Author : Walter Kerr
Publisher : Alfred A. Knopf
Page : 392 pages
File Size : 43,42 MB
Release : 1975
Category : Fiction
ISBN :
'A lavishly illustrated, affectionate treatment by one of the finest critics of our time...Kerr is more than a brilliant master of verbal description; he is a penetrating, lucid theorist. This book is as much about comedy as about movies, about eyes and ears and how and why we laugh.'-Thomas Wills, Chicago Tribune Book World
Author : Ezra LeBank
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 216 pages
File Size : 37,42 MB
Release : 2015-04-10
Category : Performing Arts
ISBN : 131751694X
Clowns: In Conversation with Modern Masters is a groundbreaking collection of conversations with 20 of the greatest clowns on earth. In discussion with clown aficionados Ezra LeBank and David Bridel, these legends of comedy reveal the origins, inspirations, techniques, and philosophies that underpin their remarkable odysseys. Featuring incomparable artists, including Slava Polunin, Bill Irwin, David Shiner, Oleg Popov, Dimitri, Nola Rae, and many more, Clowns is a unique and definitive study on the art of clowning. In Clowns, these 20 master artists speak candidly about their first encounters with clowning and circus, the crucial decisions that carved out the foundations of their style, and the role of teachers and mentors who shaped their development. Follow the twists and turns that changed the direction of their art and careers, explore the role of failure and originality in their lives and performances, and examine the development and evolution of the signature routines that became each clown’s trademark. The discussions culminate in meditations on the role of clowning in the modern world, as these great practitioners share their perspectives on the mysterious, elusive art of the clown.
Author : Karli June Cerankowski
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 410 pages
File Size : 10,9 MB
Release : 2014-03-14
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 1134692463
What is so radical about not having sex? To answer this question, this collection of essays explores the feminist and queer politics of asexuality. Asexuality is predominantly understood as an orientation describing people who do not experience sexual attraction. In this multidisciplinary volume, the authors expand this definition of asexuality to account for the complexities of gender, race, disability, and medical discourse. Together, these essays challenge the ways in which we imagine gender and sexuality in relation to desire and sexual practice. Asexualities provides a critical reevaluation of even the most radical queer theorizations of sexuality. Going beyond a call for acceptance of asexuality as a legitimate and valid sexual orientation, the authors offer a critical examination of many of the most fundamental ways in which we categorize and index sexualities, desires, bodies, and practices. As the first book-length collection of critical essays ever produced on the topic of asexuality, this book serves as a foundational text in a growing field of study. It also aims to reshape the directions of feminist and queer studies, and to radically alter popular conceptions of sex and desire. Including units addressing theories of asexual orientation; the politics of asexuality; asexuality in media culture; masculinity and asexuality; health, disability, and medicalization; and asexual literary theory, Asexualities will be of interest to scholars and students in sexuality, gender, sociology, cultural studies, disability studies, and media culture.
Author : Paul Merton
Publisher : Random House
Page : 370 pages
File Size : 31,8 MB
Release : 2010-01-26
Category : Performing Arts
ISBN : 1409035662
On the surface it may seem slightly surprising that a master of verbal humour should also be a devotee of silent comedy, but Paul Merton is completely passionate about the early days of Hollywood comedy and the comic geniuses who dominated it. His knowledge is awesome - as anyone who watched his BBC 4 series Silent Clowns or attended the events he has staged nationwide will agree - his enthusiasm is infectious, and these qualities are to be found in abundance in his book. Starting with the very earliest pioneering short films, he traces the evolution of silent comedy through the 1900s and considers the works of the genre's greatest exponents - Buster Keaton, Charlie Chaplin, Laurel and Hardy and Harold Lloyd - showing not only how each developed in the course of their career but also the extent to which they influenced each other. At the same time, Paul brings a comedian's insight to bear on the art of making people laugh, and explores just how the great comic ideas, routines, gags and pratfalls worked and evolved. His first book for ten years, this is destined to be a classic.
Author : Noël Carroll
Publisher : John Wiley & Sons
Page : 190 pages
File Size : 32,71 MB
Release : 2009-01-12
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 1405188324
COMEDY INCARNATE COMEDY INCARNATE Buster Keaton, Physical Humor and Bodily Coping “Buster Keaton was an engineer of the comic, a craftsman of gags, a mechanic of humor. While Carroll does not aspire to be as funny as Keaton, he can match (and follow) him in intricate and brilliant analysis, providing a logic of illogic. A book that will change how we think about slapstick and film style.” Tom Gunning, University of Chicago “Comedy Incarnate is a brilliant, inventive and lucid examination of Buster Keaton’s The General. Through close textual analysis, Carroll opens up a wide expanse of historical and theoretical territory – positioning The General in relation to the writings of Merleau-Ponty, Bergson, and Poulet, as well as to the films of Chaplin, Lloyd, and Langdon.” Lucy Fischer, University of Pittsburgh “Building on Keaton’s directorial practice as a sort of civil engineer who engaged a mechanical universe, Carroll . . . investigates how Keaton’s emphasis on gags and their intelligibility characterize the film in specific ways. In so doing he opens up an understanding of how Keaton’s comedy of body intelligence works, especially in contrast to contemporaries like Charlie Chaplin and Harold Lloyd, and he shows how intelligence – the artist’s and the viewer’s – informs laughter.” CHOICE Comedy Incarnate explores the intricacies of Buster Keaton’s unique visual style to discover what provokes laughter in his timeless films, paying special attention to The General. Keaton’s precise body comedy, coupled with his unconventional directorial decisions, suggests a new way of analyzing the film in terms of its visual elements as opposed to its narrative. Written by one of America’s foremost film theorists, this in-depth examination of the comedy of the steam, steel, and railroad era will provide a fresh vantage point for analysis of film and comedy itself.
