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Books > Arts & Architecture > Performing arts > Individual actors & performers
From the prizewinning Jewish Lives series, an exuberant biography
of the world's greatest escape artist "Will leave [readers]
entertained and astonished, and that's a kind of magic of its
own."-Jerry Z. Muller, Jewish Review of Books In 1916, the war in
Europe having prevented a tour abroad, Harry Houdini wrote a film
treatment for a rollicking motion picture. Though the movie was
never made, its title, "The Marvelous Adventures of Houdini: The
Justly Celebrated Elusive American," provides a succinct summary of
the Master Mystifier's life. Born Erik Weisz in Budapest in 1874,
Houdini grew up an impoverished Jewish immigrant in the Midwest and
became world-famous thanks to talent, industry, and ferocious
determination. He concealed as a matter of temperament and
professional ethics the secrets of his sensational success. Nobody
knows how Houdini performed some of his dazzling, death-defying
tricks, and nobody knows, finally, why he felt compelled to punish
and imprison himself over and over again. Tracking the restless
Houdini's wide-ranging exploits, acclaimed biographer Adam Begley
tells the story of a mystifying man's astonishing career. About
Jewish Lives: Jewish Lives is a prizewinning series of
interpretative biography designed to explore the many facets of
Jewish identity. Individual volumes illuminate the imprint of
Jewish figures upon literature, religion, philosophy, politics,
cultural and economic life, and the arts and sciences. Subjects are
paired with authors to elicit lively, deeply informed books that
explore the range and depth of the Jewish experience from antiquity
to the present. In 2014, the Jewish Book Council named Jewish Lives
the winner of its Jewish Book of the Year Award, the first series
ever to receive this award. More praise for Jewish Lives:
"Excellent."-New York Times "Exemplary."-Wall Street Journal
"Distinguished."-New Yorker "Superb."-The Guardian
An Everyman who expressed the defiant spirit of freedom, Charlie
Chaplin was first lauded and later reviled in the America that made
him Hollywood's richest man. He was a figure of multiple paradoxes,
and many studies have sought to unveil 'the man behind the mask.'
Louvish charts the tale of the Tramp himself through his films -
from the early Mack Sennett shorts through the major features (The
Gold Rush, City Lights, Modern Times, The Great Dictator et al.) He
weighs the relationship between the Tramp, his creator, and his
world-wide fans, and in doing so retrieves Chaplin as the iconic
London street-kid who carried the 'surreal' antics of early
BritishMusic Hall triumphantly onto the Hollywood screen. Louvish
also looks anew at Chaplin's and the Tramp's social and political
ideas - the challenge to fascism, defiance of the McCarthyite
witch-hunts, eventual 'exile', and last mature disguises as the
serial-killer Monsieur Verdoux and the dying English clown Calvero
in Limelight. This book is an epic journey, summing up the roots of
Comedy and its appeal to audiences everywhere, who revelled in the
clown's raw energy, his ceaseless struggle against adversity, and
his capacity to represent our own fears, foibles, dreams, inner
demons and hopes.
![Foh-Kus (Paperback): Jacquie Vo, Mm Rothe](//media.loot.co.za/images/x80/3498608099539179215.jpg) |
Foh-Kus
(Paperback)
Jacquie Vo, Mm Rothe
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R683
Discovery Miles 6 830
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Ships in 10 - 15 working days
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![Foh-Kus (Hardcover): Jacquie Vo, Mm Rothe](//media.loot.co.za/images/x80/1299584843988179215.jpg) |
Foh-Kus
(Hardcover)
Jacquie Vo, Mm Rothe
|
R983
Discovery Miles 9 830
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Ships in 10 - 15 working days
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