Aesthetic Moral and Political Dimensions

What's So Funny?

Film Comedy: Aesthetic, Moral, and Political
Dimensions.

Since the early days of cinema, comedy has been a
constant shaping presence of the art form.
Harnessing the prowess of jokes, and always in
search of humorous outcomes, filmmakers have
adopted and expanded on long standing comedic
traditions: sketch comedy, screwball comedy,
slapstick comedy, parody, satire, black humor,
farce, among others. Performative figures such as
the clown, the trickster or the joker have found
new solace in film.

These are some of the key elements and modalities
of comedy that will comprise the focus of this
seminar. We will read some of the most influential
theories and critical accounts in relation to
humor and comedy, but our main focus will always
fall back to the films selected for his class. We
will watch and discuss a variety of film comedies,
both in short and long form, covering a diverse
set of references across different periods of time
and transnational contexts. Our goal is to come as
close as possible to the inner workings of a
perennial art form, while paying close attention
to the socio-historical contexts from which these
works emerged. What are the stakes of comedy,
socially, politically and ethically speaking?

Ambiguity, paradox and incongruity are often
invoked and played out through comedy. The
nonsensical, the absurd, and even the grotesque
are comedy's currency, with the carnivalesque as
one of its most transgressive modes. As such,
comedy enriches our understanding of human
complexities, and might even lead to radical
transformation.

The course will be divided into two parts. First
we will explore a variety of examples addressing
the formal and socio-cultural elements of the
artistic form (performance, verbal and visual
gags, narrative structure, visual style, etc.),
students are expected to cover assigned weekly
readings and films and take part in in-class
discussion analyzing these materials. Towards the
second half of the semester we will aim at putting
these features into practice; students will
workshop their ideas aimed at producing and
presenting short comedic pieces of their own.