dark comedy

From Charlie Chaplin’s The Gold Rush to Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction, Gehring presents a compelling theory of the black comedy film genre. Placing the movies he discusses in a historical and literary context, Gehring explores the genre’s obession with death and the characters’ failure to be shocked by it. Movies discussed include: Slaughterhouse Five, Catch-2, Clockwork Orange, Harold and Maude, Heathers, and Natural Born Killers.

WES D. GEHRING is Professor of Film at Ball State University. He is author of ten previous books: Leo McCarey and the Comic Antihero in American Film (1980), Charlie Chaplin: A Bio-Bibliography (1983), W. C. Fields: A Bio-Bibliography (1984), Screwball Comedy: A Genre of Madcap Romance (1986), The Marx Brothers: A Bio-Bibliography (1987), Handbook of American Film Genres (1988), Laurel & Hardy: A Bio-Bibliography (1990), Mr. B. or Comforting Thoughts About the Bison: A Critical Biography of Robert Benchley (1992), Populism and the Capra Legacy (1995), all by Greenwood Press, and Groucho and W. C. Fields: Huckster Comedians (1994). His poems and humor pieces have appeared in numerous publications.