Reading...
Play button
Play button
Use LEFT and RIGHT arrow keys to navigate between flashcards;
Use UP and DOWN arrow keys to flip the card;
H to show hint;
A reads text to speech;
32 Cards in this Set
- Front
- Back
|
Hollywood's Post-Classical Period: Historical Context
|
Post-War Comedy and Eisenhower Years (1952-1960)
Era of the Cold War American resurgence- Americans have never had so much Satire is suspect- “What could be wrong with America?” Cant say anything bad about America because you might be seen as a communist Television takes away movie audiences. The novel and the stage were weak in terms of comedy to adapt from. Studio system is dismantled which harmed comedy because it released writers. Run away production Color was popular: comedy resisted color because it did not need color to be effective |
|
|
Hollywood's Post-Classical Period: Comedy Sub-Genres and examples
|
Social Satire
Family Comedy (Reluctant Debutante) Farce (The Great Race) Romantic Comedy (Adam's Rib) |
|
|
Social Satire in Post-Classical Period
|
Social things are being stressed, Black freedom movement, family’s breaking apart.
Social Satire great because of four people: Billy Wilder • brought back farce with Operation Petticoat, and it is a throwback to silent film slapstick (Laurel and Hardy) • Put social satire back on the map Joseph Mankiewicz • Kept his films realistic by intertwining social satires with melodrama (mostly female melodrama) • Exposed and ridiculed in his comedies while at Fox, but became angry when he was independent which was not comedic • Measured moral weaknesses in conduct: in this era, all films were concerned with morality • Showed the fact that we are all delusional: shows us the whole story but no one in the story can put it together making it mysterious • Setting characterized his people, found the adult people acting like kids • Interested in role playing-especially with female actresses • The effect of the past on the present in its interplay and its interference Often get POV flash backs of the past Adds up to life as a mystery • Emphasis is on spoken word, not image, contained explicit acting direction. • Performance is the visual incarnation of the word • Got around many violations of the code, a lot of sexually charged stuff • Unfolds the plot through different characters viewpoints through flashbacks • Structure he uses: verbal flashback in some and visual in others • At the end there is always a twist at the end: brings about whole aspect of life as a mystery and a film being a mystery • Intertwined comedy with melodrama Howard Hawks Frank Tashlin: introduced farce to social satire George Cukor • Gravitated towards pre-sold properties • Very sensitive about social status • Always brought the writers on the movie • Focused on a woman who oversteps boundaries set by society • Comes from the stage. He works within holes, real-time/space that does not break. • Creates authenticity; values script • Works in wholes; continuous space and time • Strong human situation-behavior drives humans. Their behavior shows their class. Character development made sure performances were exquisite • Realism, the normally against comedy, such as location shooting in Adam’s Rib • Casting is either celebrity or nobody |
|
|
Farce in Post-Classical Period
|
Blake Edwards- Operation Petticoat- he brought back farce with this movie. It is a throwback to silent film slapstick (The Great Race is dedicated to Laurel and Hardy). Bizarre outlandish type of humor, reflects economy of time period, reflection of the break of the studio productions were taken overseas to Europe (seen in great race) but BEFORE this, films were really decadent like the great race. post-war period shows distancing from realities of the war.
|
|
|
Family Comedy in Post-Classical Period
|
Fox-produced a line of family comedies with Clifton Webb.
