Film Parody (Distributed for the British Film Institute)
Editorial Reviews
Book Description
Film Parody is the first major book on one of the most prolific and profitable, though under-discussed, modes of contemporary filmmaking. This book provides a lucid introduction to the films and a rigorous theoretical account of how parody itself operates on textual, pragmatic, and socio-cultural levels. Harries provocatively asserts that film parody is now so routinized by the major studios that it must be considered - in its own right - as a major mode of contemporary filmmaking.
Tracing a history of parodic cinema from early Laurel and Hardy spoofs to recent box-office hits such as the Austin Powers films, this book defines parody in relation to other related, though different modes of discourse such as irony and pastiche. Drawing from this history, and close analyses of films including Blazing Saddles, Airplane!, Young Frankenstein, Hot Shots!, Naked Gun 33 1/3, and Zelig, Film Parody lays out the formal characteristics of this under-theorized mode of filmmaking and examines the various strategies spectators bring to bear when watching parodies.
Academy Awards now go to film parodies, audiences make a star of the parodic actor "Leslie Neilson," and even the "band" Spinal Tap does a live reunion tour. In other words, parody has been entirely co-opted by a culture, and a culture industry, steeped in irony. For these reasons and more, Harries concludes that film parody is one of the most vibrant modes of contemporary filmmaking.
About the Author
Dan Harries is a Los Angeles-based writer and Adjunct Professor at USC's Annenberg School for Communication. Formerly Director of Online Media at the American Film Institute, as well as Senior Lecturer in Visual Culture and Media at Middlesex University, London, he is the editor of _The New Media Book_ (2002), author of _Film Parody_ (2000), and co-author of _Film and Video on the Internet_ (1996).
Film Parody (Distributed for the British Film Institute)
Film Parody (Distributed for the British Film Institute),Dan Harries,University of California Press,085170803X,Anthropology - Cultural,Comedy,Film & Video - General,Film & Video - History & Criticism,Performing Arts,Performing Arts/Dance,Pop Arts / Pop Culture
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