The Dark Comedy

The Dark Comedy

Author: J. L. Styan

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 1968-07

Total Pages: 324

ISBN-13: 9780521095297

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Anyone who takes an intelligent interest in theatre-going will find profit and stimulus in this book.


Genre-Busting Dark Comedies of the 1970s

Genre-Busting Dark Comedies of the 1970s

Author: Wes D. Gehring

Publisher: McFarland

Published: 2016-03-09

Total Pages: 251

ISBN-13: 1476622515

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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 MASH (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.


Dark Humor

Dark Humor

Author: Harold Bloom

Publisher: Infobase Publishing

Published: 2010

Total Pages: 290

ISBN-13: 143813102X

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Provides an examination of the use of dark humor in classic literary works.


Black Comedy

Black Comedy

Author: Pamela Faith Jackson

Publisher: Hal Leonard Corporation

Published: 1997

Total Pages: 516

ISBN-13: 9781557832788

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(Applause Books). This first-of-its kind collection includes a wide range of works, from an early examination and critique of American society after World War II to plays that reflect socio-political concerns that kept pace with historical events, like the sit-in demonstrations, the bus boycotts, black nationalism, and the women's liberation movement. A hybrid of comedic forms including satire, farce, comedy of manners, romantic comedy, dark comedy, and tragicomedy are presented through vernacular language, stand-up performance art, masks, broad humor, as well as the minstrel show. Essays, articles and interviews complement this critical edition.


The Dark Side of Stand-Up Comedy

The Dark Side of Stand-Up Comedy

Author: Patrice A. Oppliger

Publisher: Springer Nature

Published: 2020-04-10

Total Pages: 318

ISBN-13: 3030372146

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This book focuses on the “dark side” of stand-up comedy, initially inspired by speculations surrounding the death of comedian Robin Williams. Contributors, those who study humor as well as those who perform comedy, join together to contemplate the paradoxical relationship between tragedy and comedy and expose over-generalizations about comic performers’ troubled childhoods, addictions, and mental illnesses. The book is divided into two sections. First, scholars from a variety of disciplines explore comedians’ onstage performances, their offstage lives, and the relationship between the two. The second half of the book focuses on amateur and lesser-known professional comedians who reveal the struggles they face as they attempt to hone successful comedy acts and likable comic personae. The goal of this collection is to move beyond the hackneyed stereotype of the sad clown in order to reveal how stand-up comedy can transform both personal and collective tragedies by providing catharsis through humor.


The Black Comedy of John Guare

The Black Comedy of John Guare

Author: Gene A. Plunka

Publisher: University of Delaware Press

Published: 2002

Total Pages: 308

ISBN-13: 9780874137637

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This book, the first full-length study of Guare's theater, will make his plays more accessible through an examination of the often unnerving type of black comedy that makes his plays work.".


Dark Humour and Social Satire in the Modern British Novel

Dark Humour and Social Satire in the Modern British Novel

Author: L. Colletta

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2003-09-30

Total Pages: 165

ISBN-13: 140398137X

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Colletta uses psychoanalytic theories of joke-work and gallows humour to argue that dark humour is an important, defining characteristic of Modernism. She brings together the usual suspects alongside more often overlooked writers from the period, and asks probing questions about the relationship between a dark humour that 'revels in the non-rational, the unstable, and the fragmented, and resists easy definition and political usefulness' and the historical and social circumstances of the period. Colletta makes a compelling argument that probing deeply into the nature of humour or satire that define these 'social comedies' brings to light a more complex, and more accurate, understanding of the social changes and historical circumstances that define the modern era.


Dimensions of Humor

Dimensions of Humor

Author: Carmen Valero-Garcés

Publisher: Universitat de València

Published: 2011-11-28

Total Pages: 479

ISBN-13: 8437082900

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This is the first edited volume dedicated specifically to exploring humor in the academic world. It is a rich collection of essays by an international array of scholars representing various theoretical perspectives and practical orientations in the disciplines of Linguistics, Literature, Cultural Studies, and Translation, but all concerned with the interactional aspects of humor. The two main reasons behind the publication of this volume are, first, to continue the journey along the path towards full recognition of humor as a discipline worthy of research and assessment, and, second, to offer a new and integrating perspective on hu¬mor to showcase the wide range of dimensions that it offers. This book is sure to become an important reference and source of inspiration for scholars in the various subfields of Humor Studies: Linguistics, Literature, Cultural Studies, and Translation.


Dark Humor in Films of the 1960s

Dark Humor in Films of the 1960s

Author: Wheeler Winston Dixon

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2015-06-11

Total Pages: 111

ISBN-13: 1137562501

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Focusing on "dark" or black comedy films in the US and the UK, Wheeler Winston Dixon provides a comprehensive overview of a variety of films and filmmakers (Vanishing Point, Marcel Hanoun), whose work has largely been ignored, but whose influence and importance is clearly present.


A Companion to Film Comedy

A Companion to Film Comedy

Author: Andrew Horton

Publisher: John Wiley & Sons

Published: 2015-12-14

Total Pages: 585

ISBN-13: 1119169550

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A wide-ranging survey of the subject that celebrates the variety and complexity of film comedy from the ‘silent’ days to the present, this authoritative guide offers an international perspective on the popular genre that explores all facets of its formative social, cultural and political context A wide-ranging collection of 24 essays exploring film comedy from the silent era to the present International in scope, the collection embraces not just American cinema, including Native American and African American, but also comic films from Europe, the Middle East, and Korea Essays explore sub-genres, performers, and cultural perspectives such as gender, politics, and history in addition to individual works Engages with different strands of comedy including slapstick, romantic, satirical and ironic Features original entries from a diverse group of multidisciplinary international contributors