Includes bibliographical references (pages 277-318), filmography (pages 239-275), and index.
Contents:
Introduction -- Part 1. Early film combustion. Early cinema and the comedy of the female catastrophe -- Female combustion and feminist film historiography -- Part 2. Transitional film metamorphosis. Slapstick comediennes in transitional cinema : between body and medium -- The geopolitics of the transitional film comedy : American Vitagraph versus French Pathé frères -- D.W. Griffith's slapstick comediennes : female corporeality and narrative film storytelling -- Part 3. Feminist slapstick politics. Film comedy aesthetics and suffrategette social politics -- Radical militancy and slapstick political violence -- Postscript : haunted laughter at late comediennes.
Summary:
"In Specters of Slapstick, Hennefeld focuses on silent film comediennes and the function of the female body in early slapstick. Laughter is a kind of grating against the absurdity of society, argues Hennefeld. But while male bodies in slapstick tried to violently fight or "escape" their surroundings--slipping on a banana peel and falling, for example--female bodies exhibited a fluidity that reflected an attempt to morph into their changing surroundings. In one slapstick film, a maid humorously cuts off her limbs in order to finish all her household chores in time. In others, women transform into fairies or spiders; all underscore an attempt to assimilate their bodies to the demands of changing environments. This eradicates the traditional opposition between performer and audience, making the "laughing spectator" a more active part of the film experience. As Hennefeld analyzes early slapstick film historiography in light of this theory, she examines larger themes like the evolution of gender, the body, and their place in cinematic comedy"-- Provided by publisher.
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