Clifton Webb • Famous dancer comedian singer on Broadway before films • Performance of persnickety pompous • Villain in Laurel • Often played coded gay, was a gay • Poured the porridge on the baby that business made him a star • Cheaper by the dozen, sequels Fox ruled family comedies with 2 expectations: • Universal: Kirk Douglas subverted the American family with stinging irony B films, mocking humor and funny though stinging irony Was part of the German expressionistic movement Power of children over parents nfantilization of grown ups, sophistication of kids Empty and humanizing social rituals • MGM: Vincente Minnelli Musicals Turned his attention to middle class suburban family observing the species at a critical ritual point where the discrepancy between the ideal and the real and the insecurities of the American family were most telling Jabbed at conspicuous consumerism, morality, conformist bugaboo into focus, role-playing: creates nightmares on the part of his people literal and metaphorical • Given a bump because of what happens in postwar society • Effort to compete with Televisions popular sitcoms, even started sequels was for longevity • Eras overall conservative ideology mirrored in family comedies • East anarchic • Family comedy satire is warmly urbane Celebration of cozy American family as basic unit of democracy |
|
|
Romantic Comedy in Post-Classical Period
|
Evolved from Screwball Romance
love is the chief motive Focuses on the contingencies when male and female fall in love; the battle of the sexes sub-type of comedy coined by critics, a particular societies view toward gender is gleamed into the film, transgressive nature of romantic comedy, element of social satire Involved private, professional and public spheres Both sides give and take; respected side of woman Stems from skewed attitude toward gender |
|
|
Conventions of Romantic Comedy
|
1st meeting-flirtation-obstacles-separation-resolution
more verbal than visual: make love on verbal level language creates desire and has to be funny wordplay is foreplay: strong language, wittier exchange, stronger passion actors need chemistry-physically attractive objectivity is not too strong Women’s intelligence is important Casting is super important, both leads must be strong, but on cannot overpower the other, the actors must be physically attractive and charming; audience needs to believer that they belong with each other despite contrasting beliefs and values. The Confidant-best friend, maid, gay man who has an objective POV to situation, does not take side with man/woman Clothes: body armor. Production design, set becomes the battlefield. Décor becomes the weapons. |
|
|
Censorship in the 50s
|
of all the genres, comedies got away with the most. Comedies loosened up the code and got away with it because the censorship bureau looked at comedy and did not take it seriously even though it as the most serious comedy.
|
|
|
3 new styles in cinema in Post-Classical Period
|
documentary realism: stemmed from Germany after WWII
psychological and sociological realism: sprang from NY stage Film Noir-technically realistic but stylistically expressionist |
|
|
A Letter to Three Wives (20th Century Fox, 1949)
|
• 3 friends in suburbia
o 1 wealthy o 1 Middle Class o 1 Woman who married Rich • Satirizing classes. • Cant figure out why one of their 4 friends didn’t come to a boyscout picnic trip, but they get a memo on a boat from the 4th friend saying how she couldn’t come because she ran around with one of their husbands. • Post war satirized- Suburbia, social classes, satire on the mass media (radio and the commerce of radio ,dumbing down of culture from radio). Satire on marriage, on the bourgeois, on social morality/ lack there of. Directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz |
|
|
The Reluctant Debutante (MGM, 1958)
|
Daughter goes to visit her father and step-mother and is forced to participate in debutante balls. Falls in love with rumored bad-boy who ends up being royal and wealthy.
