User:CH960364/Comedy film

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A comedy film is a category of film which emphasizes humor. These films are designed to make the audience laugh through amusement. Films in this style traditionally have a happy ending (black comedy being an exception). Comedy is one of the oldest genres in film and it is derived from the classical comedy in theatre. Some of the earliest silent films were comedies, as slapstick comedy often relies on visual depictions, without requiring sound. When sound films became more prevalent during the 1930s, comedy films took another swing, as laughter could result from burlesque situations but also dialogue.

Comedy, compared with other film genres, puts much more focus on individual stars, with many former stand-up comics transitioning to the film industry due to their popularity.

In The Screenwriters Taxonomy (2017), Eric R. Williams contends that film genres are fundamentally based upon a film's atmosphere, character, and story. Therefore the labels "drama" and "comedy" are too broad to be considered a genre. Instead, his comedy taxonomy argues that comedy is a type of film that contains at least a dozen different sub-types.

Silent film era
The first comedy film was L'Arroseur Arrosé (1895), directed and produced by film pioneer Louis Lumière. Less than 60 seconds long, it shows a boy playing a prank on a gardener. The most noted comedy actors of the silent film era (1895-1927) were Charlie Chaplin, Harold Lloyd, and Buster Keaton.

The silent film era also implemented animated comedy films such as Humorous Phases of Funny Faces, which is considered the first animated movie by film historians (1906). This style led to several iconic animated characters such as Felix the Cat, Mickey Mouse, Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, and Betty Boop.

Introduction of sound
Sound was introduced into film towards the end of the 1920s and became much more prevalent through the 1930s and forward. This advancement in technology allowed for comedy acts such as W.C. Fields, the Marx Brothers, and Laurel and Hardy to flourish via verbal humor and auditory sounds instead of complete silence.

Television period
When television sets became popular in the 1950s, the film industry was forced to make some innovations to compete with at-home entertainment. Some of these innovations include the use of color in film, widescreen formats (Cinerama, CinemaScope, VistaVision), 3D, and surround sound. While these innovations impacted the film industry as a whole, many comedies utilized these technological advancements that were not available on television sets at the time. 3 Ring Circus and Funny Face are two of many comedy films that implemented some of these new technologies.

The modern era
From the 1960s until present, comedy film has adopted numerous different styles, sub-types, and sub-genres. The 1960s welcomed a more mature, darker humor known as black comedy such as Stanley Kubrick's Dr. Strangelove. Comedy moved towards more parody and satirical humor in the 70s and 80s with directors like Woody Allen, Mel Brooks, and the Monty Python comedy troupe thriving. Teen comedies like The Breakfast Club, Sixteen Candles, and Ferris Bueller's Day Off also became popular in the 80s. In the 1990s over-the-top, wacky characters succeeded in the comedy scene. Notable actors that played these types of characters include Jim Carrey, Adam Sandler, and Mike Myers. From the 2000s until recent, comedies have leaned towards the trend of incorporating more vulgar or raunchy humor with films like the American Pie series, The 40-Year-Old Virgin, and Superbad. Overall, comedy film has moved away from traditional joke-telling, and now leans more towards eccentric characters finding themselves in unexpected situations.