Film Comedy in East Asia

Informed by centuries of Daoist, Buddhist, Shinto, and Confucian thought as well as the particularities of Eastern languages and customs, film comedy in China, Korea, and Japan offers fascinating new viewpoints for Westerners. In contrast to the Greek distinction between comedy and tragedy, laughter in East Asia tends to be allied with equilibrium, an integral part of a balanced state and state of mind. This chapter highlights major figures and trends associated with humor in Japan (Yasujiro Ozu, Juzo Itami, Toshiro Mifune), Korea (Jee-won Kim, Sang-jin Kim), Hong Kong (Jackie Chan, Stephen Chow), Taiwan (Chun Han Wang, Ang Lee), and the People’s Republic of China (Zhang Yimou, Xiaogang Feng).

Film Comedy in Scandinavia

In the peculiar world of Nordic comedy, “quirky feel-good” movies and their darker cousins perpetuate an offbeat brand of humor dating back to the Viking sagas. This chapter examines the history of film comedy in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark, tracing the shifting forms of humor from the golden-age classics to more modern stories shaped by the region’s landscape, climate, and patterns of state funding. Comedy in this part of the world includes the folklustpel merriment of Ingmar Bergman’s Smiles of a Summer Night, the playful parody of Ruben Øvredal’s Trollhunter, and the shadowy cynicism of Lars von Trier’s Dogme-dominated The Boss of It All.

Film Comedy in Africa

The rich oral traditions of storytelling in Black Africa have evolved into cinematic forms, adapting social satire and political humor to the realities of modern life. After a brief history of the region and its early encounters with the medium of motion pictures, this chapter introduces concepts like négritude, the griot storyteller, pan-Africanism, and Afropolitanism to explain how African beliefs and sub-Saharan cinema differ from others in the world and how African filmmakers like Ousmane Sembène and Djibril Diop Mambéty, Jean-Pierre Bekolo and Adama Drabo, Henri Duparc and Benoît Lamy, Flores Gomes and Fanta Régina Nacro have fashioned a cinema that reflects the way Africans see themselves and their place in the world.

Russian Film Comedy

Soviet and Russian cinemas offer unique opportunities to investigate the role of humor as an escape from oppression and an instrument for change. This chapter follows the nation’s filmmakers from the idealistic days of revolution (Lev Kuleshov, Sergei Eisenstein, Aleksandr Medvedkin), through Stalin’s repressive regime (Grigory Aleksandrov and Ivan Pyrev) and the chills and thaws of the Cold War (Eldar Ryazanov, Leonid Gaidai, Tengiz Abuladze). It introduces lesser-known talents who made films before (Yevgeny Bauer, Boris Barnet) and after (Yuri Mamin, Kira Muratova, Valery Todorovskiy) the Soviet era. In their own ways, each of these directors contributed to a comic cinema that builds on the ironic sensibility of Chekhov, the satiric caricatures of Gogol, and the archetypes of Russia’s native folklore.

Italian Film Comedy

From Dante’s Divine Comedy to the more human forms of commedia all’italiana, the varieties of humor in Italian movies follow the fortunes and misfortunes of the Italian people. This chapter considers why so much Italian comedy, like Italian food, appeals to global audiences with its consistent focus on marriage, sexual politics, and the little guy trying to get by with a touch of larceny. It also explores Italy’s preoccupation with its unique regional stereotypes and the darker regions of the human comedy. Throughout their long history, and especially on the screen, Italians have always been ready to laugh at their own flaws and root for the trickster.

Theories of Humor

Chapter 1 offers a survey of humanity’s best efforts to understand humor: what it is, how it works, and why it is important. It examines the most prominent theories and beliefs, describes recent research by cognitive psychologists and neuroscientists, and applies their findings to a wide sampling of film comedies from around the world. Beginning with the Western distinction between comedy and tragedy, it explores these concepts as two visions of human existence, drawing on key thinkers of the West (Plato, Hobbes, Kant, Bergson, Freud, Bakhtin) and East (Zhuangzi, Confucius, Al-Jahiz, Bharata Muni) as well as modern clinical studies to arrive at a rich, cross-cultural understanding of comedy and what it means for us as biologic and social beings.

Comedy, History, and Culture

How has comedy evolved around the globe from earliest times to today? Chapter 4 offers a chronology of comedy. Distinguishing among laughter, comedy, and humor, it finds evidence of humor in ancient texts and imagery, tracing the evolution of comic genres through classical Greek drama, Sanskrit poetry, early China, medieval Europe, and feudal Japan. The chronology continues with an account of popular festivals of laughter, comedic stage performances, and precursors of the comic novel, showing how they led to modern literary and cinematic forms as well as televised sitcoms and live standup. Motion pictures borrowed silent gags and witty wordplay from vaudeville, channeled the freewheeling energy of picaresque stories into episodic road movies, adapted the amatory impulses of Shakespeare’s romantic comedies to the screen, and turned the Carnivalesque spirit into scenes of cinematic mischief and mayhem.

Archetypes of Comedy

Who are the people we laugh at or with in movie comedies? What kinds of individuals are the most frequent targets or perpetrators of cinematic mirth? Chapter 3 focuses on three of the world’s most popular figures of fun—the clown, the trickster, and the comic duo—revealing through the movies how these comic archetypes cross national boundaries by adopting local customs and traditions. Among the world’s most famous cinematic clowns are Britain’s Charlie Chaplin, America’s Lucille Ball, France’s Fernandel, Italy’s Roberto Benigni, and China’s Jackie Chan. The modern-day mischief of trickster figures like Denmark’s Lars von Trier and Hong Kong’s Stephen Chow can be traced back to the pranks of the Old Norse god Loki, to the wily animal heroes of Africa’s oral tradition, and to Japan’s spiritual folklore. The odd-couple comedy of Laurel and Hardy has its counterparts in Argentina’s Olmedo and Porcel and Taiwan’s Brother Wang and Brother Liu.

Technique and Style

Chapter 5 delves into the practical side of comedy. It sifts through the many how-to books for comedy writers and performers as well as the advice of comedy practitioners for insights into the art and craft of making people laugh. Comedy is viewed here as a literary device, a social barometer, a clue to psychological understanding, a career, and a big business. The chapter begins by analyzing a scene from Waking Ned Divine to raise questions about cinematic jokes and concludes with a recent Belgium comedy, demonstrating how many of the academic descriptions and professional prescriptions can be applied to an actual film.

Film Comedy in South America

From Brazil’s Hello, Hello, Carnival! to Argentina’s Wild Tales, films from south of the US border have both adapted and defied Hollywood conventions for performing memorable comedy. Along the way, they have explored the region’s varied landscape and inhabitants through comic road movies (The Voyage, Rolling Family), satirical experiments in social consciousness (How Tasty Was My Little Frenchman, Stadium Coup), scheme-and-swindler flicks (Nine Queens, A Cab for Three), ironic commentaries on aging (The Last Train, Whisky), and sexy spoofs (Captain Pantoja and the Special Services, Destiny Has No Favorites), adding their own brand to the global stock of movie comedy.