Gabriella Oldham and Mabel Langdon
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- September 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780813169651
- eISBN:
- 9780813169996
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University Press of Kentucky
- DOI:
- 10.5810/kentucky/9780813169651.001.0001
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
Harry Langdon (1884–1944) was a silent comedian in the early days of the American film industry. Although he is often compared with other silent comedians of the era, including Charlie Chaplin, ...
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Harry Langdon (1884–1944) was a silent comedian in the early days of the American film industry. Although he is often compared with other silent comedians of the era, including Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, and Harold Lloyd, Langdon’s career is underappreciated. Following a series of disastrous professional and personal missteps, Langdon faced demotion from his place as a king of silent comedy. The advent of talkies did not bode well for him, as his greatest strengths were rendered irrelevant. He was largely forgotten until audiences in the 1970s became reacquainted with his work nearly three decades after his death. In Harry Langdon: King of Silent Comedy, author Gabriella Oldham claims that Langdon’s catalog of work merits an equal rank alongside his great contemporaries. This biography seeks not only to redeem Langdon’s position in the pantheon of silent comedians but also to accurately portray his life story. The narrative of Langdon’s life explores his early work on the stage at the turn of the twentieth century, his iconic routines and persona in silent films, and his checkered career in the early sound period. This invaluable biography of Langdon relies on film screenings, files, and interviews with those who were closest to him to capture his true genius during the time when comedy was king.Less
Harry Langdon (1884–1944) was a silent comedian in the early days of the American film industry. Although he is often compared with other silent comedians of the era, including Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, and Harold Lloyd, Langdon’s career is underappreciated. Following a series of disastrous professional and personal missteps, Langdon faced demotion from his place as a king of silent comedy. The advent of talkies did not bode well for him, as his greatest strengths were rendered irrelevant. He was largely forgotten until audiences in the 1970s became reacquainted with his work nearly three decades after his death. In Harry Langdon: King of Silent Comedy, author Gabriella Oldham claims that Langdon’s catalog of work merits an equal rank alongside his great contemporaries. This biography seeks not only to redeem Langdon’s position in the pantheon of silent comedians but also to accurately portray his life story. The narrative of Langdon’s life explores his early work on the stage at the turn of the twentieth century, his iconic routines and persona in silent films, and his checkered career in the early sound period. This invaluable biography of Langdon relies on film screenings, files, and interviews with those who were closest to him to capture his true genius during the time when comedy was king.
William Solomon
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- April 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780252040245
- eISBN:
- 9780252098468
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Illinois Press
- DOI:
- 10.5406/illinois/9780252040245.003.0005
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Media Studies
This chapter takes the concept of “becoming-child” from Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari's study of Franz Kafka in order to account for the peculiarity of Harry Langdon's screen persona. The ...
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This chapter takes the concept of “becoming-child” from Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari's study of Franz Kafka in order to account for the peculiarity of Harry Langdon's screen persona. The bizarrely babyish acting style of Langdon offers a valuable point of access to one of the fundamental traits of silent screen comedy as a whole: its sustained appeal to immature behaviors and correlative rejection of adult standards of behaviors, as well as the normative sexual roles these tend to enforce. What emerges here is one of the strongest links between slapstick film and the counterculture generation's affirmation of youthful irreverence as an oppositional stance.Less
This chapter takes the concept of “becoming-child” from Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari's study of Franz Kafka in order to account for the peculiarity of Harry Langdon's screen persona. The bizarrely babyish acting style of Langdon offers a valuable point of access to one of the fundamental traits of silent screen comedy as a whole: its sustained appeal to immature behaviors and correlative rejection of adult standards of behaviors, as well as the normative sexual roles these tend to enforce. What emerges here is one of the strongest links between slapstick film and the counterculture generation's affirmation of youthful irreverence as an oppositional stance.
William Solomon
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- April 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780252040245
- eISBN:
- 9780252098468
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Illinois Press
- DOI:
- 10.5406/illinois/9780252040245.003.0004
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Media Studies
This chapter continues the conceptual thread of “attraction” while exploring the film oeuvre of the “third genius” of silent screen comedy: Harold Lloyd. This time it is the manifesto-like claims of ...
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This chapter continues the conceptual thread of “attraction” while exploring the film oeuvre of the “third genius” of silent screen comedy: Harold Lloyd. This time it is the manifesto-like claims of Eisenstein's theatrical collaborator, Sergei Tretyakov, that provide the theoretical point of departure. The chapter argues that Lloyd, together with his producer Hal Roach, grasped the virtues of athletic performances on screen as a means of helping to train the masses somatically, in order to handle the demands of life in threatening urban settings. The status of the image here is not that of a copy of a preexisting reality. Rather, it was designed to play a formative role in the life of the spectator.Less
This chapter continues the conceptual thread of “attraction” while exploring the film oeuvre of the “third genius” of silent screen comedy: Harold Lloyd. This time it is the manifesto-like claims of Eisenstein's theatrical collaborator, Sergei Tretyakov, that provide the theoretical point of departure. The chapter argues that Lloyd, together with his producer Hal Roach, grasped the virtues of athletic performances on screen as a means of helping to train the masses somatically, in order to handle the demands of life in threatening urban settings. The status of the image here is not that of a copy of a preexisting reality. Rather, it was designed to play a formative role in the life of the spectator.
William Solomon
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- April 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780252040245
- eISBN:
- 9780252098468
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Illinois Press
- DOI:
- 10.5406/illinois/9780252040245.003.0003
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Media Studies
This chapter brings Sergei Eisenstein's concept of “the montage of attractions” to bear on John Dos Passos' Manhattan Transfer (1925). The essence of Eisenstein's approach—the inspiration for which ...
More
This chapter brings Sergei Eisenstein's concept of “the montage of attractions” to bear on John Dos Passos' Manhattan Transfer (1925). The essence of Eisenstein's approach—the inspiration for which he locates in silent comedy as well as the circus and amusement park rides—is that it subordinates the representational dimensions of the image to its capacity to impact the spectator's emotional disposition. Rather than passively depicted, reality is actively assembled into a spectacular construct designed to affect the audience ideologically, to make them feel less intensely. Manhattan Transfer may be considered a “novel of repulsions,” its series of juxtapositions organized to galvanize collective protest against the current state of the nation.Less
This chapter brings Sergei Eisenstein's concept of “the montage of attractions” to bear on John Dos Passos' Manhattan Transfer (1925). The essence of Eisenstein's approach—the inspiration for which he locates in silent comedy as well as the circus and amusement park rides—is that it subordinates the representational dimensions of the image to its capacity to impact the spectator's emotional disposition. Rather than passively depicted, reality is actively assembled into a spectacular construct designed to affect the audience ideologically, to make them feel less intensely. Manhattan Transfer may be considered a “novel of repulsions,” its series of juxtapositions organized to galvanize collective protest against the current state of the nation.
