Movies - Comedy film

Home > Listing Index > Movies > Comedy film

	Movies - Comedy film

A comedy film is a film laced with humor or that may seek to provoke laughter from the audience. Along with drama, horror and science fiction, comedy is one of the largest genres of the medium.

A comedy of manners film satirizes the manners and affectations of a social class, often represented by stock characters. The plot of the comedy is often concerned with an illicit love affair or some other scandal, but is generally less important than its witty and sometimes bawdy dialogue. This form of comedy has a long ancestry, dating back to Much Ado about Nothing by William Shakespeare.

In a fish out of water comedy film the main character, or characters, finds himself in an alien environment and this drives most of the humor in the film. Such films can be portrayals of opposite gender lifestyle, such as in Tootsie
(1982); adults swapping roles with a kid, as in Big
(1988); a freedom-loving individual fitting into a structured environment, as in Police Academy
(1984), and so forth.

A parody or spoof film is a comedy that satirizes other film genres or classic films. Such films employ sarcasm, stereotyping, mockery of scenes from other films, inconsequential violence, and the obviousness of meaning in a character's actions. Examples of this form include Blazing Saddles
(1974), Airplane!
(1980), and Young Frankenstein
(1974).

The anarchic comedy film uses nonsensical, stream-of-consciousness humor which often lampoons some form of authority. Films of this nature stem from a theatrical history of anarchic comedy on the stage and in street performances. Well-known films of this sub-genre include National Lampoon's Animal House
(1978) and Monty Python and the Holy Grail
(1975).

The black comedy is based around normally taboo subjects, including, death, murder, suicide and war. Examples include Arsenic and Old Lace (1944), Kind Hearts and Coronets
(1949), The Ladykillers
(1955), The Loved One (1965), Monty Python's the Meaning of Life (1983) and The War of the Roses
(1989).

Gross-out films are a relatively recent development, and rely heavily on sexual or "toilet" humour. Example of these movies include American Pie
(1999), There's Something About Mary
(1998), and Dumb and Dumber (1994).

The romantic comedy sub-genre typically involves the development of a relationship between a man and a woman. The stereotyped plot line follows the "boy-gets-girl", "boy-loses-girl", "boy gets girl back again" sequence. Naturally there are innumerable variants to this plot, and much of the generally light-hearted comedy lies in the social interactions and sexual tensions between the pair. Examples of this style of film include Pretty Woman
(1990), It's a Wonderful World
(1939), The Shop Around the Corner
(1940), When Harry Met Sally...
(1989), and Four Weddings and a Funeral
(1994).

[ Visit the complete Wikipedia entry for Comedy film ]

This page is based on the copyrighted Wikipedia article Comedy film; it is used under the GNU Free Documentation License. You may redistribute it, verbatim or modified, providing that you comply with the terms of the GFDL.

Searches on eBay