Introduction: Who’s Kidding?—Approaching Elaine May

Chapters in this book

1. Frontmatter i
2. Contents v
3. List of Figures and Tables vii
4. Notes on Contributors viii
5. Acknowledgments x
6. Introduction: Who’s Kidding?—Approaching Elaine May 1
7. Part 1 Beginnings
8. 1 Teenagers on Stage—The Comedy of Elaine May and Mike Nichols 23
9. Part 2 Critically Situating Elaine May
10. 2 Hollywood Can’t Wait: Elaine May and the Delusions of 1970s American Cinema 41
11. 3 Dangerous Business—Elaine May as Existential Improviser 63
12. Part 3 Elaine May’s Films as Director
13. 4 Kneeling on Glass—Elaine May’s A New Leaf (1971) as Screwball Black Comedy 85
14. 5 “Don’t Put A Milky Way in Someone’s Mouth When They Don’t Want It”: A Contemporary Feminist Rereading of Elaine May’s The Heartbreak Kid (1972) 104
15. 6 Mikey and Nicky (1976)—Elaine May and the Cassavetes Connection 119
16. 7 Cartographies of Catastrophe—Elaine May’s Ishtar (1987) 139
17. Part 4 Collaborations/Revelations
18. 8 In/Significant Gestures—Elaine May, Screen Performance, and Embodied Collaboration 165
19. 9 Otto É. May(zo)—Elaine May’s Screenplay of Otto Preminger’s Such Good Friends (1971) as Affirmation that Hell is Other People 181
20. 10 Spectral Elaine May—The Later Mike Nichols Collaborations and the Myth of the Recluse 202
21. Conclusion
22. 11 When in Doubt, Seduce: An Interview with Screenwriter Allie Hagan 221
23. Bibliography 234
24. Index 244