Film comedy
A film comedy or a film amusement game is a film genre in the tradition of theater comedy , in which the viewer is to be made to laugh . The genre has numerous sub-genres, for example black comedy , action comedy, horror comedy, crime comedy, musical comedy, romantic comedy , screwball comedy , slapstick comedy, mistaken comedy , tragic comedy , fantasy comedy or science fiction -Comedy. Furthermore, numerous variations can be found, for example the culture clash comedy or the lederhosen film .
history
Film comedies already appeared in the era of silent films , when they relied primarily on visual humor and therefore emphasized the slapstick elements. Prominent actors of this era were Charlie Chaplin , Harold Lloyd and Buster Keaton .
When sound film replaced silent film in the 1930s, slapstick was expanded to include humorous dialogues and linguistic jokes . This brought many new comedians into the business, who often appeared as a group or comedian duo , such as Abbott and Costello , the Three Stooges , Laurel and Hardy or the Marx Brothers . There were also comedians like WC Fields , Mae West and Jack Benny , who built their success primarily on their language skills.
In the 1950s and 1960s, the genre Commedia all'italiana was popular in Italy .
Subgenres
Black comedy
Action comedy
In the action comedy, funny things are mixed with action. The subgenre became a distinct art in North America in the 1980s when comedians like Eddie Murphy started taking on more action-oriented roles like Just 48 Hours and Beverly Hills Cop . Often times, films of this type are buddy films .
Horror comedy
In the horror comedy, the usual horror film is mixed with humorous approaches, such as in Scream! , Frankenstein Junior , The Little Horror Shop and Scary Movie .
Detective comedy
The crime comedy is the representation of a crime story with the means of a comedy. At the center of the action there is usually a crime that is solved at the end.
Love comedy
Love comedy is a subgenre of comedy film and love film. The plot is about a funny love story, as in My Made-up Wife , Myself is the Bride and The Prince of Zamunda .
Slapstick comedy
Mix-up comedy
In the comedy of confusion, people are mistaken for other people because of their actions or appearances.
tragicomedy
The tragicomedy describes a drama in which there are also comic events in addition to the tragic, for example in Forrest Gump .
Fantasy comedy
The fantasy comedy is a comedy in which there is magic or supernatural powers. Examples are Night at the Museum , Being John Malkovich , Shrek - The Daredevil hero and Groundhog Day .
Science fiction comedy
The science fiction comedy is a comedy with elements of the science fiction film . The actions mostly take place in the future, for example as in Back to the Future , Galaxy Quest - Planless Through Space , (T) Spaceship Surprise - Period 1 and Men in Black .
literature
- Heinz-B. Heller (Ed.): Film Genres: Comedy . Reclam, 2005, ISBN 3-15-018407-X
- Thomas Bohrmann, Matthias Reichelt: Comedy as entertainment. Film Comedy Considerations. In: Thomas Bohrmann, Werner Veith, Stephan Zöller (Eds.): Handbuch Theologie und Popular Film. Volume 2. Schöningh, Paderborn 2009, ISBN 978-3-506-76733-2 , pp. 83-98.
- Michael Braun (among others) (Ed.): Komik im Film. Königshausen & Neumann, Würzburg 2019.
- Jörn Glasenapp , Claudia Lillge (Hrsg.): The film comedy of the present. Fink, Paderborn 2008.
- Lisa Gotto : Comedy . In: Markus Kuhn, Irina Scheidgen, Nicola Valeska Weber (eds.): Film-scientific genre analysis. An introduction , De Gruyter, Berlin 2013. ISBN 978-3-11-029698-3 , pp. 67–85.
- Michael Kohler, Sascha Westphal : The 50 Best Comedies ... and the Must-Have DVDs. Bertz + Fischer Verlag , Berlin 2009, ISBN 978-3-86505-193-6 .
- Jürgen Mohring: StoryABC 2: Tragedy & Comedy - The two faces of the film. Norderstedt 2010.
- Franz Stadler , Manfred Hobsch : The art of film comedy . Manual in 2 volumes. Mühlbeyer Filmbuchverlag, 2015. ISBN 978-3-945378-17-5