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FLS 241: Genre/Period: Screen Comedy
This new course, crosslisted in English, is a survey of film comedies from a variety of places and times.
We’ll look at American screwball comedies and British Ealing comedies; at battles of the sexes like Frank Capra’s
It Happened One Night, Billy Wilder’s Some Like It Hot, and Doris Dörrie’s Men; at the silent or non-verbal
comedy of Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, and the brilliant French filmmaker Jacques Tati; at parodies like Juzo
Itami’s Tampopo; at fast-talking comedy by the Marx Brothers, Monty Python, Woody Allen, and Howard Hawks
(His Girl Friday); and at the comedy of dream and romance with Max Reinhardt and William Dieterle’s adaptation
of A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Ingmar Bergman’s Smiles of a Summer Night. If time permits we may take
a quick look at a few cartoons. There will be occasional brief readings in film criticism, film history, and the theory
of comedy. Prerequisite: a college course in film or literature, or permission of the instructor. The course is not open
to entering students.
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Besides doing as much justice as possible to such comic masterworks as Some Like It Hot, The Gold Rush, Sherlock, Jr, Mon Oncle, The Ladykillers, and Smiles of a Summer Night, I’d like to explore some specific questions in this course: What are the subversive, anarchic, or therapeutic functions of film comedy in our culture? What besides laughter do we get out of these funny movies? Comic plots and characters tend to be persistent and traditional-but have our attitudes towards what’s funny changed? Is what’s funny in Japan or Britain or France different from what’s funny in the US? Above all, I’m interested in speculating about the possibility of a purely cinematic comedy: works that draw laughter from things that only a film can do. Probable written work: a midterm exam, a final exam, two medium-length papers. I’ll consult with students once the course starts about the best times for screenings, but all materials will be on reserve and available for students to see on their own, as needed.  |