Overview

This is the first sustained critical collection on Albert Brooks, one of the key but under-examined figures in American stand-up, television comedy and Hollywood film comedy. Analysing every film written and directed by Albert Brooks, including Real Life (1979), Modern Romance (1981) and Lost in America (1985), as well as a number of his acting and voice-over roles, his stand-up comedy albums, talk show appearances and writing, the book argues that Albert Brooks not only merits a wider viewership, both critical and popular, but also that his career offers a useful lens through which to understand American film and culture since the late 1960s.

Full Product Details

Author:   Christian B. Long (Educator, Queensland University of Technology.)
Publisher:   Edinburgh University Press
Imprint:   Edinburgh University Press
Dimensions:   Width: 15.60cm , Height: 1.50cm , Length: 23.40cm
Weight:   0.395kg
ISBN:  

9781474434287

ISBN 10:   1474434282
Pages:   280
Publication Date:   25 May 2023
Audience:   Professional and scholarly ,  Professional & Vocational
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

Acknowledgments 1. Introduction, Christian B. Long 2. Irony Ends in Why, Thomas Britt 3. The Counterculture Squared: Albert Brooks’ Saturday Night Live, Jeff Menne 4. Your General Humor Buildup: Constructing Albert Brooks, JD Connor 5. When Success is Failure, Christian B. Long 6. Easy Riders, Raging Yuppies: Lost in America and the Work of the Professional-Managerial Class, Derek Nystrom 7. Albert Brooks Channeling the Feminine, Rebecca Bell-Metereau 8. Defending Purgatorio: Dante, Brooks, and Finding One’s Celestial Place, Frank Percaccio 9. Albert Brooks’ Anatomy of Love, Enid Stubin 10. Finding Brooks: Animating the Baby Boomer Generation in Finding Nemo, Dietmar Meinel 11. Debt, Payback, and Economics in Nicolas Winding Refn’s Drive, Tom Ue Contributors

Reviews

"""This collection of essays makes the case for Albert Brooks's multi-faceted significance as a pioneer of meta-comedy, a satirist of baby-boomer complicity, and a prophet of fail culture. America has spent the last half century trailing Brooks. This book catches up with him."" -Robert J. King, Columbia University"

Author Information

Dr Christian Long is an Academic Language and Learning Educator at Queensland University of Technology.

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