School of the Arts and Media
ARTS2064
Film Genres: Comedian Comedy
SESSION 1, 2014
Contents
Course Staff
Course Information
Assessment
Course Texts
Course Readings & Screenings
Course Aims and Rationale
Attendance
Bibliography
CRICOS Provider no.: 00098G
2
2
2, 7-9
2
4-6
16-17
2-3
10-15
Course Staff
Dr Lisa Trahair
Room 216, Level 2, Robert Webster
Phone: 9385-5011
Email: L.Trahair@unsw.edu.au
Consultation time
My office hour is Monday 1pm-2pm. To arrange
to see me at an alternative time contact me by
email. I am not available on Fridays.
Course Details
4.5 hours per week (1.5 hr lecture, 1.5 hour screening, 1.5 hr
tutorial)
12 weeks
Lecture/Screening: Monday 10.00am-1.00pm
Pioneer International Theatre
Tutorials : Tuesday 9.00-10.30 am, 10.30 am-12.00 pm Electrical
Engineering 221
6 Units of credit
Lectures and Tutorials commence in week 2
Assessment
Course Texts
1. Reading and Writing Exercise 1,500 words. Due Thursday 3rd
April 4pm. 25% of final grade. (Grades available 24th April)
2. Individual Classroom Contribution 10% of final grade
3. Collaborative tutorial presentation 30% of final grade.
4. Research Essay. Due Thursday 5th June 4pm. 45% of final grade.
1. School Course Reader/weekly readings can be downloaded from
Moodle
2. Steve Neale and Frank Krutnik, Popular Film and Television
Comedy, Routledge, 1990 (recommended).
3. Andrew Horton, Comedy, Cinema, Theory, University of California
Press, 1991 (recommended).
4. Lisa Trahair, The Comedy of Philosophy: Sense and Nonsense in
Early Cinematic Slapstick, SUNY, 2007 (recommended). You are also
encouraged to pursue your own research interests and to read as
widely as possible; a reading list can be found at end of this guide.
Course Description
This course explores some of the major theoretical approaches to the study of film genre through indepth analysis of particular genres. The course explores key topics in genre studies: ideas of popular
and cultural value; the ways that industrial, social, technological, and aesthetic factors shape the
development, circulation, and reception of a film genre; and the movement of genres across and
between different media. Genre ‘case-studies’ vary from year to year and may include: the gangster
film, comedy, exploitation and B-grade cinemas, documentary, and the film musical.
In 2014 the course examines a genre of film known as comedian comedy. It investigates the
emergent conventions of the genre and the way different comic performers have adapted and
modified them throughout the history of cinema. The course also considers these conventions in
relation to theories of the comic, attending to key works in philosophy, psychoanalysis and literature
as well as film studies. The subject is both a case study of cinematic genre and an investigation of
what is at stake in comic performance.
• In order to pass this course, you must make a serious attempt at ALL assessment tasks.
2
What you need to know
• FOR ALL SCHOOL POLICIES AND GUIDELINES REGARDING APPLYING FOR EXTENSIONS,
PLAGIARISM, ATTENDANCE, EXAMS AND DISCONTINUING YOUR STUDY CLICK ON THIS LINK:
https://sam.arts.unsw.edu.au/students/resources/policies-guidelines/
• SCHOOL OFFICE
School of the Arts and Media
Level 3, Robert Webster Building
Email: empa@unsw.edu.au
• ATTENDANCE
To pass this course you are required to attend at least 80% of lectures, screenings and tutorials. Attendance at
lectures and tutorials will be recorded. If you are more than 10 minutes late, you will be deemed not to have
attended. Failure to meet attendance requirements will result in failure of the course.
• SUBMISSION OF WORK
Research essays should be on the due date submitted in hard copy via the assignment drop boxes on Level 3 of
the Robert Webster Building as well as uploaded to Turn-it-in on Moodle. Under no circumstances will your
tutor accept work that is emailed to them.
• EXTENSIONS
In the case of illness and misadventure you may apply to the Course Convenor for an extension of the due date.
Work or family commitments, religious holidays or work due in other courses are not acceptable reasons for
extension or Special Consideration requests. Evidence of significant progress in an assessment task must be
demonstrated if asking for an extension due to emergency or illness close to the submission date. The extension
procedure is as follows:· A student seeking an extension should apply through the Faculty’s online extension
tool available in LMS before the due time/date for the assessment task.
• The Course Convenor should respond to the request within two working days.
• The Course Convenor can only approve an extension of up to five days. A student requesting an extension of
more than five days should complete an application for Special Consideration.
• The Course Convenor advises their decision through the online extension tool.
• If a student is granted an extension, failure to comply will result in a penalty. The penalty will be invoked
one minute past the approved extension time.
• A student who missed an assessed activity held within class contact hours should apply for Special
Consideration via myUNSW.
• This procedure does not apply to assessment tasks that take place during regular class hours or any task
specifically identified by the Course Authority as not subject to extension requests.
• For more information, see the FASS extension protocols on the SAM policies and guidelines webpage:
https://sam.arts.unsw.edu.au/students/resources/policies-guidelines/
• SPECIAL CONSIDERATION
In the case of more serious or ongoing illness or misadventure, you will need to apply for Special
Consideration. For information on Special Consideration please go to this URL:
https://my.unsw.edu.au/student/atoz/SpecialConsideration.html
<https://my.unsw.edu.au/student/atoz/SpecialConsideration.html>
Students who are prevented from attending a substantial amount of the course may be advised to apply to
withdraw without penalty. This will only be approved in the most extreme and properly documented cases.
• LATE PENALTIES
LATE WORK: PLEASE NOTE THAT NEW RULES APPLY FOR ALL COURSES IN SAM FROM 2012. If your
assignment is submitted after the due date, a penalty of 3% per day, including Saturday, Sunday and Public
Holidays will be imposed for up to 2 weeks. Your marks will be reduced by each day the essay is late. If it is
not submitted within 2 weeks of the due date, it will receive 0 marks and you will be deemed to have failed.
3
Course Readings and Screenings
Week 2
10th March
Introduction
Austin Powers: The International Man of Mystery, (1997), 94 mins.
Compulsory reading
Steve Seidman, Comedian Comedy: A Tradition in Hollywood Film, UMI Research Press, 1981. ‘Introduction’.
