Comic Rhythm in Farce: Shevelove, Gelbart and Sondheim’s

and the plays of Plautus

In this lecture Steve begins by looking at rhythm as "a variable pattern of movement" and then asks how this basic definition can help us to understand such terms as variability, direction and dynamics when applied to comedy and specifically the comic rhythm of drama. The general aim of the lecture is to introduce students to some of the basic tools needed for the analysis of the medium of comedy drama presentation, especially farce.

The talk first outlines the many theories of laughter (for example, ‘surprise’) and the various components of comedy (for example, ‘incongruity’). Most of the examples offered to students are from the contemporary world of stand-up comedy allowing the students an immediate and instantly recognizable model.

Following on from this the lecture specifically examines two comic rhythms created in A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, namely ‘Anticipation’ and ‘Expectations Reversed’. ‘Anticipation’ examines how set ups are comically interrupted, transformed or replaced (this takes us back to the early part of the lecture on the importance of "variability, direction and dynamics"). ‘Expectations Reversed’ looks at the importance of unexpected juxtaposition of subjects (this, of course, takes us back to the theories and components of comedy, especially ‘surprise’ and ‘incongruity’). The lecture stresses the importance of an upside down way of thinking and the constant need to see an alternative viewpoint that all comedy viewing demands. Examples from "Funny Thing…" and the plays of Plautus are offered throughout.

The lecture concludes by pointing out that the farce form demands no sense of emotion or feeling — in short the absence of any "tragic rhythm". The lecture ends by introducing the idea of "tragicomedy", a rhythm of the dramatic medium that combines both the tragic rhythm and the comic rhythm but is a rhythm that is alien to farce, the purest of all comic rhythms in drama.

This lecture is part of a series of lectures on the "Dramatic Medium", a lecture course concentrating the mediums of expression and mimesis in drama. However, this lecture is self-contained and can work independently of the course as an individual talk on the comic rhythm of farce.

Going to the Pictures to See a Picture About
Going to the Pictures: Woody Allen’s

In this lecture Steve examines "cinema about cinema", concentrating on audience response. The lecture begins by talking about what makes the cinema experience so different from watching television, reading fiction or a visit to the theatre. For example, the lecture explains the importance of the saccadic movement of the eye and how the size of the cinema screen (resulting in repeated saccadic movement) necessarily means the brain is more stimulated than when watching television (limited saccadic movement). The lecture also looks at other issues such as physical space, opportunity to view, cinema as a social event and so on.

The lecture then moves on to dispute the importance of the commonly held concept of "suspension of disbelief" in being in any sense relevant to the real process of watching a film. The lecture suggests that complete immersion, the psychological theory of suture, identification, cinematic literateness, aesthetic response and the on-going process of understanding a film once you leave the cinema are all far more important and certainly more relevant to the experience of cinema than the considerable limitations offered by the phrase "suspension of disbelief". The lecture then outlines how Woody Allen’s Purple Rose of Cairo presents this complicated world of the cinematic experience in fantasy form. It also examines the nature of escapism. (One key thought of the lecture is that one should never mock escapism if you’ve never needed to escape.) The talk goes on to compare Purple Rose of Cairo to several other films about the cinematic experience such as Cinema Paradiso, The Long Day Closes, Last Action Hero and Sherlock Jr.. How cinema represents itself is then compared to how cinema represents other mediums, especially how cinema represents television in such films as Network, Wag the Dog, Capricorn One, The Truman Show and so forth.

The lecture then moves on to look at some of the technical aspects of The Purple Rose of Cairo. In this section of the talk Steve examines how the employment of a different film stock, high key lighting and ‘American montage’ editing all help to distinguish the "cinema world" from the "real world" in the movie.

The lecture concludes by briefly examining the story structure of The Purple Rose of Cairo in terms of a traditional fairy fable The lecture is part of a series of lectures on "Representation in Cinema". However, like all of Steve’s lectures, this lecture on The Purple Rose of Cairo is self-contained and can work independently of the series.

The following lecture on Who Framed Roger Rabbit can work as a companion lecture with The Purple Rose of Cairo.

Dark Shadows, Murder, Greed, Dangerous Woman…
and Bunny Rabbits?!?: Robert Zemeckis’s

In this lecture Steve looks at "cinema about cinema" from the point of view of genre. The talk examines how Who Framed Roger Rabbit intentionally and very knowingly combines two established genres  — film noir and animation — creating a unique film that in some parts at least is about the very nature of these sometimes incompatible forms.

