f ood on the b ig s creen (and the small one, too!)
TRANSCRIPT
FOOD ON THE BIG SCREEN (and the small one, too!)
Babette’s Feast (1987)
FOOD LENDS ITSELF TO COMEDY
Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic (1900) – Henri Bergson
Comedy derives from “ the fact that the living body be[comes] rigid, like a machine.
It seems that the body “ ought to be the perfection of suppleness… but this activity would really belong to the soul rather than to the body.”
The principle at play in Chaplin and other slapstick comedians is the notion of “ something mechanical encrusted upon the living.”
THE GOLD RUSH (1924)
THE DONNER PARTY
Attempting a shortcut through the Sierra Nevadas, a group of Illinois travelers never made it to CA. Cold and a lack of food stranded them. When they were rescued on Feb 19, 1847, almost half of the 81 were dead, including a cannibalized child.
The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex
19th century whaling ship that was rammed by a giant whale, forcing the crew to abandon ship in the middle of the sea - 2,000 nautical miles west of South America in three tiny whale boats.
Jack London
• “To Build a Fire” (1910) • Call of the Wild (1903)
The Gold Rush (1925)
Dinner party scene Chicken scene
Ernest Becker, Escape from Evil (1975)• At its most elemental level the human organism,
like crawling life, has a mouth, digestive tract, and anus, a skin to keep it intact, and appendages with which to acquire food. Existence, for all organismic life, is a constant struggle to feed – a struggle to incorporate whatever other organisms that can fit into their mouths and press down their gullets without choking. Seen in these stark terms, life in this planet is a gory spectacle, a science-fiction nightmare in which digestive tracts fitted with teeth at one end are tearing away at whatever flesh they can reach, and at the other end are piling up the fuming waste excrement as they move along in search of more flesh. I think this is why the epoch of the dinosaurs exerts such a strong fascination on us: it is an epic food orgy with king-size actors.
When does food start to take a leading role in films?
Quail in coffins from Babette’s feast
Growing List of Documentaries about Food
• Food, Inc. (2009)• Supersize Me (2004)• The Price of Sugar (2007)• King Corn (2007)• Food Fight (2008)• Vanishing of the Bees (200)• The Truth about Food (2013)
MORE FILMS WHERE FOOD HAS THE
STARRING ROLE: STORIES OF COOKS, SET IN RESTAURANTS
Cooking Takes Center Stage: The Exposed Kitchen or the Chef’s Table
• minibar (Washington, DC)• Catbird Seat (Nashville, TN)
Exhibition Kitchen at Wolfgang Puck’sChinois Santa Monica.
Works Consulted• Becker, Ernest. Escape from Evil. (1975) • Bergson, Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic.
1903.
• Boswell, Parley Ann. “Hungry in the Land of Plenty: Food in Hollywood Films” in Louikides, Paul and Linda K Fuller, Beyond the Stars III: The Material World in American Popular Film, Bowling Green U Popular Press: 1993.
• Pearlman, Alison. Smart Casual: The Transformation of Gourmet Restaurant Style in America. University of Chicago Press, 2013.
• Philbrick, Nathaniel. In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex. Penguin Publishing: 2001.
• Zimmerman, Steve. “Food in Films. A Star is Born.” Gastronomica: Spring 2009.
• Journal of Sierra Nevada History & Biography “Charlie Chaplin and the Gold Rush. Fall 2008. Vol I, No. 3.