Last week, I watched one of the most acclaimed comedies of all time and some even call it the original romantic comedy. Of course, it comes from the silent film star with the longest legacy, Charlie Chaplin. In City Lights from 1931, Chaplin is in familiar territory as he takes his character of the Tramp through a series of slapstick gags all the while maintaining a romantic storyline with a blind girl. The film ends with a beautiful scene where the romantic leads encounter again after many years and although the girl doesn't believe the man who helped to fix her sight could be the poor, homeless Tramp, she finally sees that he's the one who saved her.
Comedy is one of the most popular genres throughout film history and especially in modern times. The latest release from a favorite comedian can drive audiences to multiplexes in droves. However, comedies rarely receive critical acclaim, or at least that is the perception that mainstream audiences have when they watch the Oscars and popular comedies like The Hangover or Superbad don't sweep the awards. The Golden Globes have always offered a different approach to awards by dividing their categories into drama and musical or comedy. As this honoring of comedy approaches, I've decided to look at a few comedies throughout history that have gained critical acclaim and try and link them and Chaplin's City Lights to the some of the films getting attention in the Comedy or Musical category.
The biggest comedy this year was by far, Bridesmaids. The ensemble comedy about a woman whose best friend is getting married and the reflection this forces her to have on her own life and the relationships around her has brought up the question that somehow still exists, are women funny? The question only seems so ridiculous because it's been proven consistently throughout film history. In the screwball comedies of the 1930s and 1940s, women generally played a more dominant role while the man was slightly incompetent. In Bringing Up Baby, one of the most famous screwball comedies, Katharine Hepburn is the character who receives the most laughs and her chemistry with Cary Grant generates all of the film's success. In various teen comedies, especially those satires of youth culture, such as Mean Girls and Heathers, women have also played a key role in creating the comedy and, in the case of Mean Girls, a woman was responsible for writing all the jokes too. Even in the films of Woody Allen, who is receiving significant attention for his nominated film Midnight in Paris, women play an important part and can help lead the comedy even if they are always designated to work off the stand-in for the famously neurotic director. For example, Annie Hall would not be half the movie it was without Diane Keaton's fantastic portrayal of the titular character and although Allen gives himself most of the jokes, her character still brings humor to the film. It is rarer to see women be given the opportunity to be funny in the way that Bridesmaids is through gross out humor, although I would argue it is a much smarter movie than the few gross-out gags imply. The question of women being funny is completely ridiculous and film history demonstrates that women can be funny when they are given the chance.
This year, cinema has been especially nostalgic even in the comedy or musical category. The Artist is the smash hit of the year that audiences were not prepared for. An ode to silent cinema similar to classics, such as Sunset Boulevard and Singin' In The Rain, it is a charming cinematic experience that has slowly spread through audiences to become beloved. My Week With Marilyn similarly takes advantage of a nostalgia for Old Hollywood by detailing the period of Marilyn Monroe's life where she was filming The Prince and the Showgirl. Marilyn was an actress who was heavily associated with both comedies and musicals, such as, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes and Some Like It Hot, although her career was not limited to these types of roles. These films can be related even to Chaplin's City Lights which arrived during the Great Depression and helped to charm audiences into feeling better about their lives if only for two hours. These nostalgia trips also help to give joy to audiences and are a reminder of a time when life was seemingly better than it is in the rough economic climate of our current day.
Chaplin's comedic influence can also be seen in the final film being considered for the Best Comedy or Musical award at the Golden Globes, 50/50. This last film is a comedy that addresses the serious issue of cancer when the lead, portrayed in a nominated performance by Joseph Gordon-Levitt, finds out that he has the disease and has to try to live through the treatment. While cancer is not a topic that is usually approached with such a comedic and realistic take, the idea of using comedy to address serious issues is one that features prominently in Chaplin's work and has been used throughout the history of the genre. Chaplin used this technique most famously in The Great Dictator where he plays a dictator who is similar to Adolf Hitler, who was in power at the time. Chaplin uses comedy to address the issues and fears that are within the world and helps the audience to realize that no problem is too big to overcome and that keeping a smile on your face is sometimes the best medicine. 50/50 shares this attitude and portrays cancer in a more realistic and less satirical way than Chaplin does with Hitler in The Great Dictator, however, it still maintains the comedic tone that makes the film much easier to handle than a serious drama about the subject.
It's not currently known to us if any of these films will be talked about in 10 or 50 years like the classic screwball comedies of the 1930s and 1940s or the fast talking theuroputic approach to comedy that Woody Allen uses in Annie Hall, among others. However, this year's field of comedies, some with a few musical elements, is very strong and offers some wonderful candidates that fit well into the canon of great comedies.
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