Overview

In 1893 Friedrich Engels branded history “the cruelest goddess of all.” This sorrowful vision of the past is deeply rooted in the Western imagination, and history is thus presented as a joyless playground of inevitability rather than a droll world of possibilities. There are few places this is more evident than in historical cinema which tends to portray the past in a somber manner.  Historical Comedy on Screen examines this tendency paying particular attention to the themes most difficult to laugh at and exploring the place where comical and historical storytelling intersect. The book emphasizes the many oft-overlooked comical renderings of history and asks what they have to tell us if we begin to take them seriously.

Full Product Details

Author:   Hannu Salmi (University of Turku)
Publisher:   Intellect
Imprint:   Intellect Books
Dimensions:   Width: 17.80cm , Height: 1.10cm , Length: 22.90cm
Weight:   0.340kg
ISBN:  

9781841503677

ISBN 10:   1841503673
Pages:   205
Publication Date:   15 May 2011
Audience:   College/higher education ,  Postgraduate, Research & Scholarly
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   Manufactured on demand  
We will order this item for you from a manufactured on demand supplier.

Table of Contents

Introduction: Mad History of the World  – Hannu Salmi, University of Turku   PART I: COMEDIANS AND COMIC REPRESENTATIONS   Buster Keaton’s Comedies of Southern History: Our Hospitality and The General – Susan E. Linville, University of Denver   From Ideal Husbands to Berserk Gargoyles: Comic Representations of the British Past in the 1950s and 1960s – Harri Kilpi, University of Helsinki   Comedians and Romance: History and Humour in Kalabalik – David Ludvigsson, University of Uppsala   Woody Allen and History – Maurice Yawocar, University of Calgary   PART II: NO LAUGHING MATTER   No Laughing Matter? Comedy and The Spanish Civil War – David Archibald, University of Glasgow   A Killer Joke? World War Two in Post-War British Television and Film Comedy – Rami Mähkä, University of Turku   “Holocaust-Nostalgia”, Humor and Irony: The Case of Pizza in Auschwitz – Hagai Dagan, Sapir College   Comedy and Counter-history – Marcia Landy, University of Pittsburg

Reviews

Author Information

Hannu Salmi is professor of cultural history at the University of Turku in Finland. He is a historian of film and popular culture and has published, for example, in Film & History and Screening the Past. He is the series editor of Studies in Popular Culture.

Tab Content 6

Author Website:  

Countries Available

All regions