Slapstick Comedy (AFI Film Readers)

ISBN 10: 0415801788 / ISBN 13: 9780415801782

Published by Routledge, 2010

About this Item

From Chaplin's tramp to the Bathing Beauties slapstick comedy supplied many of the most enduring icons of American cinema in the silent era. This collection of fourteen essays by film scholars challenges longstanding critical dogma and offers new conceptual frameworks for thinking about silent comedy's place in film history and American culture. Editor(s): King, Rob; Paulus, Tom. Series Editor(s): Wolfe, Charles C.; Branigan, Edward. Series: AFI Film Readers. Num Pages: 288 pages, 30 black & white halftones. BIC Classification: APFN. Category: (UP) Postgraduate, Research & Scholarly. Dimension: 229 x 152 x 18. Weight in Grams: 498. . 2010. 1st Edition. hardcover. . . . . Books ship from the US and Ireland.

Seller Inventory # V9780415801782

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Slapstick Comedy (AFI Film Readers)
• Publisher: Routledge
• Publication Date: 2010
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0415801788
• ISBN 13: 9780415801782
• Binding: Hardcover
• Condition: New

About this title

Synopsis

From Chaplin’s tramp to the Bathing Beauties, from madcap chases to skyscraper perils, slapstick comedy supplied many of the most enduring icons of American cinema in the silent era. This collection of fourteen essays by prominent film scholars challenges longstanding critical dogma and offers new conceptual frameworks for thinking about silent comedy’s place in film history and American culture. The contributors discuss a broad range of topics including the contested theatrical or cinematic origins of slapstick; the comic spectacle of crazy technology and trick stunts; the filmmakers who shaped the style of early slapstick; and comedy’s implications for theories of film form and spectatorship.

This volume is essential reading for anyone seeking to understand the origins and continued importance of a film genre at the heart of American cinema from its earliest days to today.

About the Author

TOM PAULUS is Assistant Professor in Cinema and Theater Studies at the University of Antwerp and the organizer of "(Another) Slapstick Symposium."

ROB KING is Assistant Professor in Cinema Studies and History at the University of Toronto and the author of The Fun Factory: The Keystone Film Company and the Emergence of Mass Culture (2009).