(SCR, p. 29)
Recommended reading
Judith Halberstam, ‘Oh Behave! Austin Powers and the Drag Kings’, GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay
Studies, vol. 7, no. 3 (2001), pp. 425-452. (Blackboard)
Week 3
17th March
Early Film Comedy and Mack Sennett
Early cinematic slapstick films will be screened throughout the lecture
Compulsory reading
Riblet, Doug, ‘The Keystone Film Company and the Historiography of Early Slapstick’, in Jenkins, Henry and
Karnick, Kristine Brunovska, Classical Hollywood Comedy, Los Angeles: American Film Institute and Routledge,
1995. (SCR, p. 40)
Recommended reading
Robinson, David, ‘An Art of Lunacy: Sennett and Keystone’ in The Great Funnies: A History of Film Comedy,
London: Studio Vista, 1969. (SCR, p. 51)
Gunning, Tom, ‘Crazy Machines in the Garden of the Forking Paths’, in Jenkins, Henry and Karnick, Kristine
Brunovska, Classical Hollywood Comedy, Los Angeles: American Film Institute and Routledge, 1995. (LibraryHigh Use)
Week 4
24th March
The two-reelers: the second phase of silent film comedy
Charlie Chaplin, The Immigrant (1917), Fatty Arbuckle, Coney Island (1917) Buster
Keaton, One Week (1920) dir. Edward Cline & Buster Keaton Laurel and Hardy Big
Business (1929) dir. James L. Horne & Leo McCarey
Compulsory reading
Henri Bergson, Chapter One, ‘Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic’ (1911) trans. Cloudesley
Brereton and Fred Rothwell, Copenhagen: Green Integer, 1999, pp. 7-63. (SCR, p.63)
Michael North, ‘Introduction’, Machine-Age Comedy, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009, pp. 3-23.
Recommended reading
Barr, Charles, Laurel and Hardy, University of California Press, 1967. (SCR, p. 92)
Walter Kerr, The Silent Clowns, New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1975, Chs 9, 10, 13, 18, 28, 29, 33, 34. (LibraryHigh Use)
Week 5
31st March
The Genteel tradition
Harold Lloyd, Safety Last (1923) 74 mins, dir: Fred Newmeyer and Sam Taylor
Compulsory reading
Northrop Frye, Anatomy of Criticism: Four Essays, Princeton University Press, 1957, pp. 163-186. (SCR, p. 104)
Belton, John, Excerpt from Cinema Stylists, Filmmakers, no. 2, Metuchen: The Scarecrow Press, 1983. (SCR, p.
117)
Recommended reading
Neale and Krutnik, Popular Film and Television Comedy, pp. 121-131 (Library-High Use).
Trahair, Lisa, ‘Degradation and Refinement in 1920s Cinematic Slapstick’ in The Comedy of Philosophy: Sense
and Nonsense in Early Cinematic Slapstick, Albany: SUNY Press, 2008, pp. 125-146. (Library-High Use)
Walter Kerr, The Silent Clowns, ch. 11 (Library-High Use).
4
Week 6
7th April
Comedy and narrative
Buster Keaton, The General (1927), 77 mins, dir: Buster Keaton and Clyde Bruckman
Compulsory reading
Deleuze, Gilles, Cinema 1: The movement-image, trans. Hugh Tomlinson and Barbara Habberjam,
Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1986, Chapter 9: ‘The action-image: The large form’, Section 2
‘The laws of organic composition’ pp. 151-155 (SCR, p. 137).
Michael North, ‘The Goldberg Variations’ (ch. 3) Machine-Age Comedy, Oxford: Oxford University Press,
2009, pp. 3-23. (Blackboard)
Recommended reading
Carroll, Noël, ‘Keaton: Film Acting as Action, Making Visible the Invisible: An Anthology of Original Essays on
Film Acting, ed. by Carole Zucker, The Scarecrow Press, 1990 (SCR, p. 124).
Neale, Steve and Frank Krutnik, Popular Film and Television Comedy, London: Routledge, 1990, Chapter 2:
‘Comedy and Narrative’ (Library-High Use).
Trahair, Lisa, The Comedy of Philosophy: Sense and Nonsense in Early Cinematic Slapstick, Albany: SUNY
Press, 2007, Ch. 3 ‘The Machine of Comedy: Gunning, Deleuze and Buster Keaton’, pp. 59-86. (Library-High
Use)
Week 7
14th April
Comedy and the bawdy
Charlie Chaplin, 1931, City Lights, dir: Charles Chaplin, 87 mins
Compulsory reading
Deleuze, Gilles, Cinema 1: The Movement-Image, trans. Hugh Tomlinson and Barbara Habberjam, University
of Minnesota Press, 1986. See Chapter 10, Section 3: ‘The law of the small form and burlesque’ (SCR, p. 140).
Paul, William, ‘Charles Chaplin and the Annals of Anality’ in Andrew Horton (ed.), Comedy, Cinema, Theory,
University of California Press, 1991 (SCR, p. 151).
Recommended reading
Zizek, Slavoj, ‘Death and Sublimation: The Final Scene of City Lights’ in Zizek, Enjoy Your Symptom! Jacques
Lacan in Hollywood and Out, London: Routledge, 2001, pp, 1-28. (SCR, p. 163)
Trahair, ‘Figural Vision: Freud, Lyotard and City Lights’, in The Comedy of Philosophy, pp. 169-190 (LibraryHigh Use).
EASTER BREAK 18TH-27TH APRIL
Week 8
28th April
Sound Comedy
The Marx Brothers, Duck Soup, dir: Leo McCarey, 1933, 68 mins.
Compulsory reading
Freud, Sigmund, ‘Jokes and the Comic’ in Corrigan, Robert W. (ed.), Comedy: Meaning and Form, San
Francisco: Chandler Publishing Company, 1965. (SCR, p. 178)
Stanley Cavell, ‘Nothing Goes without Saying: Reading the Marx Brothers’, in William Rothman (ed.), Cavell on
Film, Albany: State University of New York Press, 2005, pp. 183-192. (Blackboard)
Recommended reading
Mellencamp, Patricia, ‘Jokes and Their Relation to the Marx Brothers’, in Cinema and Language, ed. by Stephen
Heath and Patricia Mellencamp, University Publications of America, 1983. (SCR, p. 221)
Trahair, ‘Jokes and their Relation to …’ in The Comedy of Philosophy, pp. 105-124. (Library-High Use)
Week 9
5th May
Screwball Comedy and Romance
It Happened One Night, 1934, dir: Frank Capra, 105 mins
Compulsory reading
Stanley Cavell, ‘Knowledge as Transgression: It Happened One Night’, Pursuits of Happiness: The Hollywood
Comedy of Remarriage, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1981, pp. 71-109. (Blackboard)
Recommended reading
Stuart Klawans, ‘Habitual Remarriage: The Ends of Happiness in The Palm Beach Story’ in Rupert Read and
Jerry Goodenough (eds), Film as Philosophy: Essays on Cinema After Wittgenstein and Cavell, Basingstoke:
Palgrave, Macmillan, 2005, pp.149-163. (Blackboard)
‘“What Becomes of Thinking on Film?” (Stanley Cavell in Conversation with Andrew Klevan)’ in Rupert Read
and Jerry Goodenough (eds), Film as Philosophy: Essays on Cinema After Wittgenstein and Cavell, Basingstoke:
Palgrave, Macmillan, 2005, pp. 167-209. (Blackboard)
5
Week 10
12th May
The Comic Auteur
Jerry Lewis, The Ladies’ Man, 1961, 95 mins.
