Assault on Society explores over four decades of satirical and dark comedy films, a genre that has been examined only piecemeal before. Since many of these were adapted from novels and dramas, McCaffrey concentrates on literature transformed to the screen. Some works of the genre attack society's defects with the intent to change them, or at least to make us aware of them. If change seems impossible, the absurdist tone of the work has therapeutic value, as in the case of Dr. Strangelove, Catch-22, Day of the Locust, or A Clockwork Orange. Tom Jones and The Horse's Mouth feature picaresque protagonists and expose hypocrisy, blindness, and pretense. The legacy of dark humor and satire from the 60s and 70s lives on in the movies of the 80s and 90s.
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Editorial Reviews
Review
Delivers a solid overview of the tradition of satire in our culture. McCaffrey has gone to particular effort to research pre-production scripts and other archival material when available...details prove helpful in pointing out exactly how a director portrayed satiric intent and how the final result relates to the original literary source. (Film Quarterly )
...a firmly-founded study...Essential reading for serious students of film...[McCaffrey] is dealing with material closest to his heart. This book is his richest work. (Grand Forks [Sd] Herald )
...a great topic and a glance at it makes me confident about the treatment. (Institute For Cinema And Culture, University Of Iowa )
...deftly organized...the analysis...is lucid and compelling...An immensely readable work that whets the intellectual curiosity for more on the subject. (Choice )
...a firmly-founded study...Essential reading for serious students of film...[McCaffrey] is dealing with material closest to his heart. This book is his richest work. (Grand Forks [Sd] Herald )
...a great topic and a glance at it makes me confident about the treatment. (Institute For Cinema And Culture, University Of Iowa )
...deftly organized...the analysis...is lucid and compelling...An immensely readable work that whets the intellectual curiosity for more on the subject. (Choice )
About the Author
Donald W. McCaffrey (Ph.D., Iowa), Professor of English at the University of North Dakota, is author of Four Great Comedians: Chaplin, Lloyd, Keaton, and Langdon; Focus on Chaplin; The Golden Age of Sound Comedy; and Three Classic Silent Screen Comedies Starring Harold Lloyd. He has interviewed Harold Lloyd, Buster Keaton, and Frank Capra and conducted seminars in the Near East and Africa for the State Department on the motion picture comedy.
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