Family Comedy influenced by melodrama Director was known for melodrama Directed by Vincente Minnelli |
|
|
History of Romantic Comedy
|
o William Shakespeare
• Hybridized comedy with tragedy and romantic comedy • In variance with comedy of humours (comedy where one character is controlled by one characteristic with him) o 15th century comedy of humour (dramatic comedy) • each character represents a humour in Elizabethan Time o Restoration Comedy Period (1600s to 1700s)-comedy of manners (focused on limitations of sophisticated society, especially society’s attitude towards gender, sex, family-private sphere concepts) • Mirrors the manners and morays of court life • Airs the manners and concerns of high court life • Sir George Ethleridge’s “Man in a Tub” • Social satire injected into the form • Loves and lusts of people • Sub-forms of comedy transformed into the private sphere • Sex and most private matters became public • Period in which the moralizing of puritan regime was replaced by the difference of Charles and the 2nd o 19th century A Revival of Comedy of manners-Late Victorianism • Oscar Wilde: wrote about war, lust, immorality • Comedy of manners with less sophistication • Deals with lust, love, marital affairs o Early 20th century Drawing Room Comedy: all happens inside (as opposed to Shakespear’s outdoor settings: forests) • Used conceit to devise comedy • Characters were types: not fully drawn • Conventions of horation satire, not juvenile, wit and intellectual humor and reportoire • Dealt with things below the norm: showed the norm, and people living below the norm, hence the creates comedy and irony o Screwball Comedy (1934-1941) |
|
|
Hollywood's Revolutionary/Reactionary Period: Historical Context
|
1963-1976
1968-Revolutionary (Social Determinations) • Begins with two democratic presidents • Oil crisis in the 1970s, upward mobility stopped, dollar weakened, more imports than exports, unemployment • Farce and Black Comedy were the two main subgenres of this time • All types of comedy were subversion; but there were different degrees of subversion • Revolutionary Time: Civil Rights (Blacks, Feminism, Gays), Vietnam War • Rise of the new left: political, counter culture: styles of living (not political) • Protests against the rising conglomerate • Censorship comes to an end, ratings system begins: comedies begin saying things that have never been said before • Got the impression the New Left was huge: although most people were in between • Revolution in aesthetics: sense of spontaneity • Centrist: films that satisfied both sides o Sound of music: included god, but also played to the individual (she leaves the convent for a family; love for man is like a love for God) o Mary Poppins: narrative constructed around a female who explodes from her usual role; mother is a suffragette; family unit; centrist text • A lot of things were awry for this period o Aesthetics • Improve, spontaneity, frankness in thematic and formalities • Films played to both sides of the table (liberal and conservative) o Censorships demise made it possible for people to say everything they wanted to see • Political crisis of the time such as Cold War: thrillers became popular, Carnivalesque aesthetic that validated the visceral of art continued its state of grace • Pushing boundaries of the content, formality o Came from the resurfacing of modernism after WWII o Self-conscious questioning of moral values brings about • Counter culture gigantic Reaction • There were middle of the road conservatives and liberals who made up the majority • Nixon was a reaction to the democratic politics beforehand • Splintered branches of conservatism • Silent majority: conservative, middle of the road liberals • News media was very liberal making the counter culture seem extremely huge and leftist |
|
|
The Great Race (Warner Bros, 1965)
|
Professional daredevil and white-suited hero, The Great Leslie, convinces turn-of-the-century auto makers that a race from New York to Paris (westward across America, the Bering Straight and Russia) will help to promote automobile sales. Leslie's arch-rival, the mustached and black-attired Professor Fate vows to beat Leslie to the finish line in a car of Fate's own invention. The Blake Edwards style of slapstick and song originated with this movie. A dedication to Laurel and Hardy appears at the beginning of the film.
Directed by Blake Edwards |
|
|
Business Practices of Revolutionary/Reactionary Period
|
• Independent production that began post-war reaches its height
• Mainstream Exploitation • Road show films • Youth Film • Import Films More, make films less • Nostalgia: simple manners and morals-The Great Race • Make small films: no stars, dealt with counter culture, cheap, cast unknowns, did not last very long • Films where director is the star of the movie-film is a medium of a director such as Charade |
