Specters of Slapstick and Silent Film Comediennes

Hennefeld, Maggie

doi:10.7312/henn17946

Cited by 30 publications

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“…In the early decades of the 20th century, comedic silent films featured, together with their male counterparts, quite a few 'nasty women', as Margaret Hennefeld christened them after Donald Trump's unfortunate interruption during his 2016 Presidential Debate with Hilary Clinton (Hennefeld 2018(Hennefeld , 2019Massa 2017). Among these we could find several 'queens of slapstick' (and disaster), such as the 'Tilly Sisters' (Alma Taylor and Chrissie White) in the UK, Lea (Lea Giunchi) and Gigetta (Gigetta Morano) in Italy, or Léontine (translated as 'Betty' in the Anglo-Saxon market), Mistinguett (Jeanne Florentine Bourgeois) and Rosalie, first, and then Petronille (Marie Marguerite Sarah Duhamel), in France.…”

Section: The 1910s and The 1920s: Slapstick 'Nasty Women' And Women I...mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Among these we could find several 'queens of slapstick' (and disaster), such as the 'Tilly Sisters' (Alma Taylor and Chrissie White) in the UK, Lea (Lea Giunchi) and Gigetta (Gigetta Morano) in Italy, or Léontine (translated as 'Betty' in the Anglo-Saxon market), Mistinguett (Jeanne Florentine Bourgeois) and Rosalie, first, and then Petronille (Marie Marguerite Sarah Duhamel), in France. In the latter group belonged the now forgotten but prolific actress commonly known as Little Chrysia, who would find international success as Cunégonde (Lux Company 1911-1913, known as Alma in Germany, and Caroline, in the UK, and as Arabella in the US (Hennefeld 2018), where new films by James Read would add to the Cunégonde series in 1915 3 . As with Calino and Polycarpe before her, Cunégonde also tried her hand at building, even if in an informal fashion, in the unfortunately lost short film Cunégonde Architecte (1912), which is perhaps the first film in which a female character can be found practicing the profession of architecture in any form (Loné 1994).…”

Section: The 1910s and The 1920s: Slapstick 'Nasty Women' And Women I...mentioning

confidence: 99%

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The Image of Women Architects in Films, 1912–1943: New Careers and Stereotyped Femininities

Pérez-Moreno

Lus-Arana

2022

Arts

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Contrary to what might be expected, portrayals of women architects in films can be found as far back as the early decades of the twentieth century. In this article, the authors review a few films released between 1912 and 1943 in which one of the characters is a woman architect, focusing on three of them: Dr. Monica (1934), Woman Chases Man (1937) and The Lamp Still Burns (1943). The article explores the ways in which architecture was used by screenwriters and directors as a suitable vehicle to portray the ‘new woman’, as well as the conflicts that arise when a woman practices a traditionally male profession. It analyses the differences and limitations of these depictions, and the stereotypes regarding femininity that permeated these works of fiction.

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Section: The 1910s and The 1920s: Slapstick 'Nasty Women' And Women I...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: The 1910s and The 1920s: Slapstick 'Nasty Women' And Women I...mentioning

confidence: 99%

The Image of Women Architects in Films, 1912–1943: New Careers and Stereotyped Femininities

Pérez-Moreno

Lus-Arana

2022

Arts

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“…Yet in the case of slapstick, it has not always been easy to bridge what Maggie Hennefeld has described as the "chasm between the laughing spectator and the comical body" suggested by Laughter. 18 Differentiating "physical clown comedy" from other body genres, Linda Williams locates this gap in the physical difference between laugher and comedian since "…the reaction of the audience does not mimic the sensations experienced by the central clown. Indeed, it is almost a rule that the audience's physical reaction of laughter does not coincide with the often dead-pan reactions of the clown."…”