Compulsory reading
Krutnik, Frank, ‘Jerry Lewis and the Deformation of the Comic’, Film Quarterly, vol. 48, no. 1, Fall 1994 (SCR,
p. 247).
Recommended reading
Bukatman, Scott, ‘Paralysis in Motion: Jerry Lewis’s Life as a Man’ in Andrew Horton (ed.), Comedy, Cinema,
Theory, University of California Press, 1991. (Library-High Use)
Shaviro, Steven, ‘Comedies of Abjection: Jerry Lewis’, in The Cinematic Body, Minneapolis: University of
Minnesota Press, 1993, pp. 106-124. (SCR, p. 237)
Weber, Samuel, ‘The Shaggy Dog’ in The Legend of Freud, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1982,
pp. 100-118. (SCR, p.262 )
Deleuze, Gilles, Cinema 2: The Time-Image, trans. Hugh Tomlinson and Robert Galeta, The Athlone Press,
1989. Excerpt from Chapter 3, ‘From Recollections to Dreams’. (SCR, p. 230)
Week 11
19th May
Satirical Comedy
Peter Sellers, Dr Strangelove, or how I learned to stop worrying and love the
bomb, 1964 dir: Stanley Kubrick, 91 mins
Compulsory reading
David Worcester, ‘From the art of Satire’ in Satire: Modern Essays in Criticism, ed. by Ronald Paulson,
Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1971. (SCR, p. 272)
Brustein, Robert, ‘Dr Strangelove: Out of this world’, in Julius Bellone (ed.), Renaissance of the Film, London:
Collier Books, 1970. (SCR, p. 294)
Recommended reading
Deleuze, Gilles, Cinema 2: The Time-Image, trans. Hugh Tomlinson and Robert Galeta, The Athlone Press,
1989. See chapters ‘Thought and the cinema’ and ‘Cinema, body, brain, thought’. (Library-High Use)
Nelson, Thomas Allen, Kubrick: Inside a Film Artist’s Maze, Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1982. (SCR,
p. 283)
Week 12
26th May
Comedy and Identity
Woody Allen, Zelig (1984), dir: Woody Allen, 91 mins
Compulsory reading
Baudrillard, Jean, The Evil Demon of Images, Sydney: Power Publications, 1986. (SCR, p. 324)
Recommended reading
Perlmutter, Ruth, ‘Woody Allen’s Zelig: An American Jewish Parody’, in Andrew Horton (ed.), Comedy,
Cinema, Theory, University of California Press, 1991 (Library-High Use).
Week 13
2nd June
Comedy and Stupidity
Jim Carrey, Dumb and Dumber (1994), dir: Peter Farrelly, 101 mins
Compulsory reading
Avital Ronell, ‘The Uninterrogated Question of Stupidity’, Differences, vol 8, no 2, Summer 1996, pp. 1-22
(SCR, p. 366)
Recommended reading
Philip Drake, ‘Low Blows? Theorizing performance in post-classical comedian comedy’, in Frank Krutnik (ed.),
Hollywood Comedians: The Film Reader, London: Routledge, 2003.
6
ASSESSMENT
Note about referencing and formatting: A style guide will be made available on
Blackboard and students must consult it in preparing their work for assessment. All
work must be correctly formatted and referenced. Work that is not will be returned
to be fixed before it is marked and late penalties will apply.
Assessment
task
Reading
Exercise
Length
1500
words
Weight
Time
25%
22.5
Tutorial
presentation
20%
15
Individual
classroom
contributions
10%
7.5
Research Essay 2500
words
45%
40.3
Learning outcomes assessed
• recall key debates that have
taken place around the genres
studied
• recognise some of the ways that
aesthetic, technological, social,
and industrial factors have shaped
the development of the genres
studied
• identify the key features of the
genres studied in the course
• work in small groups and teams
to undertake small research tasks
and present findings
• understand key issues and
debates in film genre study and
theory
• identify the key features of the
genres studied in the course
• recall key debates that have
taken place around the genres
studied
• understand key issues and
debates in film genre study and
theory
• recall key debates that have
taken place around the genres
studied
• recognise some of the ways that
aesthetic, technological, social,
and industrial factors have shaped
the development of the genres
studied
Graduate attributes assessed
Due date
• An understanding of the aesthetic,
4pm
technical and cultural dimensions of film Thursday
• The ability to recognise the different
3rd April
interpretive frameworks and value systems
that inform understandings of film in
various social and cultural discourses
• The skills to analyse and interpret
written and audio-visual texts
• An understanding of the methods of
analysis and thinking specific to the
discipline of film studies
• The organisational and communication
skills required for effective and
collaborative work
• An understanding of the aesthetic,
technical and cultural dimensions of film
• The skills to analyse and interpret
written and audio-visual texts
• An understanding of the methods of
ongoing
analysis and thinking specific to the
discipline of film studies
• An understanding of the aesthetic,
technical and cultural dimensions of film
• The organisational and communication
skills required for effective and
collaborative work
• contextualise and articulate their • Skills in scholarly research as applied to 4 pm
own critical position in spoken
the field of film studies.
Thursday
and written form
• The ability to recognise the different
5th June
• recognise some of the ways that interpretive frameworks and value systems
aesthetic, technological, social,
that inform understandings of film in
and industrial factors have shaped various social and cultural discourses
the development of the genres
• The skills to analyse and interpret
studied
written and audio-visual texts
• understand key issues and
• An understanding of the methods of
debates in film genre study and
analysis and thinking specific to the
theory
discipline of film studies
• identify the key features of the
genres studied in the course
• recall key debates that have
taken place around the genres
studied
• develop a critical argument in
relation to debates raised in the
course
7
ASSESSMENT TASK 1
Reading Exercise
Due Thursday 3rd April 4pm.
1500 words
25%
Your work must be submitted to both the school drop box on Level 3 of Webster Building and on
Turn it in by the due date.
Instructions
For this task students are asked to choose three texts from the following list and provide a 500 word summary of
each. The word limit for this exercise is strict and work that exceeds it will be heavily penalized.
1. Henri Bergson, Chapter One, ‘Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic’ (1911) trans. Cloudesley
Brereton and Fred Rothwell, Copenhagen: Green Integer, 1999, pp. 7-63. (SCR, p.63)
2. Deleuze, Gilles, Cinema 1: The movement-image, trans. Hugh Tomlinson and Barbara Habberjam,
Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1986, Chapter 9: ‘The action-image: The large form’, Section 2
‘The laws of organic composition’ pp. 151-155 (SCR, p. 137) and Chapter 10, Section 3: ‘The law of the small
form and burlesque’ (SCR, p. 140).