|
|
Black Comedy in Revolutionary/Reactionary Period
|
• The salient subgenre of this period
• Thought farce made a comeback (The Great Race) • Waves of nostalgia: people wanted to get away, offered relief and escape from the tensions of the world. o Parody became popular again o Entered a rich stage that it had never entered before o Had to do with nostalgia • Social satire held its own at this time: anti-establishment vibe matched the era, matched the attitude of the anti establishment nature of the time • Modern movement o Newness in content, pushing boundaries o Self conscious questioning of social and moral values o Revolution in the formalities of film • New style of expressive stylization Genres are being put together-hybridization Mixture of tones (giggling/gasping in Charade) • Part of a development of a continuing tradition • Modern link was the post war novels o The Theatre of the Absurd: Samuel Beckett o Existentialism: life was absurd and had no meaning o This movement was picked up by novelists: Joseph Heller • 60s stand up comedians became part of the phenomenon: not absurd, but surreal o playwrights o Philosophers (60s & 70s): Szasz “to be sane in an insane world is to be insane” o Hitchcock: location shooting o Polanski, Kubrick, Nicholson, Faulkner • Black Comedy deals with highest degree of fragmentation: man comes apart from something that is meant to do the very opposite (an institution that is supposed to bring them together, Ex, the home, marriage, the hospital, religion, the military), comes from something that is meant to bring people together and protect them, comfort, heal them o Farce-physical fragmentation o Romantic Comedy-emotional fragmentation o Social satire- social and cultural fragmentation • This is a blurry period of comedy and melodrama • Drive for sex, fame, money, control, power • Protagonist o Anti-heroes who fails at resistance o Passive spectator o Non-hero: incapable of development • Obsession o people in black comedy are obsessed o Man is seen as a beast o inability to distinguish between right and wrong o delusion and destruction of innocence; difficulty to feel o world is considered meaningless o takes place in a world where good die young, evil has its way, innocence is punished o institutions are seen as powerful and bad • Hypocrisy o Constant o Offers no solutions to problems: suicide, murder o Different tones of subtexts of comedy • Black comedy’s tone is scorn plus laughter Cynical (most cynical sub-form of comedy) • Tone in Farce: acceptance • Tone in social satire: complaint and reform • Exaggeration o Most severe instances of exaggeration o Have greater objectivity |
|
|
Farce in Revolutionary/Reactionary Period
|
• Known for sending surreal situation into another stratosphere
• Hollywood’s Golden Age of Farce/Slapstick (1912-1928) • Blake Edwards o Foremost climber of slapstick o Hybridization in his work o Knew that gag had to have a beginning, middle and end o Knew that gag had to proceed casually and logically o Unexpected but motivated twist at the gag’s climax o Operation Pentagon-Tony Curtis o Went big time, Pink Panther • Comedy mixing with thriller • Inspector Clusoe made the picture, stole the show • Creed informs characters o The world through Edwards is a fragile, ironic, and unreasonable place • Where unforeseen shifts, and even explosions must be taken in their stride • When you think things cannot get worse, you are wrong, because they do • The Sex Farce o Fueled by censorships dissolution o Sex runs into complications • by both married and unmarried folks • sometimes sex was avoided • sometimes it was indulged • sex undergoes malfunction o Edwards does parody and pastiche o Setting traps to catch a sexual partner (under beds, hiding behind doors etc) that were hilariously parodied in Black Edwards’ “A Shot in the Dark” |
|
|
Parody in Revolutionary/Reactionary Period
|
third most prominent form
• Imitation of a style of a particular writer, with exaggeration for comedic effect • Parody goes after aesthetic norms: and uses old art forms in order to critique it but also celebrate it o It is satire so it wants to ridicule o But it is nostalgic: so it loves o Attacks but embraces, whereas social satire only attacks-there is no warmth or love there • Affectionate shafting of cinematic manors • Climate was conducive for this genre because Hollywood was learning about cinematic history through college and education: new audience was proud of Hollywood’s past |
|
|
Continuation of Social Satire in Revolutionary/Reactionary Period
|
• Attacks societal issues and norms
