Essay question: How has Charlie Chaplin influenced comedy today?
Introduction:
See Charlie Chaplin dancing, acting silly, and eating his own shoe! With his baggy trousers, small hat, large shoes, wooden cane, and an iconic moustache- remaining as a defining image of silent cinema. Charlie Chaplin is one of the most interesting comedians that left an influence in today’s comedy. Charlie chaplin influences the luckless-clown, the ‘Tramp’ character,and drama and stand up.
Body paragraph 1:
Charlie Chaplin was such a good comedian, that he influenced the luckless clown character. The luckless clown is a clown that is clumsy. Basically has no luck. “Charlie Chaplin wore baggy trousers, had a small hat, wore large shoes, had a cane, and an iconic moustache, which left an image of a clown also know today”. “Chaplin's a great artist—there can't be any argument about that. It's just that he seldom makes the corners of my mouth move up. I find him easy to admire and hard to laugh at”. Charlie Chaplin’s character is like a clown. Charlie Chaplin is an outstanding comedian because he influenced the luckless clown.
body paragraph 2
Although Chaplin passed away, the ‘Tramp’ character still lives within cinema. “Charlie Chaplin’s the tramp” is also reflected in
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‘the hangover’ Phil and Stu have their share of funny lines, but it’s Alan that the audience enjoys most because he’s the lovable and stupid outcast. Everything he does is funnier because of the character. Charlie Chaplin is very funny and clumsy just like these characters. Charlie Chaplin is one of the best comedians that had one of the most important influences in comedy. Body paragraph 3 Drama and stand-up almost 100 years after Charlie Chaplin entered the film industry still draw inspiration from his work today.
A lot of stand ups are funny because they ridicule themselves; not many people will laugh at a man showing off how good he is. No, we want to laugh at a man making a fool out of himself. Feargal Parham, who studies a degree in Drama and takes the Stand Up module, finds that Chaplin’s work was fundamental in the development of his own comedy: “I used to watch a lot of his films when I was a kid and I’d try to copy the faces he pulled. When I’m writing my stuff – about the stupid mistakes I make – I always end up using the face from The Circus posters; disappointed but still
funny”. Conclusion: Although Charlie Chaplin passed away about 38 years ago, he left some big influences that we use a lot on comedy in 2015. From the luckless-clown, to the ‘Tramp’ character, and to drama and stand-up. Charlie Chaplin is one of the most amazing comedians IN THE WORLD!
Entertaining anecdotes on the other hand, are very amusing to me especially, Jerry Seinfeld talking about his halloween. The ecstatic mood combined with the childhood memories of him talking about how he wanted more and more candy was joyous and entertained all of us. Additionally, the clever wordplay he put throughout the whole speech like up for kids and down for adults made it easier for us to connect with his story. An amusing comedian to listen to is Jim Gaffigan, who amazes his audience every single time. His appearance on Conan was especially exciting because of his satirical manner of making fun of health trends. The way he said to his wife that he wouldn’t waste perfectly good ice-cream, made me giggle a lot. The final example of what makes me laugh is Mr. Bean. Physical comedy may not be for everyone, but the way Mr. Bean used his body to exaggerate the fact that he did not want to walk up to the top to get his swimsuit so he finds another one laying on the ground while a person is looking at
Richard Pryor has a key influence on many modern comedians because he took standup comedy to greater heights. Pryor is well-known for his colorful language and his efforts to knock down the racial barrier. He was such a shock to the world because he said things that no one dared.
In 1939, Charlie Chaplin was a world famous movie star who released a movie that would be very controversial, The Great Dictator. The movie was meant to ridicule Hitler, as at that time he was at the height of his power. At the end of the movie, Chaplin delivers a speech as a Jewish barber mistaken for Chaplin’s Hitler- like dictator. Chaplin uses speech rhetoric to convey Chaplin's message of hope and light. The film did very well in the theaters and was Chaplin's most successful movie. The speech in the film, The Great Dictator, used it's influential place in society with cinema to convey a message of peace, hope, and independence.
-(15 points): Comic Relief that, in my own words, means to lighten up a serious part in a movie or book. I have seen this in many of Robin Williams’ movies. In “Patch Adams” he soothes the cancer patients and kemo children with a clown nose and jokes. Taking a serious situation and making it better. “Robin Williams was an airman, a doctor, a genie, a nanny, a president, a professor, a bangarang Peter Pan, and everything in between. But he was one of a kind. He arrived in our lives as an alien—but he ended up touching every element of the human spirit.” (7 Quotes from Robin Williams, for Communicatorss (PR News).
Amongst the numerous great silent film directors, the three that are commonly mentioned surrounding that discussion are Buster Keaton, Harold Lloyd, and Charlie Chaplin. Having seeing a greater amount of Charlie Chaplin’s magnificent work than the others, Buster Keaton and Harold Lloyd most certainly still got my consideration. In spite of every one of the three delivering awesome pieces of visual artwork, they shared some comparable attributes, however they each had unique differences which contributed to their each distinct style of silent film production. From seeing films produced by all three of these directors, it is evident that comedy works magnificently well with the silent movie format.
