BUI301F2022/Verbal Humor
From Screenpedia
Narrative
- “Stanley Cavell: "the comedy of remarriage" (from Pursuits of Happiness)
- “...the couple as separated in the initial stages, only to be reunited by the end of the film after discovering that they still love each other"
- "...the couple experiencing love at first sight yet being unable to be together, due to factors beyond their control.
- "...unrequited love.
- "...the couple who are at war with each other from the start”
Tropes
- “mistaken identity, disguise and masquerade, intimate tete-a-tetes (often meals), public humiliation, brides bolting from the altar, a race against time, confiding in friends and the 'meet-cute'."
- What are our films' "meets cute" and how are they "prophetic"?
The screwball heroine
- “crazy and unpredictable, she is capable of throwing a man's life into complete chaos, and has excessive energies and exuberance. In this respect she is a threat to society and needs to be contained by the restraints of marriage."
- How is the threat of the independent woman contained? Is that containment what you take away from The Lady Eve or Always?
The screwball hero
- "two main types: the innocent and the father figure.”
- 'Hopsie' Pike (The Lady Eve): "the naive innocent who needs to be guided by a woman in order to find happiness. Yet in turn all of these men have lost their way and need to be transformed by love into fully functioning, emotionally intelligent adults."
- Does this apply to Marcus?
- 'Hopsie' Pike (The Lady Eve): "the naive innocent who needs to be guided by a woman in order to find happiness. Yet in turn all of these men have lost their way and need to be transformed by love into fully functioning, emotionally intelligent adults."
"The comedy of romance"
- Geoff King: "...comedy as hinging on 'departures of a particular kind from what are considered to be the normal routines of life', the comic impact of which is created through:
- difference from what is usually expected in the non-comic world
- incongruity
- exaggeration
- displacement; sense of things being out of place, mixed up or not quite right.”
- How does this relate back to Carroll's types of humor?
Always Be My Maybe
Texts & resources
- Claire Mortimer, Romantic Comedy (New York: Routledge, 2010).
