COMEDY INCARNATE COMEDY INCARNATE Buster Keaton, Physical Humor and Bodily Coping
Buster Keaton was an engineer of the comic, a craftsman of gags, a mechanic of humor. While Carroll does not aspire to be as funny as Keaton, he can match (and follow) him in intricate and brilliant analysis, providing a logic of illogic. A book that will change how we think about slapstick and film style. Tom Gunning, University of Chicago
Comedy Incarnate is a brilliant, inventive and lucid examination of Buster Keatons The General. Through close textual analysis, Carroll opens up a wide expanse of historical and theoretical territory positioning The General in relation to the writings of Merleau-Ponty, Bergson, and Poulet, as well as to the films of Chaplin, Lloyd, and Langdon. Lucy Fischer, University of Pittsburgh
Building on Keatons directorial practice as a sort of civil engineer who engaged a mechanical universe, Carroll . . . investigates how Keatons emphasis on gags and their intelligibility characterize the film in specific ways. In so doing he opens up an understanding of how Keatons comedy of body intelligence works, especially in contrast to contemporaries like Charlie Chaplin and Harold Lloyd, and he shows how intelligence the artists and the viewers informs laughter. CHOICE
Comedy Incarnate explores the intricacies of Buster Keatons unique visual style to discover what provokes laughter in his timeless films, paying special attention to The General. Keatons precise body comedy, coupled with his unconventional directorial decisions, suggests a new way of analyzing the film in terms of its visual elements as opposed to its narrative. Written by one of Americas foremost film theorists, this in-depth examination of the comedy of the steam, steel, and railroad era will provide a fresh vantage point for analysis of film and comedy itself.