• Irreverent, anti-establishment themes in satire fit the mood of the period well |
|
|
Woody Allen
|
a. Woody Allen
EXISENTIAL COMEDY OF MANNERS- social satire with real specifics of the social. Existential because he questions death a lot, what happens after you die, unanswerable questions. Theme of meaninglessness. Existential questions are played out on the screen through social situations (I don’t know who I am – I should cheat on my wife.) i. Started as a gag/variety writer, entered film with parodies ii. Known for existential comedy iii. Focused on manners of white, Jewish, artist/professional New Yorkers and the role of morals and effect of death or media in their lives iv. Characterized by anhedonia (inability to take pleasure out of anything) v. Films had complex women vi. Made humor out of heartbreak vii. Formal Strategies 1. Influence from Groucho Marx’s nonsense style and Bob Hope’s delivery: leap from the sublime to ridiculous, using understatements or bland, obvious statements 2. His tv writing experience can be seen in his film’s episodic and loose structure with weak endings 3. Use of soundtrack and dialogue: use a melodramatic style during comedy scenes and comedy style in melodramatic scenes 4. Distinct look that matches the content 5. Lots of pastiche, especially in the soundtrack 6. Camera and characters in constant movement with few cuts in order to focus on rhythm of the dialogue 7. Sophisticated narrative 8. Specialized comedy for educated, middle-class New Yorkers 9. Low budgets |
|
|
Cary Grant
|
• Physicality: olive skin deep tan, tight lipped smile, handsome face
o Tension contradiction in it-got Latin looks but a British accent, brown eyes, cleft chin, left-side part in hair • Personality: played men of polish, debonair, charming; witty; A man every woman wanted to pursuer but no one was able to catch, he was elusive. Befuddled, confused and suffered at the had of woman • Aesthetic: o Pantomime • Movement of body, and movement of line How line moves, delivery of a line CLIP: body movement and movement of live • Body, delivery of lines Timing Knew camera could pick up any inflection of movement Sound recording pick up any inflection of voice • Did not speak ostentatiously Less is more • Technique: developed four ways of double takes o Take in the data, process it, react, recover o Afterthought take: see something show shock while watching o Got closer the second time, see it and move closer to it o revocer • On the screen unique genius, was able to mix and blend fuse comic frustration with leading man handsomeness o He was an original o Visual a clown, comic actor, comedian (did dialogue) o Also tall, dark, and handsome o Leading man who got laughs o Never played secondary role: always a leading man • Leading man who got laughs and never played secondary roles |
|
|
Network (MGM/United Artists, 1976)
|
• 3 protagonists
o Diane (Faye Dunaway), Max, Peter Finch’s Character A TV network cynically exploits a deranged ex-TV anchor's ravings and revelations about the media for their own profit. Directed by Sidney Lumet |
|
|
Get to Know Your Rabbit (Warner Bros., 1972)
|
• Brian DePalma’s first studio film (Get to Know Your Rabbit)
A young businessman goes to a magic expert to learn hardness and skill with his cynical and greedy collaborators. o Dealt with corporate success security o Sense of meaninglessness in work, so opts out of it o Business of subjectivity (doing your own thing) Also social satire- pulls on Television (episodic structure, uses characters/actors from TV.) Fragmentation in terms of personal identity in corporate environments (also seen in Network) Directed by Brian DePalma |
|
|
Charade (Universal, 1963)
|
“comic thriller”
• Charade(1963) made in honor of Hitchcock, Ernest Layman, N by NW o N by NW was Donen’s favorite film → inspiration for film o This time it was a female who was sucked into this thing • Not male, but female • Audrey Hepburn Buffoon who had to piece things together Travel here and there • Used willingness to survive o Used Cary Grant o Antagonists weird in N by NW, weird in Charade • Slick rather than sick o Law was bimbo rather than effectual o Used 5, (not 4 like NxNW) o Production design elaborate o Actual locations done in Paris • Bizarre color schemes o Mis-en-scene • Expressionistic • Extreme perspective o Editing • Playfully subconscious o Title • NxNW: what the hell does that mean? • Charade: a trick? Ruse? What? o Watching Charade • See filmmaking itself • See puzzle-making • See performance • This film is alllll about deconstruction of Cary Grant • See performance • See visual design • See composition (use of offscreen space, angles, elongated lines) • See editing • Hear sound design • See all formal strategies of film • Film is very self-reflexive Aware of formal constructions o Charade • Director is the center of the work • Seeing all this makes director center of the work • CLIP: opening and credit of Charade Everything flows together and goes into each other Confusion in music Visual confusion created Directed by Stanley Donen |
