The Comedy of Philosophy

Lisa Trahair

Description

The Comedy of Philosophy brings modern debates in continental philosophy to bear on the historical study of early cinematic comedy. Through the films of Mack Sennett, Buster Keaton, Charlie Chaplin, Harold Lloyd, and the Marx Brothers, Lisa Trahair investigates early cinema's exploration of sense and nonsense by utilizing the contributions to the philosophy of comedy made by Freud and Bataille and by examining significant poststructuralist interpretations of their work. Trahair explores the shift from the excessive physical slapstick of the Mack Sennett era to the so-called structural comedy of the 1920s, and also offers a new perspective on the importance of psychoanalysis for the study of film by focusing on the implications of Freud's theory of the unconscious for our understanding of visuality.

List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Introduction

1. The Comedy of Philosophy: Hegel, Bataille, and Derrida

2. Restricted and General Economy: Narrative, Gag and Slapstick in One Week

3. The Machine of Comedy: Gunning, Deleuze, and Buster Keaton

4. Fool’s Gold: Metamorphoses in Sherlock Jr.

5. Jokes and Their Relation to...

6. The Comic: Degradation and Refinement in 1920s Cinematic Slapstick 

7. From Words to Images (Gagging)

8. Figural Vision: Freud, Lyotard, and City Lights

9. Preposterous Figurality: Comic Cinema and Bad Metaphor

Notes
Bibliography
Index

Sujets

• Película fotográfica
• Philosophy
• Visual culture
• History of film
• Film

Informations

• Publié par: State University of New York Press
• Date de parution: 01 février 2012
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780791479322
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 3 Mo

Extrait

The Comedy of Philosophy

The Comedy of Philosophy

Sense and Nonsense in Early Cinematic Slapstick

Lisa Trahair

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State University of New York Press

Published by State University of New York Press, Albany

© 2007 State University of New York

All rights reserved

Printed in the United States of America

No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission. No part of this book may be stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means including electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise with- out the prior permission in writing of the publisher.

For information, contact State University of New York Press, Albany, NY www.sunypress.edu

Production by Marilyn P. Semerad Marketing by Michael Campochiaro

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Trahair, Lisa, 1962– The comedy of philosophy : sense and nonsense in early cinematic slapstick / Lisa Trahair. p. cm. — (SUNY series, insinuations—philosophy, psychoanalysis, literature) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978–0–7914–7247–7 (hardcover : alk. paper) 1. Comedy films—History and criticism. I. Title.

PN1995.9.C55T68 2007 791.43617—dc22

2006100229

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

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Illustrations

Figure 1.Go West(1925) BFI Stills Figure 2.One Week(1920) The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Figure 3.One Week(1920) Figure 4.The Paleface(1921) Figure 5.Daydreams(1922) BFI Stills Figure 6.Neighbors(1920) The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Figure 7.The Navigator(1924) BFI Stills Figure 8.Steamboat Bill, Jr.(1928) BFI Stills Figure 9.Steamboat Bill, Jr.(1928) The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Figure 10.The Playhouse(1921) Figure 11.Sherlock Jr.(1924) BFI Stills Figure 12.Sherlock Jr.Academy of Motion Picture Arts(1924) The and Sciences

Figure 13. Photograph by Arthur Rice (1921) The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences

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65 68 78

82 90 97

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Figure 14.Go West(1925) The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences 142 Figure 15.The Love Nest(1923) The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences 142 Figure 16. “Buster de Milo” (1927) BFI Stills 157

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Illustrations

Figure 17.Sherlock Jr.(1924) Figure 18.The Navigator(1924) Figure 19.Sherlock Jr.(1924) Figure 20.The Navigator(1924) Photofest

166 193 208 209

Acknowledgments

his book has been written with financial assistance from the Faculty of T Arts and Social Sciences at the University of New South Wales, The Power Institute at the University of Sydney and the Australian Research Council. Some chapters or parts thereof are revisions of previously published work. Chapter 1 appeared as “The Comedy of Philosophy: Bataille, Hegel and Derrida” inAngelaki6.3 (2001); chapter 2 as “Short-Circuiting the Dialectic: Narrative and Slapstick in the Cinema of Buster Keaton” in Narrative10.3 (2002); chapter 3 as “The Narrative-Machine: Buster Keaton’s Cinematic Comedy, Deleuze’s Recursion Function and the Operational Aesthetic” inSenses of Cinema33 (2004); chapter 4 as “Fool’s Gold: Metamorphosis in Buster Keaton’sSherlock, Jr.” in Lesley Stern and George Kouvaros, eds.,Falling for You: Essays on Cinema and Performance (Sydney: Power Publications, 1999) and parts of chapters 6, 7 and 8 as “Figural Vision: Freud, Lyotard and Early Cinematic Comedy” inScreen46.2 (2005). My thanks to The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, BFI Stills and Photofest for images. Of the many contributors to the realization of this project, Alan Cholodenko and Mick Carter, who supervised my doctoral work on Keaton, are undoubtedly the ones who put in the hard yards. Along with a handful of others at the University of Sydney, they created a vibrant and stimulating scholarly environment for both undergraduates and postgraduates, fostering an enthusiasm for thinking and writing about culture and philosophy that saw so many of us through to working in the academy, the kind of environ- ment now sadly depleted by funding shortfalls and overbureaucratization. Laleen Jayamanne and David Wills provided generous and encouraging com- ments on the thesis and without them this book would not have evolved to the extent it has. I also benefited from teaching with Frank Krutnik at the University of Aberdeen in 1996. Others who directly helped in the prepara- tion of the current work, either by reading chapters or providing comments on the project as a whole, are Sue Best, Toni Ross, Amir Ahmadi, Alison Ross, Andrew Murphie, Lone Bertelsen, Moira Gatens, Lisabeth During,

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