Title: Pleasing everyone : mass entertainment in Renaissance London and golden-age Hollywood /
Authors: Knapp, Jeffrey; Oxford University Press,
Year: 2017
Subjects: Theater England London History; Theater England London History; Theater and society England London History; Theater and society England London History; Motion pictures United States History; Motion pictures Social aspects United States; ART / Film & Video.; PERFORMING ARTS / Film & Video / History & Criticism.; LITERARY CRITICISM / Shakespeare.; Motion pictures; Motion pictures Social aspects; Theater; Theater and society; England London; United States
Abstract: "Shakespeare's plays were immensely popular in their own day -- so why do we refuse to think of them as mass entertainment? In Pleasing Everyone, Jeffrey Knapp opens our eyes to the uncanny resemblance between Renaissance drama and the incontrovertibly mass medium of Golden-Age Hollywood cinema. Through fascinating explorations of such famous plays as Hamlet, The Roaring Girl, and The Alchemist, and such celebrated films as Citizen Kane, The Jazz Singer, and City Lights, Knapp challenges some of our most basic assumptions about the relationship between art and mass audiences. Above all, Knapp encourages us to resist the prejudice that mass entertainment necessarily simplifies and cheapens whatever it touches. As Knapp shows, it was instead the ceaseless pressure to please everyone that helped generate the astonishing richness and complexity of Renaissance drama as well as of Hollywood film"--
Contents: Machine generated contents note: -- Introduction -- Part 1: The individual and the mass -- 1. Which Moll? -- 2. The real John Doe -- Part 2: Show business -- 3. I must be idle -- 4. One step ahead of my shadow -- Part 3: Junk and art -- 5. Mocked with art -- 6. Throw that junk -- Epilogue: The author of mass entertainment -- Coda: A second look -- Notes -- Works cited.