The lecture begins by talking about classification and categories and how audience expectations are established by genre terms. The lecture continues by establishing what are the genre expectations of film noir and cartoons. For film noir aspects such as the femme fatale, greed, anti-hero, investigation, high contrast lighting, the voice-over narrator, an urban setting and others are all introduced. Examples are given from recent films such as LA Confidential, Seven and Chinatown as well as classic film noirs like Laura, The Maltese Falcon, The Big Sleep and Farewell, My Lovely. In looking at cartoons, specific genre aspects of animation are discussed. These include the unrealness of the cartoon world, jokes, special rules, the unchanging nature of a "toon" and the knowingness of cartoon characters (that is where cartoon characters know they are cartoon characters — for example when Roger says he has to wait until a moment when its funny before removing his hand from the handcuffs also attached to Eddie). The examples offered are mainly from the Warner Loony Tunes series, especially Duck Amuck. The lecture then asks to what extent the conflicting aspects of both these genres can co-exist.

The lecture concludes by looking at homage in cinema with specific regard to Who Framed Roger Rabbit but also at homage in general by listing the number of films that pay homage to (or "intertextually reference" to use the sometimes ugly jargon of Film Studies) that most "homaged" of movies, The Wizard of Oz.

Disney’s

Steve begins the lecture by observing that the animated genre, and the Disney animation in particular, is one of the few genres that is sometimes defined by its audience, namely children. There is though, he suggests, a wider adult audience for animation that can be as appreciative of Disney animation as that of young children. Indeed there are some references in Hercules that can be probably only understood by classically educated adults. There are also certain animations including, for example, Fritz the Cat that are specifically aimed at an exclusively adult audience. Although Steve rejects the idea that the animation genre should be classified by its audience, he does offer a second way of looking at the animation genre that allows for a classification outside the normal means of genre studies. He points out that a traditional way of examining "genre", especially in areas such as the Film Noir, the Musical or the Gangster movie, is to examine the cinematic technique of the film making, covering, for example, lighting, mise en scene and editing. However, in a way the animation genre goes one better than mere cinematic technique for animation can be singularly classified and defined at least in part by a specific film making process. However, what has confused matters recently is that that process has widened from a series of drawings to include Plasticine stop-frame animation (Jason and the Argonauts and the many film created by Ray Harryhausen) and Computer Generated Imagery or CGI (Terminator II). So the question is should such films be classified under the ‘animation genre’? This question, and the question about the relationship between genre and the audience, highlights one of the problems with any genre pigeonholing.

Steve suggests a better approach perhaps when looking at genre is to examine the form of a particular film, especially its narrative form and the form of the world that is created in the film. This approach is better understood when applied to specific examples within the Disney canon. For example, the traditional Disney animation is in the form of a single narrative telling a story that has some sort of irreversible end. Steve here compares Disney’s Beauty and the Beast and MGM’s Tom and Jerry. In the first you have a single narrative with an irreversible change, the Beast becomes human again, whereas in the second you have numerous stories in which although the status quo may alter neither Tom nor Jerry change from story to story in any irreversible way. Also, the form of the world of Tom and Jerry is a very different to that of the world Beauty and the Beast. Clearly both are ‘unreal’ in the sense that neither recreate our real world. However, each creates its own consistent reality. For example, Hades hair is a flame, and when he’s angry it gets bigger, and when it goes out he looks in need of a hairpiece but the point is that his hair is always consistently a flame. Indeed, if there were ever to be real hair it would become "unreal" in the consistent reality created in the animation. Compare this to Tom and Jerry where both change temporarily from one mode of being into another, especially though physical force. This change of form is in the moment and is easily and literally shaken off. The Disney world of animation restricts this moment to moment to moment change in form.

Steve then moves on to briefly analyse the traditional narrative form of classical story telling structure, including objective narrative, protagonist-antagonist, unity of action, use of a deadline, linear time sequence, causality, irreversible change and closed endings. He offers examples from numerous Disney animations ironically noting that the live action adventure George of the Jungle is far more uncharacteristic of the traditional narrative form than are most Disney animations. He also introduces the idea that the animation genre borrows from other cinematic genres such as Romantic Comedy (Lady and the Tramp), the Adventure movie (The Rescuers) and the Historical Biography (Pocahontas). He also points out that most Disney animations are in the form of a musical (The Hunchback of Notre Dame).