Author : Charles Christy Hampton
Publisher :
Page : pages
File Size : 22,80 MB
Release : 1959
Category : Comedy
ISBN :
Author : Curtis Cadden
Publisher :
Page : 116 pages
File Size : 16,53 MB
Release : 2021-05-29
Category :
ISBN :
Buster Keaton used to be an icon for the silent clown industry. And here is all about this icon's life career and his first experiences in the industry. Although Buster Keaton is now widely recognized as being second only to the great cinematic comedy innovator Charlie Chaplin in the pantheon of silent clowns, it wasn't always thus. What are today regarded as his finest films were often not financial successes at the time, and that lack of box office clout had a marked effect on Keaton's later career? Unlike Chaplin, who quickly came to control his own work, and the third great silent clown Harold Lloyd, who skillfully managed his transition from huge silent success to sound films and then to a successful retirement, Keaton never quite made the critical grade until towards the end of his life. This full biography recounts Buster Keaton's life and career, from his earliest days in turn-of-the-Century vaudeville to his first experiences making movies with Roscoe Arbuckle, to his great shorts of the 1920s, his silent features, his troubles at MGM, and his marriages and health troubles, to his late-career renaissance in film and on television and the collective rediscovery of his silent heritage.
Author : Bill Schelly
Publisher : North Atlantic Books
Page : 433 pages
File Size : 43,9 MB
Release : 2018-04-17
Category : Biography & Autobiography
ISBN : 1623171512
A fascinating story of growing up as a gay fan of comic books in the 1960s, building a fifty-year career as an award-winning writer, and interacting with acclaimed comic book legends Award-winning writer Bill Schelly relates how comics and fandom saved his life in this engrossing story that begins in the burgeoning comic fandom movement of the 1960s and follows the twists and turns of a career that spanned fifty years. Schelly recounts his struggle to come out at a time when homosexuality was considered a mental illness, how the egalitarian nature of fandom offered a safe haven for those who were different, and how his need for creative expression eventually overcame all obstacles. He describes living through the AIDS epidemic, finding the love of his life, and his unorthodox route to becoming a father. He also details his personal encounters with major talents of 1960s comics, such as Steve Ditko (co-creator of Spider-Man), Jim Shooter (writer for DC and later editor-in-chief of Marvel Comics), and Julius Schwartz (legendary architect of the Silver Age of comics).
Author : Wes D. Gehring
Publisher : McFarland
Page : 217 pages
File Size : 45,59 MB
Release : 2014-11-21
Category : Performing Arts
ISBN : 0786483520
The 1930s are routinely considered sound film's greatest comedy era. Though this golden age encompassed various genres of laughter, clown comedy is the most basic type. This work examines the Depression decade's most popular type of comedy--the clown, or personality comedian. Focusing upon the Depression era, the study filters its analysis through twelve memorable pictures. Each merits an individual chapter, in which it is critiqued. The films are deemed microcosmic representatives of the comic world and discussed in this context. While some of the comedians in this text have generated a great deal of previous analysis, funnymen like Joe E. Brown and Eddie Cantor are all but forgotten. Nevertheless, they were comedy legends in their time, and their legacy, as showcased in these movies, merits rediscovery by today's connoisseur of comedy. Even this book's more familiar figures, such as Charlie Chaplin and the Marx Brothers, are often simply relegated to being recognizable pop culture icons whose work has been neglected in recent years. This book attempts to address these oversights and to re-expose the brilliance and ingenuity with which the screen clowns contributed a comic resiliency that was desperately needed during the Depression and can still be greatly appreciated today. The films discussed are City Lights (1931, Chaplin), The Kid From Spain (1932, Cantor), She Done Him Wrong (1933, Mae West), Duck Soup (1933, Marx Brothers), Sons of the Desert (1933, Laurel and Hardy), Judge Priest (1934, Will Rogers), It's a Gift (1934, W.C. Fields), Alibi Ike (1935, Brown), A Night at the Opera (1935, Marx Brothers), Modern Times (1936, Chaplin), Way Out West (1937, Laurel and Hardy), and The Cat and the Canary (1939, Bob Hope).
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Page : pages
File Size : 45,70 MB
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