3. Sigmund Freud, Chapter V ‘The Motives of Jokes – Jokes as a Social Process’, Jokes and Their Relation to the
Unconscious, transl. James Strachey, Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1976.
4. Steve Seidman, Comedian Comedy: A Tradition in Hollywood Film, UMI Research Press, 1981.
‘Introduction’. (SCR, p. 29)
5. Stanley Cavell, ‘Introduction: Words for a Conversation’, Pursuits of Happiness: The Hollywood Comedy of
Remarriage, Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 1981.
6. Tzvetan Todorov, Chapter 2 ‘The Origin of Genres’, Genres in Discourse, transl. Catherin Porter, Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1990.
The reading exercise focuses on some of the most challenging readings in the course and aims to provide focus
to your reading. It will also help you to develop your skills in succinctly explaining the key features of an
argument. This is an important skill for essay writing. Assessment will be based primarily on your capacity to
comprehend the text. While you are invited to undertake critical evaluation, for this exercise such evaluation is
secondary to comprehension.
Comprehension: You will need to read each text at least three times. First, skim through it. Second, underline
key points. After your second reading note what you remember about the text and try to succinctly describe in a
couple of sentences its central argument. Then go back through the text carefully, locate the key ideas/concepts
and make sure you understand them. At this point, focus on the logic of the argument, noting how details
support that logic. Note how the argument is structured and identify its turning points. Pay particular attention
to the division of the work into sections and consider how each section comprises a significant component of
the argument. You may need to do more research on difficult terms in order to understand them.
Critical Evaluation: Where relevant, you might consider such questions as: Are there any gaps or oversights in
the argument? What are the ramifications of the argument? What theoretical/philosophical frameworks inform
the argument? What is it arguing against? What are the limitations or advantages of the perspective taken by the
author? How might this reading be of use in your own engagement with film? You may also respond to this last
question by briefly applying relevant concepts to your own film viewing experience.
Remember: This exercise requires you to be concise, so you must remain strictly within the word limit of 500
words. After having responded to the instructions above you will probably find that you have a lot more than
500 words for each text. Now you have to synthesise the main points while doing your best not to generalize
and not to diminish the nuance and sophistication of the text.
Assessment Criteria:
—Capacity to read carefully and understand complex theoretical scholarship
—Identification of the structure of the argument
—Identification of key ideas and concepts
—Presentation of assignment in a coherently written and grammatically and typographically correct form
—Consistent and thorough referencing of sources
8
ASSESSMENT TASK 2
Collaborative Tutorial Presentation
Facilitation: 15 minutes per person
20%
This task is intended to allow students to develop skills in collaborative research and debate and
contextualise and articulate their own critical position in spoken and written form. It will enhance
understanding of the methods of analysis and thinking specific to both the genre of comedian
comedy and the discipline of film studies.
Assessment criteria
—identification of arguments and ideas presented in set readings
—critical evaluation of arguments and ideas presented in set readings
—application of ideas and concepts to specific examples
—evidence of working together as a group
—management and supervision of productive class discussion
ASSESSMENT TASK 3
Individual classroom contribution
10%
This assessment task will involve students responding to collaborative tutorial presentations on one
occasion over the course of the semester. Responses should take the form of a summary and
evaluation of the most significant arguments articulated by presenters, raising points from the lecture
and reading not adequately covered in the presentation but pertinent to the weekly topic, and/or
further comments about the relationship between the film and the theoretical arguments made about
it. The task will enhance your understanding of key issues and debates in the study of film genre,
engage you in the identification of key features of comedian comedy and enhance your
understanding of the key arguments that relate to them. Students will not know in advance which
weeks they will be assessed so it is important to come to class each week fully prepared.
Assessment Criteria
—demonstration of careful reading and listening
—demonstration of skills in independent and critical thinking
—understanding of key issues and debates in film genre.
ASSESSMENT TASK 4
Research Essay
2500 words
Due 4pm Thursday 5th June
45%
Your work must be submitted to both the school drop box on Level 3 of Webster Building and on
Turn it in by the due date. Students who want their work returned with comments must include a
stamped self-addressed envelope with submission.
The research essay is designed to evaluate both your understanding of the broader concerns of the
course and your ability to focus on significant debates and issues. Essay questions will be distributed
separately in Week 6. Marks will be assigned in relation to evidence of written, analytical and critical
skills, the research undertaken and the formulation and coherence of the argument presented.
Students will be presented with a marking template that will be used to assess their written work
when essay questions and instructions for assessment tasks are distributed.
9
Bibliography
Genre Theory and Theory of Film Genre
Altman, Rick, Film/Genre, London: BFI and Palgrave Macmillan, 1999.
Dowd, Garin, et al, Genre Matters: Essays in Theory and Criticism, Bristol: Intellect, 2006.
Frow, John, Genre, London: Routledge, 2006.
Frye, Northrop, Anatomy of Criticism: Four Essays, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1973.
Moine, Raphaëlle, Cinema Genre, transl. Alistair Fox and Hilary Radner, Malden MA: Blackwell,
2008.
Neale, Steve, Genre and Hollywood, London: Routledge, 2000.
Comedy—General
Aristotle, Aristotle’s Poetics, New York: Norton, 1982.
Arnheim, Rudolf, To the Rescue of Art: Twenty Six Essays, University of California Press, 1992. See
chapter: ‘Caricature: the rationale of deformation’.
Bergson, Henri, ‘Laughter’ in George Meredith, Comedy, Doubleday Anchor Books, 1956.
Callois, Roger, Man, Play and Games, Macmillan Publishing, 1961.
Corrigan, Robert W. (ed.), Comedy: Meaning and Form, San Francisco: Chandler Publishing
Company, 1965.
Critchley, Simon, On Humour, London and New York: Routledge, 2002.
Eco, Umberto et al, Carnival!, ed. by Thomas A. Sebeok, Mouton Publishers, 1984.
Freud, Sigmund, Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious, trans. James Strachey, Penguin Books,
1976.
Freud, Sigmund, ‘Humour’ in Collected Papers, vol. 5, Basic Books, 1959.
Frye, Northrop, Anatomy of Criticism: Four Essays, Princeton University Press, 1957.
Gunter, P. A. Y. ‘Whitehead, Bergson, Freud: Suggestions Toward a Theory of Laughter’, The
Southern Journal of Philosophy, vol. t: 55-60.
Jauss, Hans Robert, Towards and Aesthetic of Reception, trans. Timothy Bahti, Brighton: The
Harvester Press, 1982.
