Description
Book SynopsisEven as Keystone Film Company brought 'lowbrow' comic traditions to the screen, the studio played a key role in reformulating those traditions for a new, cross-class audience. This book explores the dimensions of that process, arguing for a fresh understanding of working-class cultural practices within early cinematic mass culture.
Trade Review"A searching and briskly authoritative history." National Post "[An] ambitious and innovative study [and] an important contribution... A wonderful analysis of the historical and cultural complexity of this key moment of modernity and one of its major industries. [It] should be compulsory to all scholars in the field." Leonardo Reviews "Essential reading for all those film historians not necessarily interested in slapstick comedy." Screening The Past "This studio history ... offers insights on the politics of early filmmaking through the sociology of laughter." Communication Booknotes Quarterly
Table of ContentsList of Illustrations Acknowledgments Introduction PART I: "SATIRE IN OVERALLS": THE KEYSTONE FILM COMPANY AND POPULAR CULTURE 1. "The Fun Factory": Class, Comedy, and Popular Culture, 1912-1914 2. "Funny Germans" and "Funny Drunks": Clowns, Class, and Ethnicity at Keystone, 1913-1915 3. "The Impossible Attained!" Tillie's Punctured Romance and the Challenge of Feature-Length Slapstick, 1914-1915 PART II: "MORE CLEVER AND LESS VULGAR": THE KEYSTONE FILM COMPANY AND MASS CULTURE 4. "Made for the Masses with an Appeal to the Classes": Keystone, the Triangle Film Corporation, and the Failure of Highbrow Film Culture, 1915-1917 5. "Uproarious Inventions": Keystone, Modernity, and the Machine, 1915-1917 6. From "Diving Venus" to "Bathing Beauties": Reification and Feminine Spectacle, 1916-1917 Conclusion Notes Filmography Index