Steve brings this opening section of the lecture to a conclusion by suggesting that to fully understand the Disney animation genre requires a knowledge of the film making process, an understanding of the form of a film, especially the narrative nature of the story telling, and an awareness of the established genre that the animation is, as it were, working within, especially the Musical genre. On this last point he considers in some detail how Hercules fits into the Musical form. To illustrate this he highlights certain types of song and how, where and why they are traditionally placed in a musical’s structure. These include the exposition song (“The Gospel Truth”), the I-Want song (“Go the Distance”) and the Transformation song (“Zero to Hero”).

Steve begins the next section of the lecture by introducing some of the recent academic criticisms of Disney animation, including the accusation of inappropriate appropriation, where old stories and myths are given the ‘Disney treatment’ to the detriment of the original. However, on this point Steve observes that even ancient Greek drama’s portrayal of ‘Heracles’ ranged from the tragic hero of Heracles, the drunken figure portrayed in Alcestis, the god and deus ex machina of Philoctetes and the comic figure of Frogs! Steve asks simply, ”Which of these is the ‘original’ Heracles?” However, he does somewhat pedantically point out that Thebes, though portrayed in Hercules as a New York style city by the sea, was in fact inland! On a more serious note he asks why should Disney follow the original story of say the Little Mermaid when the original story reflected the self-repressive attitudes and psychology of Hans Christian Anderson that is hardly a positive image for young adults. In this section of the lecture, Steve also looks at other approaches and attitudes to Disney such as gender, race, and pedagogy as well as personal, ideological and political readings. On the whole he rejects the call for academics to put forward “privileged dominant readings of Disney animated films“ (The Mouse That Roared, page 97), arguing that is not the job of teachers to tell students how and what to think. He also suggests, much against the current wave of criticism of Disney, that recent academics have sometimes taken a too literal approach to Disney, ignoring the work of people like Bettelheim who argues that literalness is unhelpful in understand fairy stories. For example, many critics ask why, if Disney cares about family values, aren’t there more mothers in the animations. As Bettelheim as pointed out stories such as ‘Cinderella’ do have representations of motherhood, both good and bad, built into the story structure, accept, of course, they are not in literal form. Steve also suggests that academics are sometimes a little too selective in their approach. For example, much is made of consumerism in criticism of Disney, including Ariel representing aspirations of consumerism by collecting the land objects. However, when Disney produce an anti-consumerist character such as Cruella Deville she is dismissed as an example of "individual wickedness" (From Mouse to Mermaid, page 128). Steve suggests that this is hardly an evenhanded approach.

Steve goes on to apply the seminal Campbell model of mythical story structure to Hercules, using the Joseph Campbell theory as set out in his book on myth and story, The Hero with a Thousand Faces. This involves the Call to Adventure (the discovery of the token), the Refusal (Phil’s reluctance to accept the challenge), the Road of Trails (the first of many being Nessus), the Apotheosis (achieved by Hercules through self-sacrifice) and the Refusal of the Return (a rejection of his god form because he wishes to remain human). Steve also spends some time looking at the role of mentor archetypes in Disney animation, concentrating on Phil in Hercules.

Having set out some of the mythological elements of story in Hercules, Steve goes back to the first point he made about Disney and the animation genre and that is its primary audience. Although not defining of genre it can be argued that if academic critics ignore the key appeal of Disney animation for children then they are missing the genre’s central nature. Here Steve argues that the central theme of the Disney animated classics is the story of the outsider in their own community: Dumbo, Ariel, Belle, Quasimodo and even, despite his strength, Hercules. So many of these Disney characters are runaways from their own community, especially Pinocchio and Simba. Each story involves some degree of re- integration within that community or acceptance of a new community. What Bettelheim argues is that all children see themselves as outsiders to some degree and fairy stories at the very basic level are a means by which the child can cope with unconscious conflicts concerning their place in society. Although another writer on fairy stories, Marina Warner, argues for a more a more historical context for such stories there is still an acknowledgement that fairy stories of whatever period reflect the real domestic contexts that children find themselves in. Steve suggests that either approach to Disney animation is a more fruitful endeavour than the current pedagogy that dominates most film studies criticism of Disney.

In his lecture on Pleasantville Steve focuses on how cinema represents television. He begins by considering Marshall McLuhan’s famous remark from his book Understanding Media (1964) which says, "the medium is the message". Steve asks, one, to what extent the medium does shape and influence the message it transmits and, two, to what extent in these so-called post-modernist days are we too ‘knowing’ of the nature of the medium. Picking up on this last point he suggests that far from being a recent innovation mediums have always had an awareness of themselves as a "medium" or as transmitter of information, often from the birth of whatever medium. For example, in the novel there is Sterne’s Tristram Shandy and in the theatre there is Aristophanes’s The Poet and the Women. In cinema history we have the early example of Buster Keaton’s Sherlock Jr. Steve then asks the question, when a medium explores the nature of itself or another medium what aspect of that medium is being represented — the form, the creative process or the audience response?