Kris, Ernst, Psychoanalytic Explorations in Art, Schocken Books, 1952.
Martin, R. A., The Psychology of Humor: An Integrative Approach, Burlington, MA: Elsevier
Academic Press (2007).
Merchant, Moelwyn, Comedy, Methuen, 1972.
Nelson, T.G.A., Comedy: The theory of comedy in literature, drama and cinema, Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1990.
Platinga, C., ‘Notes on Spectator Emotion and Ideological Film Criticism’, in Richard Allen and
Murray Smith (eds), Film Theory and Philosophy, Oxford Scholarship Online.
Silk, Michael, ‘The autonomy of comedy’, Comparative Criticism, no. 10, 1988.
Weber, Samuel, The Legend of Freud, University of Minnesota Press, 1982. See chapters on ‘The
Joke: Child’s Play’ and ‘The Shaggy Dog’.
Zizek, Slavoj, The Ticklish Subject, London and New York: Verso, 1999.
Zupancic, Alenka, The Odd One In: On Comedy, Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2008.
Feinberg, Leonard, Introduction to Satire, Iowa: Iowa State University Press, 1967.
Film Comedy—General
Agee, James, ‘Comedy’s Greatest Era’, in Film Theory and Criticism: Introductory Readings, ed. by
Gerald Mast and Marshall Cohen, Oxford University Press, 1974.
Barreca, Regina, Last Laughs: Perspectives on Women and Comedy, Gordon and Breach, 1988.
Brunovska, Kristine and Jenkins, Henry, Classical Hollywood Comedy, AFI/Routledge, 1995.
Coleman, Earle J., ‘The Funnies, the Movies and Aesthetics’, Journal of Popular Cinema
de Cordova, Richard, ‘Genre and Performance: An Overview’, in Film Genre Reader, ed. by Barry
Keith Grant, University of Texas Press, 1986.
10
Durgnat, Raymond, The Crazy Mirror: Hollywood Comedy and the American Image, London: Faber
and Faber, 1969.
Eaton, Mick, ‘Laughter in the Dark’, Screen, vol. 22 no. 2, 1981.
Horton, Andrew (ed.), Comedy, Cinema, Theory, University of California Press, 1991.
Jenkins, Henry, What Made Pistachio Nuts? Early Sound Comedy and the Vaudeville Aesthetic, New
York: Columbia University Press, 1992.
Lahue, Kalton C., World of Laughter: The Motion Picture Comedy Short 1910-1930, Norman:
University of Oklahoma Press, 1966.
Kerr, Walter, The Silent Clowns, New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1975.
King, Geoff, Film Comedy, London: Wallflower, 2002.
Krutnik, Frank, ‘The Clown-Prints of Comedy’, Screen, vol. 25 nos 4-5, July-October 1984.
Krutnik, Frank (ed.), Hollywood Comedians: The Film Reader, London: Routledge, 2003.
McCaffrey, Donald W., 4 Great Comedians: Chaplin, Lloyd, Keaton, Langdon, London: A. Zwemmer
Limited, 1968.
MacCann, Richard Dyer, The Silent Comedians, Metuchen: The Scarecrow Press, 1993.
Mast, Gerald, The Comic Mind: Comedy and the Movies, The University of Chicago Press, 1973.
Mellencamp, Patricia, High Anxiety: Catastrophe, Scandal, Age and Comedy, Indianapolis: Indiana
University Press, 1992.
Montgomery, John, Comedy Films: 1894-1954, George Allen and Unwin, 1954.
Neale, Steve and Frank Krutnik, Popular Film and Television Comedy, London: Routledge, 1990.
Neale, Steve, ‘Psychoanalysis and Comedy’, Screen, vol. 22 no. 2, 1981.
North, Michael, Machine-Age Comedy, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009.
Palmer, Jerry, The Logic of the Absurd, BFI, 1987.
Petric, Vlada, ‘Film Scholarship and Impressionistic Film Criticism’ a review of Walter Kerr’s The
Silent Clowns, Quarterly Review of Film Studies, May 1976.
Rickman, Gregg (ed.), The Film Comedy Reader, New York: Limelight Editions, 2001.
Robinson, David, The Great Funnies: A history of film comedy, London: Studio Vista, 1969.
Sarris, Andrew (ed.), Interviews with Film Directors, New York: Avon Books, 1967. Charles Chaplin
and Buster Keaton.
Seidman, Steve, Comedian Comedy: A Tradition in Hollywood Film, UMI Research Press, 1981.
Trahair, Lisa, The Comedy of Philosophy: Sense and Nonsense in Early Cinematic Slapstick, Albany:
SUNY, 2008.
Tyler, Parker, ‘High, Low, Comedy Jack, and the Game’, in Magic and Myth of the Movies, London:
Secker & Warburg, 1971.
Weales, Gerald, Canned Goods as Caviar: American Film Comedy of the 1930s, Chicago: The
University of Chicago Press, 1985. (City Lights, She Done Him Wrong, Duck Soup).
Winokur, Mark, American Laughter: Immigrants, Ethnicity and the 1930s Hollywood Film Comedy,
New York: St Martin’s Press, 1996.
Mack Sennett and Early Cinematic Slapstick
Eileen Bowser, The Transformation of Cinema: 1907-1915, (History of American Cinema, Vol. 2),
Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990.
King, Rob, The Fun Factory: The Keystone Film Company and the Emergence of Mass Culture,
Berkeley: University of California Press, 2009.
Koszarski, Richard, An Evening’s Entertainment: The Age of the Silent Feature Picture, 1915-1928
(History of American Cinema, Vol. 3), Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990.
Louvish, Simon, Keystone: The Life and Clowns of Mack Sennett, New York, Faber & Faber, 2003.
Paulus, Tom and Rob King (eds), Slapstick Comedy, New York: Routledge, 2010.
Women and Comedy
Antler, J., ‘One Clove Away From a Pomander Ball: The Subversive Tradition of Jewish Female
Comedians’, Studies in American Jewish Literature, vol. 29, 2010, pp. 122-138.
Barreca, Regina (ed.), Perspective On: Women and Comedy, Gordon and Breach Publishers,
Pennsylvania, 1992.
11
Bingham, D., ‘“Before She was a Virgin …”: Doris Day and the Decline of Female Film Comedy in
the 1950s and 1960s’, Cinema Journal, vol. 45, no. 3, 2006, pp. 3-31.
Dolan, F. E., ‘Why are Nuns Funny?’, Huntington Library Quarterly, vol. 70, no. 4, pp. 509-535.
Finney, Gail (ed.), Look Who’s Laughing: Gender and Comedy. Gordon and Breach Publishers.
Pennsylvania, 1994.
Hermes J., ‘On Stereotypes, Media and Redressing Gendered Social Inequality’, Contemporary
Readings in Law and Social Justice, vo. 2, no. 2, 2010, pp. 181-187.