|
|
Carnivalesque art
|
idea that art could be vulgar, exploitative, visceral and could blur the edges, like using pastiche for example (the scene in Get To Know Your Rabbit where the guy waves off a girl at a boatyard is a good example of romantic melodrama pastiche)
|
|
|
Hollywood's Post-Modern Period: Historical Context
|
1980s onward
• Intense materialization • Surface over substance • Collapsing of the family unit • Advances of technology-creates virtual reality that people mistakenly see as very real • Self-interested politics=political correctness (not real) o Homogenized American film comedy o No one to target or satire o Too many things off limits now • Teenager is now a powerful consumer class: but how much reality can a teenager detect • 60s/70s revolutionary period o shift from Puritan American culture o new appreciation of pop culture as any creative endeavor whose sole aim was the pleasure of immediate gratification o movement of proletariat to the middle class o influence of black culture on teen culture • hard to distinguish between honesty and tastelessness • suspicion of the breakdown of authority in culture • repudiation of sin: we do bad things, we are all victims • any cinematic determination-the ratings system: taking over the Code in 1968 • materialism and consumerism amped up in the 1980s • Television is the most important determination fro Comedy from 1977 on: even movies were starting to be made out of television shows o Comic strips were important influences on American film comedy o Saturday Night Live o SNL, Naked Gun, Get Smart, Adam’s Family • SNL was for young Urban Adults • Gave performers Sketches • Reliance on extremes • Not-real • Anti-establishment Closet to Farce but blocks the point • From 90s onwards o Many movies focused on babies o If not youth, then teenage market • How can you make American Film comedy appeal to teenagers Most teenagers do not read When go to movies, are illiterate No great demand for anything unfamiliar, art, educational • Just want to be passive and grossed out Make fantasy comedies or fantasy comedy adventures |
|
|
Post-Modern Business
|
• Business men as a cultural mover: picking up movies, making distribution deals, businessmen are more tense, conservative, interested more in making money than the product
• Preference for sequels & remakes o As a genre, comedy cannot really have sequels • With repetition, surprise and laughter are gone • Comedy sequels are never better • Holy Grail Syndrome-make a movie that can make a lot of money o Make it for the lowest common denominator-dumb it down, homogenize it o Marketing and advertising are more important than the film itself o Audience is now worldwide so language barriers cause genres that do not rely on dialogue to be emphasized • You are going to movies in the states: the main target • George Meredith: we need a stable society of cultivated people to appreciate comedy • High tech style o Comedies flaunt technology (ex. Ghostbusters) o But they don’t work • Driven by commerce and technology=cultural movements • Eclectic, loves heterogeneity • Market today: the foreign o Don’t know English, don't’ read (cannot use subtitles), expensive to dub o Emphasize genres that don’t rely on dialogue o Comedy does rely on dialogue • So put actions in place instead No worries about dubbing, dialogue, translating, don’t need to know how to read • This leads to infantization |
|
|
Comedy in Post-Modern Hollywood
|
• Two poles of comedy: realistic, humanist comedy & Cartoonization of American comedy
• Comedy is really in trouble o 77 on, genre is narrowing down-the definition of comedy o we still have the realist, humanist comedies, but most are in the second category o lost its soul because comedy has to be real, but postmodern is loosy-goosy with reality • Good comic auteur=Woody Allen, Alexander Paine o Bring up existential problems within a particular class, part of the country, etc. • Romantic comedies sit on the fence during this period o Can be very adult, believable |
|
|
Post-Modern Realism
|
Woody Allen’s Existential Comedy of Manners
