Cinema Studies: The Key Concepts

Susan Hayward

I was reading the comedy section in Cinema Studies: The Key Concepts by Susan Hayward and found it very interesting. This book is different to all the others i have reviewed, the others look at comedy from a different angle whereas this is just straight forward about comedy. this book talks about comedy being one of the first genres and how comedy is used.

The books talk about how comedy goes against realism and points out some really good facts about comedy. A comedy movies uses all the aspects of a movie from the sound to the characters and there actions. Stereotypes and gender have also been used in comedy from the beginning and the book describes how looks have been used in comedy for example a blond women would not be smart at all which uses stereotypes and gender for the joke.

The book also goes into early silent comedy and how comic hero's such as Charlie Chaplin and Fatty Arbuckle came to be. Comedy is a violent genre but it is light-hearted and the book covers its aggressive humor. Even in the Charlie Chaplin era they stuck to the aggressive humor and even earlier then that.

The section is not to big but they do cover a lot of points on comedy. this book sticks to the basics of comedy and does not get to deep. If your looking for in depth information about comedy then this is not the book you want. The books more like a dictionary for cinema studies.