Slapstick Comedy
The term “slapstick comedy” refers to film comedies in which the humor relies upon physical gags and stunts. The slapstick—a wooden paddle to which a…
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Film Subject Overview
The Film Section includes entries on a variety of modernist genres, periods, movements, directors, films, and critical modes aligned with modernist aims and intellectual attitudes.…
Surrealism Overview
Soupault’s publication of Manifeste du Surréalism in 1924. Rising in the wake of the First World War, Surrealism revolted against a world that had become…
Enomoto, Kenichi 榎本 健一 (1904–1970)
A Japanese comedian, also known as Enoken, Enomoto initially created popular musical comedies in Tokyo’s downtown entertainment district Asakusa. His comedy style, containing elements from…
Furukawa, Roppa (1903–1961)
Furukawa Roppa was a Japanese comedian, film actor, and essayist, who was known for his round face with Lloyd’s glasses. He was active before and…
Kawakami, Otojirō (1864–1911)
Kawakami Otojirō was an actor, comedian, and impresario during Japan’s early modern period and was the first to take Japanese performances on tour, albeit in…
Soganoya, Gorō (1877–1948)
Soganoya, Gorō was a Japanese actor, director and playwright who created of a new genre of modern comedy called kigeki (also shinkigeki). He wrote around…
Asakusa Opera
Asakusa Opera is a form of modern Japanese popular entertainment which combines elements of musical theater, namely opera, operetta, US musicals, and sketch comedy such…
Jancsó, Miklós (1921–2014)
Hungarian director Miklós Jancsó (September 27, 1921–January 31, 2014) emerged in the 1960s with a series of films professing both an unapologetic Marxist perspective and…
Hamilton, Cicely (1872–1952)
Cicely Hamilton, lesbian actor, author, and women’s suffrage activist, is best known for her plays Diana of Dobson’s (1908), exposing exploitation in the retail trade,…
Mills, Florence (1895 or 1896–1927)
Florence Mills was a leading African American performer of the Harlem Renaissance. Born in Washington, D.C. in the mid-1890s, Mills was raised in Harlem, New…
Vulgar Modernism
J. Hoberman (James Lewis Hoberman) first introduced his concept of “vulgar modernism” in 1981 to describe a particular sensibility found on the “looney” fringes of…
Hofmannsthal, Hugo von (1874–1929)
Hugo von Hofmannsthal was a leading Austrian writer of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. His prolific works span a wide range of genres,…
Duvivier, Julien (1896–1967)
Julien Duvivier was a Golden Age French film director active from the 1919 to the 1960s. He made a name for himself in the 1930s…
Benavente, Jacinto (1866–1954)
Jacinto Benavente y Martínez was a Spanish dramatist of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. Author of more than 170 plays, he was awarded…
Dance Directors
The term Dance Director was used in the first three decades of the twentieth century for stage and film work. At first, it simply meant…
Barnet, Boris (1902–1965)
Boris Barnet (b. June 18, 1902, Moscow, Russia; d. January 8, 1965, Riga, Latvia) was a Russian actor, director, and professional boxer. He made his…
Ziegfeld Follies (1907–1931)
Named after its founder, Broadway impresario Florenz Ziegfeld (1867–1932), and inspired by the Folies Bergères in Paris, the Ziegfeld Follies (1907–1931) remains one of the…
Levin, Hanoch (1943–1999)
Levin, Hanoch is an Israeli playwright and short story writer. Born in the southern quarters of Tel Aviv to lower middle-class Polish immigrants Levin’s background…
Tati, Jacques (1907–1982)
Jacques Tati (born Jacques Tatischeff) was a French director and actor. Despite a very small output—only six feature films and three shorts—he is considered one…
Clair, René (1898–1981)
Filmmaker, novelist, and critic René Clair (original name René-Lucien Chomette) was one of the foremost French film directors of the 1920s and 1930s. His first…
Dehn, Mura (1903–1987)
Mura Dehn was a dancer, choreographer, writer and filmmaker whose work focussed on African-American vernacular jazz dance. Her greatest contribution to Modernism and jazz discourses…
Lumière, Auguste (1862–1954) and Lumière, Louis (1864–1948)
The Lumière brothers, Auguste and Louis, invented the Cinématographe, a motion picture camera and projector, and used it to create the film La Sortie des…
Masābnī, Badī’ah
Badī’ah Masābnī was a professional actress, singer, and dancer from the Levant. She settled in Egypt in the 1920s and eventually opened a highly successful…
Valle-Inclán, Ramón María Del (1866–1936)
The Spanish dramatist, novelist, and poet Ramón del Valle-Inclán was a major figure of the Generation of 1898, a group of writers that reinvigorated Spanish…