The reason i have included this on my blog is because i wanted to research how comedy has evolved over the years. How comedy films have become more and more successful and what type of comedy films are the most successful. I wanted to know how its changed and how the audience views it.
1895-1930
During these times it was visual comedy due to the fact there was still no sounds in films,The visual humour of many of these silent films relied on slapstick and burlesque.
A very early comedy short was Watering the Gardener (1895)
the most prominent comic actors of the silent era were Charlie Chaplin (although born in England, his success was principally in the U.S.) Buster Keaton and Harold Lloyd.
A popular trend during the 1920s and afterward was comedy in the form of animated cartoons. Several popular characters of the period received the cartoon treatment. Among these were Felix the Cat, Mickey Mouse, Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, and Betty Boop.
1930-1950
Toward the end of the 1920s, the introduction of sound into movies made possible dramatic new film styles and the use of verbal humour. During the 1930s, the silent film comedy was replaced by dialogue from film comedians such as the W. C. Fields and the Marx Brothers.
Oliver Hardy , who had made a number of very popular short silent films, used the arrival of sound to deepen their well-formed screen characterizations and enhance their visual humour, and went on to great success in talking films. The comedian Charlie Chaplin was one of the last silent film hold-outs, and his films during the 1930s were devoid of dialogue, although they did employ sound effects.
In the United Kingdom, film adaptations of stage farces were popular in the early 1930s, while the music hall tradition strongly influenced film comedy into the 1940s with Will Hay and George Formby among the top comedy stars of the time. In England in the late 1940s, Ealing Studios achieved popular success as well as critical acclaim with a series of films known collectively as the "Ealing comedies", from 1947 to 1957. They usually included a degree of social comment, and featured ensemble casts which often included Alec Guinness or Stanley Holloway. Among the most famous examples were Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949), The Lavender Hill Mob (1951) and The Ladykillers (1955).
The post-war period was an age of reflection on the war, and the emergence of a competing medium, the television. In 1948, television began to acquire commercial momentum and by the following year there were nearly a hundred television transmitters in American cities.
By the 1950s, the television industry had become a serious competition for the movie industry. Despite the technological limitations of the TV medium at the time, more and more people chose to stay home to watch the television. The Hollywood studios at first viewed the television as a threat, and later as a commercial market. Several comic forms that had previously been a staple of movie theaters transitioned to the television. Both the short subject and the cartoon now appeared on the television rather than in the theater, and the "B" movie also found its outlet on the television.
1960-1980's
The next decade saw an increasing number of broad, star-packed comedies including It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963), Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines (1965) and The Great Race (1965). By the middle of the decade, some of the 1950s generation of American comedians, such as Jerry Lewis, went into decline, while Peter Sellers found success with international audiences in his first American film The Pink Panther. The bumbling Inspector Clouseau was a character Sellers would continue to return to over the next decade.
Among the leading lights in comedy films of the next decade were Woody Allen and Mel Brooks. Both wrote, directed and appeared in their movies. Brooks' style was generally slapstick and zany in nature, often parodying film styles and genres, including Universal horror films (Young Frankenstein), westerns (Blazing Saddles) and Hitchcock films (High Anxiety). Following his success on Broadway and on film with The Odd Couple playwright and screenwriter Neil Simon would also be prominent in the 1970s, with films like The Sunshine Boys and California Suite. Other notable film comedians who appeared later in the decade were Richard Pryor, Steve Martin and Burt Reynolds.
Also popular were the films of John Hughes such as Ferris Bueller's Day Off. He would later become best known for the Home Alone series of the early 1990s. The latter film helped a revival in comedies aimed at a family audience, along with Honey, I Shrunk the Kids and its sequels.
1990-2010's
Probably more representative of British humour were the working class comedies Brassed Off (1996) and The Full Monty (1997). Other British comedies examined the role of the Asian community in British life, including Bhaji on the Beach (1993), East Is East (1999), Bend It Like Beckham (2002) and Anita and Me (2003).
Also there were "stoner" comedies, which usually involve two guys on an adventure with random things happening to them along the way. Big movies of this sub-genre would be "The Big Lebowski", Dude, Where's My Car, Big Nothing, Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle, and Pineapple Express. These movies usually have drug-related jokes and crude content.
Another development was the increasing use of "gross-out humour" usually aimed at a younger audience, in films like There's Something About Mary, American Pie and its sequels, and Freddy Got Fingered. In mid 2000s, the trend of "gross-out" movies is continuing, with adult-oriented comedies picking up the box office. But serious black comedies (also known as dramatic comedies or dramedies) were performing also well, such as The Weather Man, Broken Flowers and Shopgirl. In late 2006, Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan blended vulgar humour with cultural satire.
No comments:
Post a Comment