Before considering how cinema represents the medium of television he sets out some of the differences between the two mediums, including time, specifically duration and frequency, and space, particularly use of fictional space. He then notes that although there are differences, the two mediums do have one thing in common that is not to be found in any other medium and that is editing. However, he does point out that the two mediums have different editing styles and he specifically discusses the television editing style of the American 1950's’sit-com and its relationship to Pleasantville. The choice for the director in making Pleasantville was to choose between the presentational style of the sit-com form of the 1950's and the film editing style of the modern era. The basic point is that Pleasantville looks like a film not like a film reproducing a television form. Also on the subject of presentational style, Steve points out that television in the 1950's was in black and white. He adds that since it is in the nature of black and white not to be realistic, black and white is therefore always clearly a "representation" of reality and can never be a simple reproduction of reality. This may seem a relatively unimportant observation but for younger cinemagoers and watchers of television, who are almost exclusively brought up on colour in both mediums, it is a major presentational difference. More importantly the change from black and white to colour is the main visual conceit of the film.

Steve then moves on to consider several key terms in film studies that are often used to discuss film and medium referencing such as reflexivity, intertextuality and metatextuality. Reflexivity comes from the idea of the reflexive pronoun, for example, "himself" — this lecturer thinks a great deal of himself. An example in film would be The Player, which ends with the central plot of The Player being offered to the character of the Player in the film as an idea for a movie. Intertextuality occurs when another film (or text) is brought into the world of a film. For example, Wayne’s World has a scene where the policeman from Terminator II asks, "Have you seen this boy?" Metatextuality occurs when the film draws attention to its own filmic nature. In George of the Jungle, for example, the voice-over narrator observes, "Meanwhile, back at the big and expensive jungle set". Steve suggests that although such terms can be useful in introducing ideas there are also other less "jargony" words that are equally useful when considering film referencing, and these include evoke, parody and homage. Steve then lists a few of the references made in Pleasantville. The set design, for example, has a look of The Donna Reed Show and Don Knotts, famous as Barney Fife in the 1960's series The Andy Griffith Show, is cast as the TV repair man. Both clearly refer back to another era. As well as television references there are references to films, especially Patton and Citizen Kane in the portrayal of the Mayor. Also, the whole fantasy plot is Capraesque in that it draws from It’s a Wonderful Life in both its structure and its setting. Indeed a strong aspect of the film’s referencing comes from its use of 1950's iconographic images of small town America such as the pebbles at the girl’s window and the soda café. Towards the end of the movie the allusions are brought up to date with a reference to the town of "Springfield", the home of The Simpsons. There are also visual references to the Bible, specifically Eden and the apple of knowledge. The question Steve is asking is, can the complexity and range of the referencing that is present Pleasantville be accommodated by film studies jargon and, more importantly as far as the film itself is concerned, do such references conflict and potentially confuse the viewer? One key point can be raised as a result of the multiplicity of references and that is that Pleasantville is not just concerned with television and a focus on the medium of television alone would be a disservice to the film.

Steve moves on to briefly mention some films and films. These include films about the film business (Get Shorty), film making (Shadow of a Vampire), stardom (A Star is Born), and the audience (Play It Again, Sam). Some are affectionate portrayals some are more satirical. He then considers films about television that cover similar themes, including Broadcast News, Capricorn One, To Die For and King of Comedy. He follows this by asking, in the cinema’s portrayal of the mediums of film and television which medium is presented as telling the biggest lie? To answer this he compares Singing in the Rain to Quiz Show. Both tell a lie, essentially both have characters speaking words that are not their own, but television tells the bigger lie. Another lie in television is that of the best friend in The Truman Show. Steve develops this theme with numerous examples. He also briefly compares films about the watching of television (Poltergeist and Videodrome) with films about the watching of movies (Cinema Paradiso and The Long Day Closes). This issue is the major theme of his lecture on Woody Allen’s The Purple Rose of Cairo. The point of all these examples and observations is that, unlike most representations of television in the movies, the representation of television in Pleasantville is hardly clear-cut. Is the sit-com Pleasantville a good or bad programme? Is it good or bad to watch such television? In a way these are the wrong questions. Gary Ross, the writer and director of Pleasantville, in his DVD commentary claims that the movie is about the failure of people to connect with the world. Both David and Jennifer fail to connect with the world around them. But when they do finally connect that is the moment when they change colour. Likewise the world of the town of Pleasantville as presented in the film had failed to connect with the real world of the 1950's and it is only when jazz and Picasco arrive in Pleasantville that it finally changes colour. Steve concludes this section by observing that television of the 1950's did not lie directly but it did lie through omission.

