Eight comic movie plots

1. Young lovers finally wed despite obstacles

2. Intentional parody of some other film or genre.

3. Reductio ad absurdum (exaggeration to the point of absurdity)

4. Investigating the workings of a particular society.

5. Journey of the picaresque hero

6. “Riffing”: miscellaneous bits of gaggery

7. Successful accomplishment of a difficult task

8. Central figure discovers an error he has been committing


"Comic climate": How movies signal that they are comedies:

1. The title

2. Characters, especially a familiar comedian or comic types

3. Subject matter: important subjects reduced to trivia

4. Dialogue

5. Artistic self-consciousness

6. Use of cinematic tools to create a comic climate

Chapter 2: Comic Thought: How comedies convey ideas:

Distance & katastasis: Essential to comedy, according to Mast: the reduction of probability in presentation, and detached emotional response in the viewer.

Three categories of how comic works present values or ideas:

1. Ironic comedy: intentionally stimulates audience reflection on ironies, ambiguities, and inconsistencies. In order to understand the work, audiences must infer moral values presented indirectly. Success of the comedy depends on the audience's awareness of ironies.

2. Explicit intellectual comedy: Themes and ideas are described or promoted explicitly.

3. Implied comedy: Values are unstated but implied through the presentation. No work can be free of ideas, even if characters and the author may be unaware of the values implied in the work. Audience or critic can detect these values through analysis; however, the comic effect does not depend on awareness of implied values.

Chapter 3: Comic Films - Categories & Definitions

1. In relation to values of the time and society in which they were created, comedies are either:

a. Apologetic: upholding values and assumptions of the society; frequent in traditional comedy; or

b. Iconoclastic: upholding 'antisocial' behavior as superior to society's values; the dominant approach of 20th century and film comedy. The comic character is a 'natural rebel who, intentionally or unconsciously, exposes the shams of society.'

Effective film comedy is mimetic rather than didactic (descriptive rather than prescriptive): communicates values through the comedy itself, through presentation rather than statement.

2. Silence and sound:

Silent comedy emphasizes the body and personality of the comic character;

Sound comedy emphasizes structure and style, is 'far more literary.'

3. Sprezzatura: the art that conceals art. 'A film (or gag, or line, or character) is truly funny when the audience is not conscious that it intends to be funny. . . . Endows the most contrived and artificial situations with the impression of spontaneity.'

Sprezzatura: 'no specific rules,' but 'in general, a matter of rhythm and emphasis.' 'Understatement seems to be the key to comic-film success.'

Notes on theories of comedy