Genre-Busting Dark Comedies of the 1970s : Twelve American Films Paperback / softback
by Wes D. Gehring
Paperback / softback
Description
This examination of dark comedies of the 1970s focuses on films which concealed black humor behind a misleading genre label.
All That Jazz (1979) is a musical...about death - hardly Fred and Ginger territory.
This masking goes beyond misnomer to a breaking of formula that director Robert Altman called ""anti-genre."" Altman's M.A.S.H. (1970) ridiculed the military establishment in general - the Vietnam War in particular - under the guise of a standard military service comedy.
The picaresque Western Little Big Man (1970) turned the bluecoats vs.
Indians formula upside-down - the audience roots for the Indians instead of the cavalry. The book covers 12 essential films, including Harold and Maude (1971), Slaughterhouse-Five (1972), One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975) and Being There (1979), with notes on A Clockwork Orange (1971).
These films reveal a compounding complexity that reinforces the absurdity at the heart of dark comedy.
Information
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Out of stock
- Format:Paperback / softback
- Pages:252 pages, 43 photographs, filmography
- Publisher:McFarland & Co Inc
- Publication Date:31/03/2016
- Category:
- ISBN:9780786495429
Information
-
Out of stock
- Format:Paperback / softback
- Pages:252 pages, 43 photographs, filmography
- Publisher:McFarland & Co Inc
- Publication Date:31/03/2016
- Category:
- ISBN:9780786495429
