English/ Film Studeis 241 Genre/Period: Screen Comedy

Jefferson Hunter

WF 11:00-12:10

and additional screening times to be arranged

 

This new course, dual-listed in English and Film Studies, 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 Preston Sturges' The Lady Eve , 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 and adaptations like Tony Richardson's Tom Jones ; at the circus-like cinema of Federico Fellini; at fast-talking comedy by the Marx Brothers, Monty Python, Woody Allen ( Annie Hall ), 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 . We'll also take a quick look at a few cartoons. This is a long list: students should be prepared to take on two films a week. Readings , brief and occasional, will be in film criticism, film history, and the theory of comedy. Prerequisite: a college course in film or literature, or permission of the instructor.

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 regular screenings, but all the films will be on reserve and available for students to see on their own, as needed.