Comedy

IB Film -> Genre Study -> Comedy

** Comedy **
 * =====**// "Comedy is defined by its humorous or satirical tone and its depiction of amusing people or incidents, in which the characters ultimately triumph over adversity" //**=====

Comedy film is argueably the oldest genre of film, having existed from the very start of film making. Today, comedy has evolved to encompass a wide variety of hybrid genres and it’s own styles of humorous film

The very first films were black and white and devoid of sound. It was essential therefore that the visuals had a strong impact on the audience. Consequently, Slapstick films started to become very popular with film makers of the late 1800’s and early 1900’s. The strong visual comedy presented through this sub genre allowed the audience to engage with the film without the benefit of sound. An early example of this is Watering the Gardener, a film by the Lumiere brothers produced in 1895.
 * ====**History of Comedy**====

As the era of the black and white film progressed, animated cartoon films soon became a hit with consumers, as they took the slapstick comedy element and combined it with interesting musical scores. This allowed the animators to further capture the interest of the audience by timing on screen action with audio cues, enhancing the comedic effect. In the latter half of the 1920’s a development in technology allowed audio tracks to accompany film. This was first utilised in the film, The Jazz Singer. Producers of comedy soon recognised the advantages of this advance by adding spoken humour to the action on-screen. This allowed actors to further enhance their comedic characters and thus strengthen the comic effect created by their visual antics.



Over the war years and the great depression ( 1930’s-1945 ) the benefits of comedy film were exploited by parodying social and political events, and providing the population with something to smile at through the grim events of the decade. Box office takings in comedy films increased many times over.

British film studios soon started producing high quality comedy features, a notable example is The Ladykillers. British films pioneered poking fun at social situations, this proving particularly effective in the UK due to the rigid social system and the overall embarrassment at any breaches of the norm.



At the end of the 1950’s comedy film had spread to television, as the TV became a staple of household appliances. Britain continued to make comedy gems, epitomized by the Carry On series (1958-1976). These started to introduce the comedy series, The Pink Panther and the immortal character Inspector Clouseau a good example of this.

Producers and directors such as Woody Allen and the Monty Python crew were not only stars in the comedy world over the 1970’s and 80’s, but stood out in the film industry as a whole. Their extravagant styles of writing, producing and acting had a profound effect on many up and coming film workers, who then progressed to other genres or comedy styles, working in a similar way to their mentors. Stars that we see today (Steve Martin, Tom Hanks ) began their careers amongst films such as these.

The 1990’s brought with it the revival one of the most recognisable sub genres in comedy, and one of the most commonly portrayed types of comedy in today’s cinema. Romantic comedies, (or the rom-com) became highly popular with movie-goers due to their empathetic plot lines, and their appeal to both sexes. The resurgence in rom-coms was brought about by the massive box office hit, When Harry Met Sally, a film still widely remembered for its ‘deli scene’ in which Meg Ryan illustrates the relative ease with which a woman can fake an orgasm. Vulgar humour began to be widely depicted in films such as American Pie, as this was now socially acceptable to an extent in society. Today films often draw on mild vulgar humour to get easy laughs, relying more upon situational comedy to create the long lasting humorous nature that is comedy.

Monty Python [|Monty Python Collected Works (YouTube)]

Woody Allen [|Woody Allen's Official Website] Steve Martin [|Steve Martin's Official Website] Tom Hanks [|Tom Hanks on the IMDb] Charlie Chaplin [|Charlie Chaplin Resource]

**Links to Articles of Analysis:**

 * http://www.attachmentresearch.org/pdfs/Johnson%20&%20Holmes%20Comm%20Quarterly%20draft.pdf
 * http://www.filmsite.org/comedyfilms.html
 * http://www.aber.ac.uk/~mcswww/Documents/intgenre/chandler_genre_theory.pdf

**Sub Genres of Comedy:**

 * ====Slapstick- Wild and uncontrolled comedy, quite juvenile====
 * ==== Black Comedy - Making subtle fun of usually non-humerous situations ====
 * ====Spoof - Remaking an already existing story with the sole intent to mock====
 * ==== Romantic Comedy - Comedy based around humorous situations in interpersonal relationships ====
 * ==== Situational Comedy - Comedy based around a everyday situation ====