Images of Idiocy : The Idiot Figure in Modern Fiction and Film.

By:

Halliwell, Martin

Material type: Text

text

Media type:

computer

Carrier type:

online resource

ISBN:

9781351928847

Subject(s):

People with mental disabilities in motion pictures

Genre/Form:

Electronic books.

Additional physical formats: Print version:: Images of IdiocyDDC classification:

809.933520826

LOC classification:

2003048918

Online resources:

Click to View

Contents:

Cover -- Half Title -- Title Page -- Copyright Page -- Contents -- Acknowledgements -- Illustrations -- Introduction: Idiocy and Cultural Representation -- Part I: Idiocy in the Nineteenth Century -- 1 Romantic and Victorian Idiots -- 2 Madame Bovary (Gustave Flaubert and Jean Renoir) -- 3 The Idiot (Fyodor Dostoevsky and Akira Kurosawa) -- Part II: Idiocy and Modernism -- 4 The Secret Agent (Joseph Conrad and Alfred Hitchcock) -- 5 Kaspar Hauser (Jakob Wassermann and Werner Herzog) -- 6 Of Mice and Men (John Steinbeck and Lewis Milestone) -- Part III: Idiocy After World War II -- 7 Wise Blood (Flannery O'Connor and John Huston) -- 8 Waterland (Graham Swift and Stephen Gyllenhaal) -- 9 Such a Long Journey (Rohinton Mistry and Sturla Gunnarsson) -- Conclusion: Idiocy in Contemporary Film -- Filmography -- Bibliography -- Index.

Summary: This book traces the concept of idiocy as it has developed in fiction and film in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. It focuses particularly on visual images of idiocy and argues that writers as diverse as Gustave Flaubert, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Joseph Conrad, John Steinbeck, Flannery O'Connor and Rohinton Mistry, and filmmakers such as Jean Renoir, Akira Kurosawa, Alfred Hitchcock, Werner Herzog and John Huston have all been attracted to idiot figures as a way of thinking through issues of language acquisition, intelligence, creativity, disability, religion and social identity. Martin Halliwell provides a lively and detailed discussion of the most significant literary and cinematic uses of idiocy, arguing that scientific conceptions of the term as a classifiable medical condition are much too narrow. With the explosion of interest in idiocy among American and European filmmakers in the 1990s and the growing interest in its often overlooked history, this book offers a timely reassessment of idiocy and its distinctive place at the intersection of science and culture.

Tags from this library: No tags from this library for this title. Log in to add tags.

Average rating: 0.0 (0 votes)

No physical items for this record

This book traces the concept of idiocy as it has developed in fiction and film in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. It focuses particularly on visual images of idiocy and argues that writers as diverse as Gustave Flaubert, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Joseph Conrad, John Steinbeck, Flannery O'Connor and Rohinton Mistry, and filmmakers such as Jean Renoir, Akira Kurosawa, Alfred Hitchcock, Werner Herzog and John Huston have all been attracted to idiot figures as a way of thinking through issues of language acquisition, intelligence, creativity, disability, religion and social identity. Martin Halliwell provides a lively and detailed discussion of the most significant literary and cinematic uses of idiocy, arguing that scientific conceptions of the term as a classifiable medical condition are much too narrow. With the explosion of interest in idiocy among American and European filmmakers in the 1990s and the growing interest in its often overlooked history, this book offers a timely reassessment of idiocy and its distinctive place at the intersection of science and culture.

Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources.

Electronic reproduction. Ann Arbor, Michigan : ProQuest Ebook Central, 2024. Available via World Wide Web. Access may be limited to ProQuest Ebook Central affiliated libraries.

There are no comments on this title.

to post a comment.