Author : Rob King
Publisher : Univ of California Press
ISBN 13 : 9780520942851
Total Pages : 378 pages
Book Rating : 4.9/5 (428 download)
Book Synopsis The Fun Factory by : Rob King
Download or read book The Fun Factory written by Rob King and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2008-12-10 with total page 378 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From its founding in 1912, the short-lived Keystone Film Company—home of the frantic, bumbling Kops and Mack Sennett's Bathing Beauties—made an indelible mark on American popular culture with its high-energy comic shorts. Even as Keystone brought "lowbrow" comic traditions to the screen, the studio played a key role in reformulating those traditions for a new, cross-class audience. In The Fun Factory, Rob King explores the dimensions of that process, arguing for a new understanding of working-class cultural practices within early cinematic mass culture. He shows how Keystone fashioned a style of film comedy from the roughhouse humor of cheap theater, pioneering modes of representation that satirized film industry attempts at uplift. Interdisciplinary in its approach, The Fun Factory offers a unique studio history that views the changing politics of early film culture through the sociology of laughter.