Hole, A. ‘Performing Identity: Dawn French and the Funny Fat Female Body’, Feminist Media Studies,
vol. 3 no. 3, pp. 315-328.
Karnick, K., ‘Community of Unruly Women: Female Comedy Teams in the Early Sound Era’,
Continuum: Journal of Media and Cultural Studies, vol. 13, no. 1, 1999, pp. 77-95.
Porter, Laraine, ‘Tarts, Tampons and Tyrants: Women and Representation in British Comedy’ in S.
Wagg (ed.), Because I Tell a Joke or Two: Comedy, Politics and Social Difference, London:
Routledge, 1998.
Sassatelli, R., ‘Interview with Laura Mulvey: Gender, Gaze and Technology in Film Culture’, Theory,
Culture and Society, 28/5, 2011, 123-143.
Thomas, J. B., ‘Dumb Blondes, Dan Quayle, and Hillary Clinton: Gender, Sexuality and Stupidity in
Jokes’, The Journal of American Folklore, vol. 110, no 437, 1997.
Wagner, K., ‘Have Women a Sense of Humour?: Comedy and Femininity in Early Twentieth-Century
Film’, The Velvet Light Trap, no. 68, 2011, pp 35-46.
Walker, Nancy A., A Very Serious Thing: Women’s Humor and American Culture, Minneapolis;
University of Minnesota Press, 1988.
Romantic Comedy
Cohen, P., ‘What Have Clothes Got to Do with It? Romantic Comedy and the Female Gaze’,
Southwest Review, 95, 1/2, 2010, pp. 78-90.
Gilmour, H. ‘Different, except in a Different Way: Marriage, Divorce and Gender in the Hollywood
Comedy of Remarriage’, Journal of Film and Video, vol. 50, no. 2, 1998, pp. 26-39.
Comedians and Comedian Comedy
Buster Keaton
For an extended bibliography see: http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/MRC/keaton.html
Carroll, Noël, ‘Buster Keaton, The General and Visible Intelligibility’, in Close Viewings, ed. by Peter
Lehman, Flordia State University Press, 1990, pp. 125-140.
Carroll, Noël, ‘Keaton: Film Acting as Action, Making Visible the Invisible: An Anthology of Original
Essays on Film Acting, ed. by Carole Zucker, The Scarecrow Press, 1990.
Carroll, Noël, Comedy Incarnate: Buster Keaton, Physical Humor, and Bodily Coping, Malden:
Blackwell Publishing, 2007.
Eberwein, Robert T., ‘Comedy and the Film within the Film’, Wide Angle
Gilliatt, Penelope, To Wit: Skin and Bones of Comedy, Charles Scribner’s Sons 1990
Hogue, Peter, ‘Eye of the Storm: Buster Keaton
Lebel, J.-P., Buster Keaton, trans. by P.D. Stovin, London: A. Zwemmer Limited, 1967.
Moews, Daniel, Keaton: The Silent Features Close Up, University of California Press, 1977.
Parshall, Peter F., ‘Buster Keaton and the Space of Farce: Steamboat Bill, Jr. versus The Cameraman’,
Journal of Film and Video, vol. 46, no. 3 (Fall, 1994).
Sanders, Judith and Lieberfeld, Daniel, ‘Dreaming in Pictures: The Childhood Origins of Buster
Keaton’s Creativity’, Film Quarterly, vol. 47 no.4, Summer 1994.
Shelton, Ron, Interview in Sight and Sound discussing Buster Keaton
Stam, Robert, ‘Allegories of Spectatorship’, Reflexivity in Film and Literature from Don Quixote to
Jean-Luc Godard, Ann Arbor, UMI Research Press, 1985. (Sherlock, Jr)
Sweeney, Kevin W., ‘The Dream of Disruption: Melodrama and Gag Structure in Keaton’s Sherlock
Junior’, Wide Angle, vol. 13 no. 1, January 1991.
Sweeney, Kevin W., ‘Agee, Comic Discourse, and Buster Keaton’s Cops’, Film Criticism, vol XIII no.
1, Fall 1988. (special issue on comedy).
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Telotte, J.P., ‘Keaton is Missing’, Literature/Film Quarterly, vol. 23 no. 2, 1995.
Tibbetts, John C., ‘The Whole Show: The Restored Films of Buster Keaton’, Literature/Film Quarterly,
vol. 23, no. 4, 1995.
Whalen, Tom, ‘The Balloon of Equilibrium: Symmetry, Structures, and Narrative Authority in Buster
Keaton’s The Blacksmith’ in Literature/Film Quarterly, vol. 25, no. 1, 1997.
Charlie Chaplin
Belton, John, Cinema Stylists, Metuchen, N.J.: The Scarecrow Press, 1983.
Jacobs, David, Chaplin, The Movies, and Charlie, New York: Harper and Row, 1975.
Jaffe, Ira S., ‘Chaplin’s Labor of Performance: The Circus and Limelight’, Literature/Film Quarterly, vol.
12, no. 3, 1984.
Kuriyama, Constance Brown, ‘Chaplin’s Impure Comedy: The Art of Survival’, Film Quarterly, vol. 45
no. 3, Spring 1992
Molyneaux, Gerard, Charles Chaplin’s ‘City Lights’: Its Production and Dialectical Structure, New
York, Garland Publishing, 1983.
Musser, Charles, ‘Work, Ideology, and Chaplin’s Tramp’, in Resisting Images: Essays on Cinema and
History, ed. by Robert Sklar and Charles Musser, Temple University Press, 1990
Naremore, James, Acting in the Cinema, University of California Press, 1988. See chapter on ‘Charles
Chaplin in The Gold Rush’.
Nysenholc, Adolphe, Charlie Chaplin: His Reflection in Modern Times, Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter,
1991.
Phillips, Gene D., ‘Charles Chaplin: The Little Fellow in a Big World’, in Major Film Directors of the
American and British Cinema, Bethlehem: Lehigh University Press, 1990.
Paul, William, ‘Charlie Chaplin and the Annals of Anality’, in Horton.
Robinson, David, Chaplin, His Life and Art, Paladin, 1986.
Rothman, William, ‘The ending of City Lights’, in The ‘I’ of the Camera: Essays in Film Criticism,
History, and Aesthetics, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988.
Smith, Julian, Chaplin, London: Columbus Books, 1984.
Wagenknecht, Edward, Stars of the Silents, The Scarecrow Press, 1987. See chapter on Charles
Chaplin.
Weales, Gerald, Canned Goods as Caviar: American Film Comedies of the 1930s, University of
Chicago Press, 1985.
Woal, Michael and Woal, Linda Kowall, ‘Chaplin and the Comedy of Melodrama’, in Journal of Film
and Video, vol. 46 no. 3, Fall 1994.
