Genre-Busting Dark Comedies of the 1970s PDF Download

Author: Wes D. Gehring
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 1476622515
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 251

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Book Description
This examination of dark comedies of the 1970s focuses on films which concealed black humor behind a misleading genre label. All That Jazz (1979) is a musical...about death--hardly Fred and Ginger territory. This masking goes beyond misnomer to a breaking of formula that director Robert Altman called "anti-genre." Altman's MASH (1970) ridiculed the military establishment in general--the Vietnam War in particular--under the guise of a standard military service comedy. The picaresque Western Little Big Man (1970) turned the bluecoats vs. Indians formula upside-down--the audience roots for the Indians instead of the cavalry. The book covers 12 essential films, including Harold and Maude (1971), Slaughterhouse-Five (1972), One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975) and Being There (1979), with notes on A Clockwork Orange (1971). These films reveal a compounding complexity that reinforces the absurdity at the heart of dark comedy.

Author: Wes D. Gehring
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 1476650497
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 243

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Book Description
This groundbreaking film study begins with a survey of American print humorists from eras leading up to and overlapping the advent of film--including some who worked both on the page and on the screen, like Robert Benchley, Will Rogers, Groucho Marx and W. C. Fields. Six comic film genres are identified as outgrowths of a national tradition of Cracker Barrel philosophers, personality comedy, parody, screwball comedy, romantic comedy and dark comedy. Whether it is Mark Twain or a parody film involving Steve Martin, comedy is most often about blowing "raspberries" at the world, and a reminder you are not alone.

Author: Dan Lalande
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 147664974X
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 241

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Book Description
This work offers a critical examination of 130 commercially-released film comedies of the 1970s. It considers the socio-political circumstances of each year of the decade, then critiques each film released that year with a focus on its effect on the film industry and the art of big screen comedy, as well as the emergence of talents whose work influenced (or was influenced by) the zeitgeist of the decade. Covering popular titles like M*A*S*H, Blazing Saddles, American Graffiti, The Bad News Bears, Smokey and the Bandit and many more, it argues that the 1970s may rightly be considered the last golden age of film comedy.

Author: Wes D. Gehring
Publisher: Praeger
ISBN:
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 230

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Book Description
From Charlie Chaplin's The Gold Rush to Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction, Gehring presents a compelling theory of the black comedy film genre. Placing the movies he discusses in a historical and literary context, Gehring explores the genre's obession with death and the characters' failure to be shocked by it. Movies discussed include: Slaughterhouse Five, Catch-2, Clockwork Orange, Harold and Maude, Heathers, and Natural Born Killers.

Author: Fran Ross
Publisher: New Directions Publishing
ISBN: 081122323X
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 156

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Book Description
A pioneering, dazzling satire about a biracial black girl from Philadelphia searching for her Jewish father in New York City Oreo is raised by her maternal grandparents in Philadelphia. Her black mother tours with a theatrical troupe, and her Jewish deadbeat dad disappeared when she was an infant, leaving behind a mysterious note that triggers her quest to find him. What ensues is a playful, modernized parody of the classical odyssey of Theseus with a feminist twist, immersed in seventies pop culture, and mixing standard English, black vernacular, and Yiddish with wisecracking aplomb. Oreo, our young hero, navigates the labyrinth of sound studios and brothels and subway tunnels in Manhattan, seeking to claim her birthright while unwittingly experiencing and triggering a mythic journey of self-discovery like no other.

Author: Wes D. Gehring
Publisher: Greenwood
ISBN:
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 432

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Book Description
Handbook of American Film Genres provides scholarly introductory overviews of various types of films, lists significant examples of each genre, and recommends sources to consult for additional information. Eighteen genres are covered divided into five different categories: action/adventure, comedy, the fantastic, songs and soaps, and nontraditional. Each category is then divided into more diverse sections such as comedy: screwball, parody, clown etc. ... Each chapter includes a historical/analytical overview, a bibliographic overview, and then concludes with a chronologically arranged, highly selective filmography, citing from 10 to 15 major examples of the genre with brief lists of credits. ... One of the strengths of this guide is its coverage of more genres than other standard studies. ... Handbook of American Film Genres covers foreign films as well, it makes a valuable contribution to film scholarship, and it will be a useful acquisition for libraries that support serious film study.

Author: Barry Duncan
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780774712620
Category : Mass media
Languages : en
Pages : 392

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Book Description

Author: William V. Costanzo
Publisher: National Council of Teachers of English (Ncte)
ISBN:
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 356

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Book Description
Costanzo combines a love of film viewing with the practical side of expressing film study to students, including the art of transforming fiction into film, history and business of the industry, and film genres. He also includes study guides for fourteen films, including "To Kill a Mockingbird," "Romeo and Juliet," "Mississippi Masala," "Schindler's List," "The Shawshank Redemption," "Run Lola Run," "The Matrix," and "Bend It Like Beckham."

Author: Wes D. Gehring
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 147667244X
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 261

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Book Description
Charlie Chaplin's A Woman of Paris (1923) was a groundbreaking film which was neither a simple recycling of Peggy Hopkins Joyce's story, nor quickly forgotten. Through heavily-documented "period research," this book lands several bombshells, including Paris is deeply rooted in Chaplin's previous films and his relationship with Edna Purviance, Paris was not rejected by heartland America, Chaplin did "romantic research" (especially with Pola Negri), and Paris' many ongoing influences have never been fully appreciated. These are just a few of the mistakes about Paris.

Author: Maya Montañez Smukler
Publisher: Rutgers University Press
ISBN: 0813587492
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 364

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Book Description
Winner of the 2018 Richard Wall Memorial Award​ from the Theater Library Association Liberating Hollywood examines the professional experiences and creative output of women filmmakers during a unique moment in history when the social justice movements that defined the 1960s and 1970s challenged the enduring culture of sexism and racism in the U.S. film industry. Throughout the 1970s feminist reform efforts resulted in a noticeable rise in the number of women directors, yet at the same time the institutionalized sexism of Hollywood continued to create obstacles to closing the gender gap. Maya Montañez Smukler reveals that during this era there were an estimated sixteen women making independent and studio films: Penny Allen, Karen Arthur, Anne Bancroft, Joan Darling, Lee Grant, Barbara Loden, Elaine May, Barbara Peeters, Joan Rivers, Stephanie Rothman, Beverly Sebastian, Joan Micklin Silver, Joan Tewkesbury, Jane Wagner, Nancy Walker, and Claudia Weill. Drawing on interviews conducted by the author, Liberating Hollywood is the first study of women directors within the intersection of second wave feminism, civil rights legislation, and Hollywood to investigate the remarkable careers of these filmmakers during one of the most mythologized periods in American film history.