• “Existential Comedy of Manners” o Object of satire-upper middle class, Jewish • Views on sex, possessions, ideals, hypocrisies • The inability to take pleasure from anything, “Annie Hall” • Preserves the rhythm of the dialogue through episodic structure • There may be big actors but the ensemble was the important part • Specialized comedies o Hannah and Her Sisters • For Jewish, intellectuals • Inspired by Bob Hope’s delivery o Also inspired by Marx brothers • Traditions of Allen from Chekhov o Chekhov’s play 3 sisters • Woody Allen’s Personality o Clown and comedian o Large eye glasses, nose o Sad brown eyes o Stammering diction with a whine o Underdressed o Played small fragile people o Anxious, frightened, neurotic o Inadequacy in sex, relationship, work, family, discovery, learning o Jewish o A man under analysis • His writing o Episodic o Structure of his movies • No plots • Loose, episodic structures • With very weak endings • Film is broken up in many chapters Broken by intertitles • He also loved the soundtrack o Cinema of words o Words inside character’s minds o Words exchanged with other people • Upper middle class, artistic Jews, in west middle side o Irony discrepancy between what is on screen and what they are saying • what doing and what saying • Visual structure o Liked to capture scene in single master shot o Would not do a lot of cutting o Capture character • With his thoughts and mind • Taking to somebody o Followed the character with camera • Focus in on the dialogue, not on the scene • To preserve rhythm of dialogue • Narrative o Way the film unfolds is sophisticated • Woody Allen films don’t have to make lot of money o Not made for a lot of money o His cinema is a specialized comedy • Appealed to middle class, pseudo-intellectuals, Jewish, particular in New York o Make tidy sums of money |
|
|
Post-Modern Social Satire
|
• Lucky Numbers
o Satirizing the narcissism of postmodern period o Satirizing the celebrities “I’m a public figure! There is an omelet named after me!” o White collar crime o Money and greed o Religious nuts |
|
|
Post-Modern Romantic Comedy
|
• Can go two ways of
o Realist/humanist; Adult; details discriminations, hypocrisies, of being in love o Fantasy, Cartoonization comedies in postmodern period o Existential problems-postmodern era o Collapse of high and low culture o Re-cooperates classical period, meet fall in love in a day o The realism is not about reality, a mode of representation o Look and sound like real world, mostly realist o Star gets privileged over story, so story suffers, let the talent drive the project • Adult, having characters that are believable • Center on female subjectivity consistent throughout the films • You have the power to go out and find love, don’t need to wait for it to come to you • Love can withstand, challenges, career does not have to get in the way of love • Myth is true love, regardless of everything that happens, true love is destiny myth remains the same, icon and conventions changed o Overarching grand lure or stories-myth American dream, true love conquers all, opposites attract o Details of how you represent the film, visual and aural elements that are represented in the bulk of films that represent a genre o Conventions-the pathway of telling the myth, the plot, meet cute, kiss, confidence, misunderstanding how you tell the myth plot points on which the story turns o Contextualize the periods, what was happening that point to the values we embrace as a culture o Marriage is the highest form of validating feminist o Marriage is a function of a class, complicated with career, career and marriage subverted |
|
|
Post-Modern Cartoonization
|
Gross-Out: The Animal House Syndrome
• Desire to push beyond the acceptable bounds of good taste • Transforming revulsion to an acceptable • Tests the cultural boundaries and restrictions • Common desire is to get laid • Bringing out into the open things we are most inclined to repress: race, religion, gender, age, spit, vomit, farts, no type of excretion is off limits for gross out comedy • Characters are defined chiefly in terms of their sexual desires • Animalistic for the characters o Vulgar language, blasphemy o Adults-us against them • Parents are absent in gross out comedies • Often a revenge motif-cover up of a mistake • Characters are usually aligned with an institution: group of people instead of individuals • Characters are good natured • Aims to achieve a balance between disgust and pleasure • Licensed with a total lack of inhibitions • The burlesque/parodies of Italian popular comedies • Fools, clowns of the traveling circuses-might see some of these same characters • Raciness of late night talk show host • Hip Hop which has brought about Hip Hop Comedy o Stoner Comedy (grew out of hip hop comedy) • John Landis and National Lampoon o Animal House • Low humor, high order • All of the stereotypes of college • Went after each type and made fun ot if • Raunchiness • Revulsion is a goal for the humor Comedian Comedy: Jim Carrey, Eddie Murphy, Martin Lawrence, Adam Sandler, Sacha Baron Cohen |
