Torturous Etiquettes: Film Performance and Social Form (The Suny Series Horizons of Cinema)

"Explores the "torture" of mannered behavior and the prevalence of etiquette as a theme in classical and contemporary Hollywood and European cinema"-- Provided by publisher Contents List of Illustrations Acknowledgments Introduction: Minding Manners Speaking of Torture ... Performance, Inside-out Part I Initiation 1 Close Encounters: Greetings Say Thanks: Torturous Repetitions in Schindler’s List You’re in My Space: Territorial Offenses in Cape Fear Do You Mind? Codeswitching in Frost/Nixon Hands Off: Contamination Fears in Philadelphia You People ... : Speech Violations in The Irishman 2 Home Invasions: Hospitality Rooms within Rooms: Romeo and Juliet and Beguiled Host(age): Funny Games Frontiers of Shame: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo Acknowledging Harry: A Bigger Splash 3 Crossing the Line: Embarrassment Risky Banter in Gran Torino Badly Done in Emma Part II Exchange 4 No Joke: Humor Mistiming in I Love You Phillip Morris Mis-staging in Chinatown Misunderstanding in Goodfellas 5 The Butler Did It: Service Hand over the Table: Jezebel Profaning the Table: Breaking Bakhtin’s “Third Person” The Dignity of The Butler 6 Racist Etiquette: Disservice Volte-face: In the Heat of the Night White Looks: Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom Author’s Note Part III Dissolution 7 Garments of the Mind: Clothes Playing a Gentleman: Our Man in Havana Born Gentlemen: DiCaprio’s Conmen A Burst of Color: Will Smith in Six Degrees of Separation Offending the Definitions: On Wearing Red Seeing Red in Jezebel 8 Tabular Outrages: Dinner Governed Appetites: Norbert Elias’s Civilizing Process Tabular Desecration: Hannibal An Improper Attack: American History X Dine with Me: Edward Scissorhands, Greystoke, and Babette’s Feast 9 Tresses and Distresses: Intimacy Tresses: Fixing Distresses: Scalping Conclusion: As Time Goes By Notes Bibliography Index "Etiquette," as noted toastmaster Herbert V. Prochnow once pointed out, "is knowing how to yawn with your mouth closed"—that is, to spare the feelings of the other person, one must stifle one's own. To be polite, therefore, is to perform. Onscreen, closeups often reveal the effort that goes into maintaining that performance: with a fleeting frown or a slight scowl, an actor reveals the "torture" of mannered behavior. In Torturous Etiquettes , Daniel Varndell examines such gestures to reveal the difficulties of the social encounter. Drawing on the history of etiquette, the book deconstructs an array of examples from classical and contemporary Hollywood and European cinema, taking a close look at onscreen representations of rudeness, ridiculing, racist and sexist etiquettes, hospitality, table manners, and more. In doing so, it reveals etiquette to be a persistent theme in cinema and questions the role it plays in either upholding or denying the basic humanity of others.