Section: Laughter Versus New Bergsonismmentioning

confidence: 99%

Bergson's Boffo Laughter

Flaig¹

2021

JCMS

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Beginning with an imagined encounter between Buster Keaton and HenriBergson, this essay offers a fundamental re-reading of Bergson's Laughter and its theoretical, historical and formal links to slapstick cinema. It focuses on neglected references by Bergson, Gilles Deleuze and James Agee to a sympathetic, schizophrenic and "boffo" laughter virtually yet viscerally connecting audiences to slapstick's acrobatic automatons and vitalized machines. It argues for a more dialectical relationship between terms often thought opposed in Laughter and with it, both New Bergsonian theories of film and slapstick: vitality and mechanism, laughing and comic bodies, pragmatism and sympathy.Who Loves that Buster? In his Billy Wilder, wie haben Sie's gemacht? (Billy, How Did You Do It?, 1992), Volker Schlöndorff elicits a revealing explanation of how Buster Keaton came to be cast in Wilder's Sunset Boulevard (1949). Keaton plays himself as a member of the "waxworks," a group of aged silent film icons invited by Norma Desmond for bridge. In a brief slapstick bit, Keaton darts his deadpan gaze around the table before croaking, "Pass," an admission of defeat in the face of a bad hand, but also, the film suggests, in confrontation with synchronized sound (see Figure 1). In conversation with Schlöndorff, Wilder laughingly 2 admits to reducing Keaton's tragic career arc into failure at bridge, explaining that it was not Keaton's status as a formerly "great comedian" that prompted his casting, but his reputation as "a very good bridge player." Despite the brevity of Keaton's cameo and Wilder's explanation thereof, both reveal intertwined theories of film comedy and film history, what James Agee and Manny Farber described in their reviews of Sunset Boulevard as a "coldness," a "dispassionate" distance in which "tragedy…is largely muffed" by "a mean director with telescopic eyes." 1 Here, tragedy mechanically repeats as farce while laughter depends on a cold, distant and mocking gaze. This gaze underlies Wilder's casting a "very good bridge player" and former silent star only to hear him "pass," an ironic outcome seemingly fated by not only Keaton's then moribund career, but his earlier slapstick, with Buster's melancholic deadpan a necessary point of contrast with the lively laughter of his audience. Just as Keaton had prefaced his resigned "Pass" with a flash of slapstick so does Wilder, in setting up his punchline, hint at this status of "great comedian." He does so by bursting into song, reciting: "Meine Schwester liebt den Buster, / Liebt den Keaton, / und sie zieht'n / Dem Chaplin vor!" ["My sister loves that Buster, / loves that Keaton, / and she'll take him / over Chaplin!"].What song is Wilder singing and how does its recitation confirm or contradict the theories of film comedy and film history suggested by Keaton's cameo in Sunset Boulevard?Written by Friedrich Hollander in 1930 and inspired by Keaton's visit to Berlin, "Meine Schwester liebt den Buster" was sung in cabarets in the early nineteen-thirties, its composer one of th...

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“…En este sentido, las estrellas femeninas de la comedia y el cine cómico o de slapstick reflejaron con humor esta situación, evidenciando la problemática de la época, criticando el logos decimonónico y patriarcal. En esta línea, se han publicado fecundos estudios académicos de la etapa del cine mudo que han abordado la comicidad femenina como un nicho de transgresión al falocentrismo dominante (Mahar, 2006;Wagner, 2018;Hennefeld, 2018). En la misma dirección, el presente artículo estudiará el gag de la caída cómica en las diez películas que se conservan de Mary Pickford y Frances Marion, realizadas en la década de los diez para demostrar que, en estos instantes de comicidad, la estrella visualizó una subjetividad femenina que proponía un discurso o "un estilo de pensamiento que expresa [ba] salidas alternativas a la visión falocéntrica del sujeto" (Braidotti 2000, p. 28).…”

Section: Introductionunclassified

Un otro lugar para la subjetividad femenina: la caída cómica en las películas de Frances Marion y Mary Pickford

Bou-Sala¹

2023

Arte, individuo y sociedad (Internet)

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Mary Pickford contrató a Frances Marion en 1915 para que escribiera los guiones de sus películas, éxitos de taquilla que afianzaron su estrellato en la década de los diez del siglo veinte. En un marco social convulso, marcado por la Primera Guerra Mundial y los cambios que las mujeres sufrieron en el paso de una sociedad decimonónica a una moderna, los personajes de Mary Pickford fueron un modelo de optimismo para las audiencias. La estrella representó una figuración tradicional, pero a través de la comicidad ofreció nuevos comportamientos femeninos. El artículo estudiará la comicidad de los personajes de la estrella para exponer que en su gestualidad cómica se vislumbra una autónoma subjetividad femenina. A partir del análisis del gag de la caída cómica que se encuentra en todas las películas de Frances Marion y Mary Pickford se demostrará que la guionista y la estrella desarrollaron un discurso alternativo a la visión falocéntrica del sujeto. A través de los Star Studies y las teorías filosóficas feministas de Teresa De Lauretis y Rosi Braidotti se demostrará que en la caída cómica Mary Pickford reveló una subjetividad “excéntrica”, capaz de crear un “otro lugar” de resistencia al logos decimonónico y patriarcal.

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Specters of Slapstick and Silent Film Comediennes

Cited by 30 publications

References 0 publications

The Image of Women Architects in Films, 1912–1943: New Careers and Stereotyped Femininities

The Image of Women Architects in Films, 1912–1943: New Careers and Stereotyped Femininities

Bergson's Boffo Laughter

Un otro lugar para la subjetividad femenina: la caída cómica en las películas de Frances Marion y Mary Pickford

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