So after my last post about animation and, by extension, comedy, I received a response saying that comedy is not only used in kids movies and animations, but can also be used to get across some really serious points that make the audience think. The first movie I thought when considering this was one of the more recent films I've watched, The Invention of Lying. This movie was honestly hysterical, but at the end of the movie my roommate at the time and myself sat down and just stared at the screen when it was done. After a few awkward more moments of silence I turned to her and said,
"What if life was really like that, where nobody lied?"
And just now it's hitting me, that's the purpose of the film. To make people stop and think about if the world actually could not lie. And it's a valid point. People say all the time, "I wish people just didn't lie." And this movie is pretty spot on about portraying that. But it raises another question, if it was socially accepted to not lie, rather, if lying did not exist at all, would we even care about the horrible bluntness of harsh statements?
So I guess I've been shown an important point, Even comedies have the capability to present deep thought-provoking topics to the general public, that not only makes them laugh, but also makes them think.
1 comment:
There is a lot behind the concept of comedy that we never think about. We hide behind it to sometimes speak of things that would not be "acceptable" said straight. How many times do we catch ourselves saying "it was only a joke"? It seems somewhat surprising to me that so many student films try to use what in my opinion is the hardest genre of all, comedy.
Is it because dealing with life as is (no joking), is hard? What does that nervous laugh hide?
Comedy masters in silent film, such as Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, Harold Lloyd and Max Linder were among the most precise and technical creators. Ones who understood that timing, together with all other elements included in every shot within the whole could actually trigger a state of being that is still a mystery to many today and has not been, (although many try) to bottle it as a formula.
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