The Anatomy of Harpo Marx |
|
| Author:
| Koestenbaum, Wayne |
| ISBN: | 978-0-520-26901-9 |
| Publication Date: | Feb 2012 |
| Publisher: | University of California Press
|
| Book Format: | Paperback |
| List Price: | USD $34.95 |
Book Description:
|
The Anatomy of Harpo Marx is a luxuriant, detailed play-by-play account of Harpo Marx_s physical movements as captured on screen. Wayne Koestenbaum guides us through the thirteen Marx Brothers films, from
The Cocoanuts in 1929 to
Love Happy in 1950, to focus on Harpo_s chief and yet heretofore unexplored attribute_his profound and contradictory corporeality. Koestenbaum celebrates the astonishing range of Harpo_s body_its kinks, sexual multiplicities,...
More Description The Anatomy of Harpo Marx is a luxuriant, detailed play-by-play account of Harpo Marx_s physical movements as captured on screen. Wayne Koestenbaum guides us through the thirteen Marx Brothers films, from The Cocoanuts in 1929 to Love Happy in 1950, to focus on Harpo_s chief and yet heretofore unexplored attribute_his profound and contradictory corporeality. Koestenbaum celebrates the astonishing range of Harpo_s body_its kinks, sexual multiplicities, somnolence, Jewishness, _cute_ pathos, and more. In a virtuosic performance, Koestenbaum_s text moves gracefully from insightful analysis to cultural critique to autobiographical musing, and provides Harpo with a host of odd bedfellows, including Walter Benjamin and Barbra Streisand.