Sight gags are an essential part of comedy, especially the silent comedies of Charlie Chaplin's time. A sight gag is a visual form of comedy. In this form of comedy, the actors rely on the way the audience perceives the actions on screen for humor. This could include a misunderstanding by characters or a misrepresentation of an everyday object. In order to make the gag work, the actor must use smooth, visible actions to convey his or her point. Noel Carroll outlines six different types of sight gags in the book, Comedy/Cinema/Theory. In this paper, I will talk about each gag and give examples from the three Charlie Chaplin films that we have watched.
With the turn of the century, society and technology evolved and so did the minstrel shows. The introduction of the television gave the shows a new platform to broadcast their content to more american audiences. While not as harsh as the shows in the 19th century’s shows, the modern minstrel shows were “vestiges of their racial stereotyping and performances aesthetics persisted for decades in various performance mediums. ” (7). The show 's popularity forged a strong foundation for careers in the entertainment industry for African Americans. African Americans often could find great success in pursuing musical, or comedic careers following the minstrel shows. And as the shows finally died out, this underlying principle stayed true as the United States progressed. The minstrel shows facilitated African Americans into many forms of the entertainment as various performers. The shows play a major role in developing the comedic basis for African American entertainers even today. As referred to in the modern day , “Black Comedy” is extremely favored by the populus. Famous black comedian Dave Chappelle, once played a role as a “racial pixie”. Chappelle performed as a oddly dressed pixie on the shoulders of African Americans and sang, danced, and encouraged the individual to given into the stereotypes of society (4). Perhaps what disturbed Chappelle the most was the
Another major contender in the comedy genre was Harold Lloyd. He had an unpredictable style of comedy at first. For a long time he wanted to model himself after Charlie Chaplin until he came into his own unique style. Chaplin’s clothes were too big for him, so Lloyd wore clothes that were too small for him. However, it was not as simple as reversing Chaplin’s style. One day someone put him in oval wire glasses and it somehow became part of his persona. Lloyd eventually evolved on his own and claimed his own unique style. “At times he would seem meek but then would explode suddenly with force and anger” (Cousins, p. 73). He became most famous for his incredible stamina and ability to perform outrageous stunts, known as his “human fly” act. In Safety Last he is seen climbing the side of a building, along the way running into many obstacles that would threaten to push him off. He was unparalleled in the way he performed such dangerous stunts all for the sake of comedy.
Comedy differs in the mood it approaches and addresses life. It presents situations which deal with common ground of man’s social experience rather than limits of his behaviour – it is not life in the tragic mode, lived at the difficult and perilous limits of the human condition.
personality has an enormous impact of why he is the most amusing character in the play.
Willeford, William, The Fool and His Scepter: A Study in Clowns and Jesters and Their Audience (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1969)
The film “Modern Times,” directed by Charlie Chaplin, is set in the mid nineteen thirties. This time frame places the characters in the middle of the Great Depression and the industrial revolution. The film depicts the lifestyle and quality of living for people in this era by showing a factory worker who cannot take the monotony of working on an assembly line. The film follows the factory worker through many of his adventures throughout the film. The film’s main stars are Charlie Chaplin and Paulette Goddard.
The nature of comedy has always left it somewhat resistant to critical analysis, and to some extent the same can be said for comedic actors. The class-clowns of Hollywood like Will Ferrell are often times constructed as being nothing more than amusing, so they seem like a simple case study.... ... middle of paper ... ...
Before analyzing the comedic content in question, it is important when drawing on a variety of sentiments from comedians to understand that many performers use a character or parody for their humor. Others choose to voice opinions and views contrary to their own, in the hopes of receiving a certain reaction from a specific audience. In referring to the material of writers and comedians, one must respond to the beliefs they promote (which can be known), rather than those they espouse, which cannot.
One of the most famous types of television comedy is the sketch comedy style. Greg M. Smith, in his article “Red Skelton, The Crack-up, and the Quick- change” explains how the move of vaudeville acts to television created the template for all sketch comedies. A small number of performers, often only one or two, “depended on interchangeable acts that could be juggled into different configurations for a show, the sketch necessarily is narratively compartmentalized. Plot elements from one sketch do not carry over to the next, necessitating that the performer slip from one role to another as he/she moves from sketch to sketch.” (n pag) Today’s sketch comedies continue to run independent multiple short sketches per episode. Although they may now have recurring characters, frequently still, only a single-time character is played. Just as there is a prevalence of one actor playing multiple roles per episode, so also are the situations, locations, and interactions often differentiated completely from one scene or show to the next. Some or all of these elements can be found in such shows as Monty Python's Flying Circus, Saturday Night Live, The Whi...