Laughing Matters – Visual Comedy A Lecture by Rowan Atkinson

• Costume – ill fitting?
• Object behaving in unexpected way; in an unexpected place; wrong size – Police Squad tall guy (Al); Terry Gilliam
• “The jokes depend on sudden shocks and strange transformations that undermine the normal laws of our existence”
• Max Sennet – Keystone Cops
• Slapstick – “the more real it is, the funnier it is”
• Comedian – “the shock of violence without the reality of pain”.  “The simplest way to transform pain into  comedy is through the use of overstatement” or understatement
• Appearance/disappearance (when falling)
• Absurd transformations
• Georges Melies – surreal transformation – “the mind behind the camera than the performer in front of it”
• “All comedy is rooted in fear”
• Visual “comedy is a license to fish out the strangest images from the depths of our unconscious”
• strip people of their normal human dignity
• Parody gives form and structure to work
• Parody – imitated mannerisms; the mechanics of the parody; send up visual style of the film  itself

• Chaplin “In comedy, nothing transcends comedy” – communicate with body language – comic acting
• “This is the comedy of personality rather than comedy of gags, it’s not about doing funny things, it’s about doing something quite normal in a funny way.  The skill lies in the accuracy of human observation and the precision of the execution.”
• Jacques Tati – silent comedy in sound films – comedy of character in body language
• New variations of old jokes
• The success of any comic idea… “the attitude with which it is performed” – new attitude, new joke
• Attitudes – dim; aggressive; crude – identify with the attitude
• Chaplin master – these days, most of us find it hard to laugh at his films??? It’s hard for us to get involved in what he does, but main problem is we can’t identify with his attitude – too cute? pleased with himself?
• “Visual comedy is a more blunt instrument, but this means that everyone can understand it”
• comedy of embarrassment (del boy through bar)
• Physical comedian – is an alien like us, but different; innocence – (Harry Langdon); inept, but tenacious – mistakes and accidents; disregard convention, morality/legality; consideration for others; treat to respectable people; outlaw – breaks rules of convention; eternal victim; indestructible