This book uses large scale social and cultural trends and major world events to analyse the American comedy film.

This handbook tackles the understudied relationship between music and comedy cinema by analysing the nature, perception, and function of music from fresh perspectives. Its approach is not only multidisciplinary, but also interdisciplinary in its close examination of how music and other cinematic devices interact in the creation of comedy. The volume addresses gender representation, national identities, stylistic strategies, and employs inputs from cultural studies, musicology, music theory, psychology, cognitivism, semiotics, formal and stylistic film analysis, and psychoanalysis. It is organised in four sections: general introductions, theoretical investigations, music and comedy within national cinemas, and exemplary case studies of films or authors.

Long-held associations between women, home, food, and cooking are beginning to unravel as, in a growing number of households, men are taking on food and cooking responsibilities. At the same time, men's public foodwork continues to gain attention in the media and popular culture. The first of its kind, Food, Masculinities and Home focuses specifically on food in relation to how homemaking practices shape masculine identities and transform meanings of 'home'. The international, multidisciplinary contributors explore questions including how food practices shape masculinity and notions of home, and vice versa; the extent to which this gender shift challenges existing gender hierarchies; and how masculinities are being reshaped by the growing presence of men in kitchens and food-focused spaces. With ever-growing interest in both food and gender studies, this is a must-read for students and researchers in food studies, gender studies, cultural studies, sociology, geography, anthropology, and related fields.

Charles Maland focuses on the cultural sources of the on-and-off, love-hate affair between Chaplin and the American public that was perhaps the stormiest in American stardom.

Film Comedy and the American Dream is an examination of national identity in the era of the American superpower as projected in popular comedic films that center on issues of upward mobility. It is the story of what made audiences laugh and why, and what this says about the changing shape of the American Dream from the end of the Second World War through the first part of the twenty-first century. Through a combination of narrative and thematic analyses of popular comedic films, contextualized within a dynamic historical framework, the book traces the increasing disillusionment with this central ideology in the face of multiple forms of systemic exclusion. It argues that film comedy is a major component of the discourse surrounding the American Dream because these movies often evoke humor by highlighting the incongruities that exist between the ideals that define this nation versus the actual lived experiences of its citizens.

This book examines the evolution of American film comedy through the lens of language and the portrayal of social class. Christopher Beach argues that class has been an important element in the development of sound comedy as a cinematic form. With the advent of sound in the late 1920s and early 1930s, filmmakers recognized that sound and narrative enlarged the semiotic and ideological potential of film. Analyzing the use of language in the films of the Marx Brothers, Frank Capra, Woody Allen and the Coen brothers, among others, Class, Language, and American Film Comedy traces the history of Hollywood from the 1930s to the present, while offering a new approach to the study of class and social relationships through linguistic analysis.

The Complete History of American Film Criticism is a chronicle of the lives and work of the most influential film critics of the past 100 years. From the first movie review in the New York Times in 1896 through the Silent Era, the pre- and postwar years, the Film Generation of the 1960s, the Golden Age of the 1970s, and into the 21st century, critics have educated generations of discriminating moviegoers on the differences between good films and bad. They call attention to great directors, cinematographers, production designers, screenwriters, and actors, and shed light on their artistic visions and storytelling sensibilities. People interested in what the great film critics had to say have usually been shortchanged as to their backgrounds, and just why they are qualified to sit in judgment. Using mini-biographies, placed within a chronological framework, The Complete History of American Film Criticism is the biography of a profession whose cultural impact has left an indelible mark on the 20th century’s most significant art form.

How has American cinema engaged with the rapid transformation of cities and urban culture since the 1960s? And what role have films and film industries played in shaping and mediating the “postindustrial” city? This collection argues that cinema and cities have become increasingly intertwined in the era of neoliberalism, urban branding, and accelerated gentrification. Examining a wide range of films from Hollywood blockbusters to indie cinema, it considers the complex, evolving relationship between moving image cultures and the spaces, policies, and politics of US cities from New York, Los Angeles, and Boston to Detroit, Oakland, and Baltimore. The contributors address questions of narrative, genre, and style alongside the urban contexts of production, exhibition, and reception, discussing films including The Friends of Eddie Coyle (1973), Cruising (1980), Desperately Seeking Susan (1985), King of New York (1990), Inception (2010), Frances Ha (2012), Fruitvale Station (2013), Only Lovers Left Alive (2013), and Doctor Strange (2016).

"Encompassing the careers of up to 600 directors - over 60 new to this edition - working in the US and Canada today, this volume is an invaluable reference for students, researchers and enthusiasts of film and popular culture. Each entry provides biographical information as well as insightful textual and thematic analysis of the director's work. In comprehensively covering a wide range of film-makers - from more established mainstream luminaries such as Steven Spielberg, Martin Scorsese, Ridley Scott and Kathryn Bigelow, through independent mavericks like Hal Hartley, Atom Egoyan, Jim Jarmusch and the Coen brothers, to innovative emerging talents including Marc Forster (Monster's Ball), Todd Field (In the Bedroom) and David Gordon Green (George Washington) - the shifting landscape of contemporary film-making is brought into sharp focus." Sur la 4e de couv.