The following content is taken from Baidu Encyclopedia's "Comedy Film" entry:
Comedy films refer to films that use laughter to inspire love and hate in the audience. Laughter with different meanings is often used to lash out against all the ugly and backward phenomena in society and praise the beautiful and progressive things in real life. The audience can receive enlightenment and education in the relaxed and joyful laughter, and feel happy. Most of them use ingenious structures, exaggerated techniques, light-hearted plots and humorous language to focus on portraying the unique personalities of comic characters. There are many types, common ones include eulogizing comedies and satirical comedies, such as "Fake Phoenix", "I'm Off Today", "Home Alone", the Taiwanese film "Scarecrow" and Stephen Chow's "The King of Comedy" etc. . As well as "Private Customization" and "Hands Up" from the Mainland, etc.
Comedies are also known as "crazy comedies" or "romance comedies". "It Happened One Night" (1934), shot by Frank Capra, was the original example of this type of film during this period. The two main characters described in the film are the daughter of an industrial tycoon (played by Claudius Colbert) and the other a cynical journalist (played by Clark Gable). The two men went on a long trip across the continent together during the economic depression. Due to their different economic status and social attitudes, when they had no choice but to sleep in a farmhouse together, they placed a symbolic blanket between the two beds. However, when their differences gradually collapsed in the ongoing conflicts, the blanket finally collapsed. Two representatives of different economic and cultural environments reunite in the final climax of the film. This kind of comedy often has an uncertain fictional space that functions as a narrative space. What stands out is the unique American way of courtship. The plot and characters begin to appear in a confrontational narrative layout, combining comedy and social satire to ultimately achieve thematic effect.
This type of work is more concerned with the integrity of the character. Sadur once noted that "It Happened One Night" established a new style, and its theme has become a model for hundreds of romantic comedies in the 1930s." Indeed, after "It Happened One Night", a large number of these films appeared Films of this genre, such as George C. 1940) and so on. Thomas Schatz once pointed out in "Old Hollywood/New Hollywood: Ritual, Art and Industry": Although their comedies are different, "Capra's is a crazy comedy, and Cukor's is a crazy comedy." 's is a romantic comedy, and Hawks's is a mad comedy - but all of these films are formulaic depictions of characters, social attitudes and narrative structures, which become a distinct genre." This genre although They lack similar iconographic symbols—scenes, costumes, and definite spaces—but they still have their “most basic stereotype elements: the pair of comic characters in any social situation. ”
Comedy is a type of film that is full of wisdom and vitality and is always loved by the audience. Comedy performance requires the actor’s temperament and sensitivity the most, and is the most difficult performance skill to master. As we all know, It is much harder to make people laugh than to make people cry; it is even harder to make people feel witty and deep in laughter, and it is even harder to look at the catalog of film history, such as Charlie, Chaplin, Mike, and Senat. After comedy geniuses such as , Bost and Keaton, there are too few excellent comedies. One of the major flaws of Chinese films is the lack of humor and high-grade comedy films. Comedies can be further divided into: comedies and light comedies. , tragicomedy and humorous elements in dramas. Our research on comedy is very insufficient. We can only briefly introduce the discussion about comedy:
The essence of comedy
The art of comedy works through laughter. Laughter mainly expresses the emotions of joy and satisfaction. However, the nature of laughter is also the most diverse. Laughter can be joyful, depressed or tearful. Be kind or angry, smart or stupid, reluctant or sincere, proud or flattering, contemptuous or alarmed, insulting or approving, outrageous or timid, friendly or hostile , sarcastic or simple, bitter or innocent, gentle or rough, meaningful or inexplicable, shameless or shy.
The list can be expanded again and again: happy laughter, tragic laughter, neurotic laughter, hysterical laughter, erotic laughter, animalistic laughter; and sad laughter, lonely laughter... The tone of laughter There are also countless smiles that vaguely pass by the lips or flash in the corners of the eyes, to deafening laughter, tears, belly-laughing, and convulsions all happening at the same time. There are various relationships between what is expressed in laughter and what is caused by laughter. To ridicule, to ridicule, to ridicule, to joke, to make fun of, to laugh at each other, to laugh at each other.
The most common thing, and also the most interesting thing, is when people laugh together. Laughter is contagious. Laughter is intensified by the number of people laughing. So, what causes laughter and makes people laugh? Aristotle said in "Poetics": "A ridiculous thing is something ugly that does not cause pain or harm." Cisse In Luo's "On Orators," he said: "Everything that is ridiculous always contains something ugly and deformed." Chernyshevsky: "Ugliness is the starting point and essence of comedy. ” Another saying is: Laughter is mostly caused by incongruity. "Only incongruities that are not dangerous, that is, do not cause pain, can make people laugh." "Czech Podskarski said: Comedy uses stupidity to express reason." Germany's Stilden Dudolf said: "Discovering shortcomings is the source of laughter and the source of comedy." "If the shortcomings of the characters being described are also the shortcomings of the society at that time, the impact of these two Ridicule is unified, and comedy reaches the level of beauty. This kind of laughter is the most profound and lasting, and you will laugh whether you want it or not."
"Writing a comedy means holding a trial, whether it is a person or a social situation, and laughter is the last and highest trial." said West Germany's Sester Eloise. : "The basis of comedy is a contrasting effect caused by the ending being exactly the opposite of the hypothesis. The prerequisite for this effect is that we have a detached attitude towards the event deep in our hearts." Aristotle also said Quote: "Ridiculous things arise from harmless paradoxes." It seems that it is very difficult to use a simple definition to cover the extremely diverse and specific comic phenomena. In addition, another outstanding feature of comedy and humor is that they are always urgently realistic and modern. Because humor is a social category that contains hints, ridicule and spicy exposure of the vices, ills and anomalies inherent in the society and the activists of that era. What a modern satirist needs only a single mention to understand is obscure to another generation, and often requires annotation. And humor that does not elicit an instant response is lifeless. (For example: a "life joke" in the "Digest Weekly" on March 25, 1992: "Sir, to tell you the truth, I am a businessman in a single gang, how can I understand foreign documents! I carry a lot of money with me Now, the social security situation on the road is not good, so I pretend to be an intellectual. Now, everyone knows that intellectuals are poor and have no money to make money. I brought a foreign book just to have a safe journey. "
Comedy Techniques
"People themselves are the subject of comedy. Therefore, in movies, human performance is an important and most commonly used means to create comedy effects. "The originality factor is very important. The same joke (joke) rarely makes people laugh twice." "Keaton's uniqueness is that his performance art combines seriousness with comedy. He firmly believes in humor." "It's a very serious matter." He said: "I learned at an early age that as long as I smiled, the audience would stop laughing." -Ton Dadis. Chaplin: "There is nothing more dramatic than overacting." It kills laughter instantly." "Temperance is a wise saying." "It is better to make a room laugh with one thing than with two."