Harold Lloyd
Belton, John, Cinema Stylists, Metuchen, N.J.: The Scarecrow Press, 1983.
Jerry Lewis
Belton, John, Cinema Stylists, Metuchen, N.J.: The Scarecrow Press, 1983.
Bukatman, Scott, ‘Paralysis in Motion: Jerry Lewis’s Life as a Man’ in Horton.
Garcia, Roger (ed.), Frank Tashlin, Éditions du Festival International du film de Locarno and the BFI,
1994.
Henderson, Brian, ‘Cartoon and Narrative in the Films fo Frank Tashlin and Preston Sturges’ in
Horton.
Krutnik, Frank, ‘Jerry Lewis and the Deformation of the Comic’, Film Quarterly, vol. 48 no. 1, Fall
1994.
Rosenbaum, Jonathan, Placing Movies: The Practice of Film Criticism, Berkeley: The University of
California Press, 1995.
Selig, Michael, ‘The Nutty Professor: A “Problem” in Film Scholarship’, The Velvet Light Trap, no. 26,
Fall 1990.
Sikov, Ed, Laughing Hysterically: American Screen Comedy of the 1950s, New York: Columbia
University Press, 1994.
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Laurel and Hardy
Barr, Charles, Laurel and Hardy, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1967.
Crowther, Bruce, Clown Princes of Comedy: Laurel and Hardy, Virgin Publishing, 1987.
Everson, William K., The Complete Films of Laurel and Hardy, Citadel Press, 1967.
McCabe, John, Mr Laurel and Mr Hardy, Robson Books, 1991.
Nollen, Scott Allen, The Boys: The Cinematic World of Laurel and Hardy, McFarland and Company,
1989.
Skretvedt, Randy, Laurel and Hardy: The Magic Behind the Movies, Moonstone Press, 1987.
Mae West
Babington, Bruce and Evans, Peter William, ‘Joking Apart: Three Comedians (Bob Hope, Mae West
and Woody Allen)’, chapter six of Affairs to Remember: The Hollywood Comedy of the Sexes,
Manchester University Press, 1989, pp. 95-178.
Weales, Gerald, Canned Goods as Caviar: American Film Comedies of the 1930s, University of
Chicago Press, 1985.
The Marx Brothers
Anobile, Richard (ed.), Why a Duck? Visual and Verbal Gems from the Marx Brothers’ Movies, Studio
Vista, 1971.
Eyles, Allen, The Marx Brothers: Their World of Comedy, London: A. Zwemmer Limited, 1966.
Grooch, John R., ‘What is a Marx Brother?: Critical Practice, Industrial Practice, and the Notion of the
Comic Auteur’, The Velvet Light Trap, Number 26, Fall 1990.
Mellencamp, Patricia, ‘Jokes and Their Relation to the Marx Brothers’ in Cinema and Language, ed.
by Stephen Heath and Patricia Mellencamp, University Publications of America, 1983.
Mills, Joseph (ed.), A Century of the Marx Brothers, Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars Publishing,
2007.
Perelman, S.J. et al, The Four Marx Brothers in Monkey Business and Duck Soup, Lorrimer, 1972.
Weales, Gerald, Canned Goods as Caviar: American Film Comedies of the 1930s, University of
Chicago Press, 1985.
Peter Sellers/Dr Strangelove
Baxter, Peter, ‘The One Woman’, Wide Angle, vol. 6 no. 1.
Brustein, Robert, ‘Dr Strangelove: Out of this world’, in Julius Bellone (ed.), Renaissance of the Film,
London: Collier Books, 1970.
Firth, Vincent, ‘It’s a Sellers Market’, Film Review, vol. 24 no. 4, April 1974.
Hoberman, J., ‘When Dr No met Dr Strangelove’, Sight and Sound, vol. 3 no. 12, December 1993.
Lydon, Peter, ‘The Goons and a bomb on Broadway’, Sight and Sound, vol. 5 no. 2 (New Series),
February 1995.
Mainar, L. M., ‘Kubrick’s Dr Strangelove: Desire and the Fragmenting of Character’, Revista Alicantina
de Estudios Ingleses, vol. 7 (1994), pp. 67-81.
Milne, Tom, ‘Dr. Strangelove’, Sight and Sound, vol. 33 no. 2 1964.
McVay, Douglas, ‘One Man Band: The Wrong Arm of the Law’, Films and Filming, vol. 9 no. 8, May
1963.
Nelson, Thomas Allen, Kubrick: Inside a Film Artist’s Maze, Bloomington: Indiana University Press,
1982.
Phillips, Gene D., ‘Stanley Kubrick: Stop the World’ in Major Film Directors of the American and
British Cinema, Bethlehem: Lehigh University Press, 1990.
Southern, Terry, ‘Strangelove Outtake: Notes from the War Room’, Grand Street, no. 49.
Taylor, Stephen, ‘Dr Strangelove: Or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb’, film
review in Film Comment, vol. 2, no. 1, Winter 1964.
Thompson, David, ‘The Rest is Sellers’, Film Comment, vol. 16 no. 5, Sept-Oct 1980.
Wolfe, Gary K. ‘Dr. Strangelove, Red Alert, and Patterns of Paranoia in the 1950s’, Journal of Popular
Film, vol. 5 no. 1, 1976.
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Steve Martin
Barth, Jack, ‘All of Him’, Film Comment, vol. 20 no. 5, October 1984.
Fong-Torres, Ben, ‘Why is this man smirking’, American Film, vol. VII no. 8, June 1982.
Malone, David, ‘A Linguistic Approach to the Bakhtinian Hero in Steve Martin’s Roxanne’,
Literature/Film Quarterly, vol. 24 no. 4, 1996.
Milne, Tom, ‘The Jerk’, film review in Monthly Film Bulletin, vol. 47 no.554, March 1980.
Mitchell, Elvis, ‘I’m Just a White Guy From Orange County’, American Film, vol. 14 no. 2, November
1988.
Woody Allen
Babington, Bruce and Evans, Peter William, ‘Joking Apart: Three Comedians (Bob Hope, Mae West
and Woody Allen)’, chapter six of Affairs to Remember: The Hollywood Comedy of the Sexes,
Manchester University Press, 1989, pp. 95-178.
Girgus, Sam B., The Films of Woody Allen, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1993.
Deleyto, Celestino, ‘The Narrator and the Narrative: The Evolution of Woody Allen’s Film Comedies’,
Film Criticism, vol. XIV no. 2, Winter 1994-5.
Feldstein, Richard, ‘The Dissolution of the Self in Zelig’, Literature/Film Quarterly, vol. 13 no. 2,
1985.
Green, David, ‘The Comedian’s Dilemma: Woody Allen’s “Serious” Comedy’, Literature/Film
Quarterly, vol. 19 no. 2, 1991.
