrew Horton and Joanna E. Rapf have corralled a gifted ensemble of comic-minded film scholars to ruminate over the pratfalls, wisecracks, and zany antics that--from custard-pie-thick one-reelers to sappy rom-coms--have left motion picture audiences rolling in the aisles and rolling their eyes. In examining the mechanics and cultural meanings of the serious business of film comedy, the essayists herein tackle a dizzying array of laugh-inducing  genres (slapstick, screwball, sophisticated, ethnic, and gross-out, to name a few) and people  (Charles Chaplin, Ernest Lubitsch, Jacques Tati, Woody Allen, Mel Brooks, and Ben Stiller, to name a very few).  Best of all, the essays in this film companion are themselves all sharp-witted and good-humored: in dissecting film comedy, they manage not to kill the patient.”<br /> - <i>Thomas Doherty, Brandeis University</i></p> <p>“An impressive array of our best critical thinkers and an invaluable spectrum of comedians from Max Linder to Jim Carrey – it’s a vital, challenging addition to film comedy studies."<br /> - <i>Ed Sikov</i></p> <p>“The most wide-ranging collection on the topic to appear in years, this volume features essays by both leading scholars and new voices that will both redefine and expand the ways we think about many kinds of film comedy and the artists who create it.”<br />  –<i>Matthew H. Bernstein, Emory University</i></p>

MY