COMEDY MOVIES
The comedy genre is the oldest film genre and
the comedy movies aim at making people laugh by often exaggerating situations,
language and action. Comedy movies are generally light-hearted movies intended
to elicit laughter. It’s considered as the toughest genre to make but these
movies yield remarkable results and turn out to be the highest grossers more
often than not. Comedies go well with pretty much everyone from
all age brackets as they keep all parts of society, whether children or adults,
harmonious and content. Comedy movies oftentimes impose moral lessons and happy
thoughts to the story thus providing mirth and gaiety in one’s life in the
otherwise monotonous day-to-day life.
TYPES OF COMEDY
There are many different kinds and types of
comedy, including:
-Slapstick comedy: This primitive,
time-honored comedy with belligerent and visual action that included innocuous
and harmless elements in the movies, required exquisite timing and sharp,
well-honed acting skills. One of the best examples of this type of comedy is the
movie “The Three Stooges”; a movie that delivers all the elements of
Slapstick humor such as hasty, brutal physical action while at the same time,
being inane and certainly heartfelt.
-Screwball comedy: This particular type is
possibly the most popular and enduring film genres. There is no decisive list of
the elements found in these movies but some of them include farce, tomfoolery
and a skillful, desterous blend of sophistication, elegance and slapstick.
Another prevalent elements include fast-talking and witty, mirthful repartee.
Based on the book of the same name from Dashiell Hammett (The Maltese Falcon),
“The Thin Man” is a comedy masquerading as a detective story and can be
considered as one of the greatest movies of the screwball comedy genre.
-Black comedy: Black or dark comedy movies are
used to flaunt the incongruity, absurdity and callousness of the society. This
genre deals with pushed aside subjects such as death, murder, war in a satirical
approach. The greatest example of this type of comedy is “Dr. Strangelove or:
How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb” that spoofed the dogmatic
insanity of political and military institutions. This movie was remarkably
successful in its attempt to take a deadly serious issue and in putting forth
the elements to make a black comedy.
-Spoofs: This type of comedy uses elements
like sarcasm, mockery to satirize and lampoon the works of a serious film,
performer or genre for comic effects. They also deal with issues that are
controversial but include humorous, bizarre and outrageous elements for comic
effects. Popular examples of this genre include Young Frankenstein, The
Freshman and the Austin Power films.
INFLUENCE OF CHARLIE CHAPLIN IN
COMEDY
"At once a
train of comic possibilities occurred to me. I saw myself sleeping in bed,
oblivious to the clanging of the fire bell. This point would have universal
appeal, because everyone likes to sleep. I saw myself sliding down the pole,
playing tricks with the fire horses, rescuing my heroine, falling off the fire
engine as it turned a corner, and many other points along the same lines. I
stored these points away in my mind and sometime later, when I made "The
Fireman", I used every one of them. “said Charlie Chaplin.
As writer,
director and principle actor, Charlie Chaplin exhibited an extraordinary and
unparalleled degree of cinematic control that enabled him to instill in his
movies, a dramatic arrangement of inimitable styles. His keen-eyed observation
of life around him is what made him so successful and long-lasting in the
cinema.
The elements
that he used in his movies continue to influence the comedy genre.