Steve moves to a conclusion by observing that when film represents television the representation of television might not be what the film is actually about. If that is the only consideration then one might be missing the entire point of the film. The Truman Show might be regarded as being about television but it is also about rejecting the notion of the ‘Grand Narrative’ of life, where every action has a reason, every cause has an effect and every event has a purpose. Indeed the name of the guide or god-like overseer is Christoff. Steve suggests that Pleasantville is not really about television even though its representation of television is complex and challenging. Instead he offers the idea that the real focus of Pleasantville, and numerous other films of the last twenty years, is America coming to terms with its so-called Utopian era of the 1950's. Steve argues that Pleasantville is setting out a third way of living with the past in the present. It seems to be suggesting not an attitude of outright rejection of the past, as Jennifer at first seems to represent, nor an outright rejection of the present, as David seems to want in the early section of the movie, but instead a coming to terms with both.

Steve begins his wide-ranging lecture on The Godfather by looking at the general nature of the gangster genre. First he examines the various story patterns traditionally associated with gangster movies. These include the rise-and-fall plot (Public Enemy, The Krays), the cop-as-gangster (Donnie Brasco, White Heat), going straight (Roaring Twenties, Good Fellas), the head to head conflict of good verses evil (The Untouchables, Heat) and the ‘Blood Brothers’ myth (Angels With Dirty Faces). Steve then looks at the conventional portrayal of the gangster. These range from the flawed hero of Roaring Twenties, the sexual psychotic of White Heat and the socially corrupted champion of Angels With Dirty Faces. All these gangster personas were of course played by Jimmy Cagney, the defining character actor of the 30’s and 40’s movie mobster. The lecture then moves on to examine the nature of the downfall of the gangster heroes and in so doing the talk also looks at the morality and ideology of the gangster movies of the 30’s, 40’s and 50’s. Steve tries here to define the ethics and structure of the gangster world. In doing so, he offers a comparison between the "shoot out" of the gangster movie, which has few, if any, codes of conduct, and the traditional western "dual" of the same period, which has carefully applied rules of conduct as the two men approach the moment of the draw. Steve concludes this opening section of the lecture by investigating the conflicts of the genre, where the "hero" is actually a "bad guy" who kills people and where the positive American Dream aspirations of that hero are expressed and fulfilled by ruthlessness and murder.

Having established an over view of the genre, Steve then asks how does The Godfather fit in or not fit in to these traditional perimeters. To answer this Steve first looks at the both the ethos of the Mafia and the characterization of the Don, two aspects of The Godfather recently added to the gangster genre. He then compares these two characteristics of the film, the Mafia world and the portrayal of the ‘Don‘ to the representation of gangster worlds of the past and the representation of the traditional gangster hero. He then suggests that the conventional "downfall" of the gangster has been replaced in The Godfather with a more complex "Faust" story pattern where success destroys a man’s soul but not his physical nature. He further suggests that The Godfather is, as Coppola himself has suggested, a modern myth of a family dynasty and more specifically the myth of kingship and succession — "a king who had three sons". He then examines the claims made by Coppola and others that The Godfather is a metaphor for Capitalism and a metaphor for America.

Steve then briefly looks at the stylistic presentation of The Godfather, contrasting the traditional documentary greys and the découpage classique editing style of the 1930’s world of the gangster movie with the cinematic art house style that became the hallmark of the Godfather series, that is, the "Rembrandt" source lighting style of Gordon Willis and the Eisenstein conflict editing approach that can be found, for example, in the famous Baptism sequence.

Finally Steve develops his own strong argument for seeing The Godfather as a true Greek tragedy. He compares one of the main themes of The Godfather with that of Greek drama, namely private vengeance versus public justice. He also develops the concept of kataskaphē, a key concept in Greek tragedy meaning the razing of a dynasty, and sees it as a major aspect of the whole Godfather trilogy. He then looks at the complex Greek concept of hamartia. Steve argues that Michael Corleone is not a "flawed" character in the Christian concept of hamartia, but that he is truly a Greek character whose "error" or hamartia was to go against the will of the gods in both his choice of wife and in the killing of his own brother. Steve also suggests that the Greek concept of philos, a bond of blood-line proportions that is developed by Aristotle in his Poetics is another key and essential element in understanding and seeing The Godfather as a truly Greek tragedy.