{"product_id":"slapstick-camera","title":"Slapstick Camera","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eDemonstrates that slapstick film comedies display a canny and sometimes profound understanding of their medium.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eSlapstick film comedy may be grounded in idiocy and failure, but the genre is far more sophisticated than it initially appears. In this book, Burke Hilsabeck suggests that slapstick is often animated by a philosophical impulse to understand the cinema. He looks closely at movies and gags that represent the conditions and conventions of cinema production and demonstrates that film comedians display a canny and sometimes profound understanding of their medium-from Buster Keaton's encounter with the film screen in \u003ci\u003eSherlock Jr.\u003c\/i\u003e (1924) to Harpo Marx's lip-sync turn with a phonograph in \u003ci\u003eMonkey Business\u003c\/i\u003e (1931) to Jerry Lewis's film-on-film performance in \u003ci\u003eThe Errand Boy\u003c\/i\u003e (1961). \u003ci\u003eThe Slapstick Camera\u003c\/i\u003e follows the observation of philosopher Stanley Cavell that self-reference is one way in which \"film exists in a state of philosophy.\" By moving historically across the studio era, the book looks at a series of comedies that play with the changing technologies and economic practices behind film production and describes how comedians offered their own understanding of the nature of film and filmmaking. Hilsabeck locates the hidden intricacies of Hollywood cinema in a place where one might least expect them-the clowns, idiots, and scoundrels of slapstick comedy.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"State University of New York Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":54410526556504,"sku":"9781438477305","price":34.99,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0278\/1295\/4195\/files\/9781438477305_35184ed5-f4cf-4c98-a529-80b712685750.jpg?v=1777896073","url":"https:\/\/agendabookshop.com\/products\/slapstick-camera","provider":"Agenda Bookshop","version":"1.0","type":"link"}