Hirsch, Foster, Love, Sex, Death and the Meaning of Life: The Films of Woody Allen, Limelight
Editions, 1991.
Morris, C., ‘Woody Allen’s Comic Irony’, Literature/Film Quarterly, vol. 15 no. 3, 1987.
Rosenbaum, Jonathan, Placing Movies: The Practice of Film Criticism, Berkeley: The University of
California Press, 1995.
Yacowar, Maurice, ‘Forms of Coherence in the Woody Allen Comedies’, Wide Angle, vol. 3 no. 2,
1979.
Yacowar, Maurice, Loser Take All: The Comic Art of Woody Allen, New York: Continuum, 1991.
Zoglin, Richard, ‘Manhattan’s Methuselah’, Film Comment, vol. 22 no. 3, June 1986.
Jim Carrey
Franklin, N., ‘The Best Pretender: Jim Carrey Calms Down’, The New Yorker, vol. 77, 2001.
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COURSE AIMS
This course aims to develop the following skills and knowledges:
• an understanding of key concepts and debates in film genre study and theory
• a knowledge of the history and development of particular film genres
• an understanding of the interrelations between industrial, technological, social and aesthetic factors as they
impact on the development of particular film genres
• Skills in collaborative research and debate
• skills in independent and critical thinking through close analysis of specific debates in film genre study
• an awareness of some of the research methods and approaches required to undertake independent research
into a film genre and its history
• a broader knowledge and understanding of the discipline of Film Studies
As an introduction to the genre of Comedian Comedy the objectives of the course are
• To introduce students to the genre of comedian comedy both in itself and as a point of contrast to the
aesthetics of classical Hollywood cinema.
• To develop students’ understanding of what comic performance in cinema involves.
• To broaden students awareness of the relationship between cinematic objects and philosophical inquiry,
which in this instance concerns the nature of the comic.
Student Learning outcomes
On successful completion of the course students will be able to:• understand key issues and debates in film
genre study and theory
• identify the key features of the genres studied in the course
• recall key debates that have taken place around the genres studied
• develop a critical argument in relation to debates raised in the course
• conduct and deploy research in film genre studies
• work in small groups and teams to undertake small research tasks and present findings
• contextualise and articulate their own critical position in spoken and written form
• recognise some of the ways that aesthetic, technological, social, and industrial factors have shaped the
development of the genres studied
Graduate Attributes
1. an understanding of the methods of analysis and thinking specific to the discipline of film studies
2. a knowledge of the historical development of film as a both a specific medium and as part of a constantly
evolving media landscape
3. an understanding of the aesthetic, technical and aesthetic dimensions of film
4. the skills to analyse and interpret written and audio-visual texts
5. the ability to link creative production with theoretical and critical knowledge
6. the conceptual and organisational skills required to undertake self-directed learning the organisational and
communication skills required for effective and creative collaborative work
These attributes align with a number of the BA’s Graduate Attributes, in particular:
• The skills involved in scholarly enquiry
• The capacity for analytical and critical thinking and for creative problem solving
• The ability to engage in independent and reflective learning
• Information Literacy – the skills to locate, evaluate and use relevant information
• The capacity for enterprise, initiative and creativity
• An appreciation of, and respect for, diversity
• A capacity to contribute to, and work within, the international community
• The skills required for collaborative and multidisciplinary work
• An appreciation of, and a responsiveness to, change
• A respect for ethical practice and social responsibility
• The skills of effective communication
Students will be supported in developing the above attributes through:
• Course planning and documentation
• Varied assessment strategies
• Dynamic workshop exercises
• Learning and teaching strategies that include individual and group work
• Continued feedback and course evaluation
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Rationale for the inclusion of content and teaching approach
The rationale for this course aligns with many of the aims and objectives of the Film Studies major. It builds on
the foundational knowledges in Film Studies that students gain in the level 1 courses (skills in film analysis;
introductory knowledge of the history of film and cinema; an awareness of the importance of national and
international contexts for filmmaking) and develops these knowledges through the close study of particular
genres and by raising and exploring questions about popular cinema(s) and cultural value. Through its focus on
the interrelations between industrial, technological, social and aesthetic factors and their role in shaping film
genres, it develops students' understandings of the historical development of film as both a specific medium
and as part of a constantly evolving media landscape. By demonstrating some of the research methodologies
deployed in genre studies and in studies of film history more generally, it provides students with some of the
critical skills required for level 3 Film Studies courses. In addition, and in line with the aims of our level 2
courses, Film Genres allows students to practice and develop more generic skills such as theoretical and
practical project planning, academic research, critical thinking and writing skills, and skills in communication
and in collaborative work.
Teaching Strategies
• Film screenings provide the focus of the course and will take place each week after the lecture. Films have
been selected in order to demonstrate how the aesthetics of cinematic comedy has developed since the
invention of cinema in 1895 and to introduce students to the work of the most significant comic performers in
the twentieth century (Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, Jerry Lewis, Woody Allen and Jim Carrey, to name a
few). Particular emphasis is given to the comedy of the silent era because it was in this period that the
distinctively visual components of the cinematic comedy were developed.
• Lectures are designed to provide a context for film screenings by referring to the impact of cultural and
institutional factors on a given comedian’s work and by focusing on the specific comic strategies developed by
the comedian in response to them. Lectures will also suggest ways of theorizing such strategies. They will thus
identify how particular films contribute to cinematic comedy, explain relevant concepts, and discuss aspects of
cinematic form and style.
• The basis of tutorials will be student-led discussion. In addition to facilitating discussion in a designated
week, students will be assessed on their participation in tutorials. For further details of how such participation
will be assessed see Assessment Task 3. Tutorials are thus designed to ensure that students develop the capacity
to think independently about the course material and come to class adequately prepared to discuss it.
• Consultation times are listed at the front of this course guide. Students are encouraged to see me either during
these hours or by appointment to discuss the course in general, reading and writing exercises and essays. I am
also available for more general discussion about the Film Major and Film Honours.
Approaches to learning in the course
The course assists student learning about cinema through the lecture program, set readings, the formulation of
essay questions and the production of a course bibliography.
• group learning forms the basis of tutorial discussions where students are expected to learn from each other.
• independent learning is considered to have taken place when students a) undertake independent research
either by examining a broader cluster of films than those listed in the course or ferreting out reference material
not included in the bibliography b) develop their own point of focus in relation to the material under
consideration and demonstrate its relevance to academic inquiry.
• students are expected to attend all lectures and tutorials and to take notes in both. You are also encouraged
to take notes either during or immediately after film screenings.
• students are expected to undertake all compulsory readings listed in the course program. You are expected to
undertake further reading for essays by consulting the course bibliography and through independent research.
17