Fun Factory

The Keystone Film Company and the Emergence of Mass Culture

Häftad, Engelska, 2008

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From its founding in 1912, the short-lived Keystone Film Company - home of the frantic, bumbling Kops and Mack Sennett's Bathing Beauties - made an indelible mark on American popular culture with its high-energy comic shorts. Even as Keystone brought 'lowbrow' comic traditions to the screen, the studio played a key role in reformulating those traditions for a new, cross-class audience. In "The Fun Factory", Rob King explores the dimensions of that process, arguing for a new understanding of working-class cultural practices within early cinematic mass culture. He shows how Keystone fashioned a style of film comedy from the roughhouse humor of cheap theater, pioneering modes of representation that satirized film industry attempts at uplift. Interdisciplinary in its approach, "The Fun Factory" offers a unique studio history that views the changing politics of early film culture through the sociology of laughter.

Produktinformation

Utgivningsdatum2008-12-10
Mått152 x 229 x 23 mm
Vikt590 g
FormatHäftad
SpråkEngelska
Antal sidor376
FörlagUniversity of California Press
ISBN9780520255388

Tillhör följande kategorier

Film inom Kultur
Amerikas historia inom Historia och arkeologi
Kulturvetenskap inom Samhalle och politik

List 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

"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