What makes a comedy great? Some would say that a good comedy is based on how many times you or a crowd of people burst out laughing. That is not necessarily the case, as films like Birdman and The Graduate are loved by many, but both are not really laugh out lout funny. They have comedic elements, but the reason people love these films is for their drama, more than the comedy. What should constitute for a comedy, and how broad can the genre be?
Interesting topic, yet very wide! You can think of comedy in terms of dark comedy, romantic comedy, children comedy, burlesque, silent comedy, family comedy, action comedy, social comedy, satires, pastiches, parodies.... To consider all these different aspects would be great (but very long so maybe choose to focus on one or two and try to narrow down the topic). – Rachel Elfassy Bitoun9 years ago
Sayign what makes it great is too broad. I would try to lower it to what makes a comedy critically successful (Birdman and The Graduate) or what makes a comedy succeed (like in the box office, so films like Anchorman), or what makes a comedy a staple of the genre (Monty Python and The Holy Grail). – Erin Derwin9 years ago
As Erin and Rachel said above, that's a monstrously wide topic. Consider homing in on one facet of, say, dramatic comedies, as you put it. That, or you'll write until you're dead and not run out of material. – Wordsmith1239 years ago
I have always considered the ones that make you laugh are the best comedies. However, in literature and film, this is not the case. In fact, if you want to stick to the ancient definition, anything with a happy ending can be considered a comedy. With that in mind, I would have to say this topic is far too broad. Something more specific can make for more focused and clear articles. – winbribach9 years ago
In order to class a show/movie as a comedy (at least in my head) it has to my me laugh of some level. I don't have to be on the floor holding my rips but, I should't be leaning back groaning every time the something that is meat to be amusing happens.
– icysquirrel9 years ago
After 51 years, Disney has just announced a sequel to the classic. The production of the first film took many years due to a struggle with rights.
Write an article about how this classic could be revisited and extended in a sequel. You can make it personal too by asking yourself a few questions (that most people share anyway) like : is this a good idea? Is Rob Marshall a strong decision? Could the making be as difficult as the first one, or even more complex? What can we expect? What would you/we like to see?
Also support ideas regarding the negatives and positives of adapting classic Disney films as live action. Malificent, Cinderella, Beauty and the Beast ect. – Joseph Manduke IV9 years ago
True, yet Mary Poppins was mostly a live action film with some animated sequences. Would be interesting to see how they translate that in the sequel! – Rachel Elfassy Bitoun9 years ago
Is it necessary to make a sequel to Mary Poppins? Not really. Toping the original is going to be really tough, though it could be interesting if they stick closer to the book in tone. – Aaron Hatch9 years ago
What kind of sequel could this be, given how nearly everyone or almost everyone in the original film by Disney are dead? That is, unless the sequel to Disney's Mary Poppins is going to be based on one of the many sequel books to the original Mary Poppins story by P. L. Travers. Still though, the way Disney rendered their first Mary Poppins film in 1964 does make it look quite dated in both animation and film rendering (though maybe not the music itself). Therefore, a sequel that's closer to the books could work; otherwise, there doesn't seem to be any solid point to a Mary Poppins' continuation after fifty years or so. – dsoumilas9 years ago
I would stick with just Mary Poppins and not branch out to other films like Malificent and Cinderella. Mary Poppins has enough meat to it that you don't need that fatty filler to get the word count up. I would look at the Disney film Saving Mr. Banks. The film puts so much importance on the history of creating the film and the importance of it being just the way it is. There is a beautiful message in that film and would recreating Mary Poppins tarnish not only the meaning of the film Saving Mr. Banks, but Marry Poppins? Or is this all playing into the same idea? – Erin Derwin9 years ago
There is a series of Mary Poppins books (3 I think) that predate the original film just as there are about 12 Oz books that predate The Wizard of Oz. Everyone knows the movies, but very few people know about the books. I read the Oz books as a kid, but I haven't read the Mary Poppins books even though I suspect that the first in the series was used as a source text for the film. It's possible that the sequel to the movie will be based on another book in the series. It's another avenue to explore. – Elisabeth9 years ago
As we know, a visual element or an image can be powerful tools to promote an idea, a project, an attitude or a film. Who are behind the conception of film posters? What can a film poster say about a film? Why are we so attached to them and keep on putting them in our rooms and offices? Who decides on the way posters should be marketed, designed, distributed? Why are some posters like Pulp Fiction or Scarface still so popular years after and what makes a poster successful and convincing?
Another interesting point would be how a poster made by marketing is often seperately made from those who made the film. So controversy over how women like Black Widow are edited on posters would be interesting. – Erin Derwin9 years ago
There's just something so aesthetically appealing about movie posters that make people want to see them. I guess it's also the notion of creating a movie poster that no one's ever seen before, something along the lines of that. I know that the Blade Runner poster wanted me to see the film; same with Pulp Fiction and Space Odyssey. – AlyssaMariano9 years ago
Analyze the trope of the violent schizophrenic in Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho. Take into consideration the construction of Norman Bates and consider the contemporary treatment of psychosis. Ask yourself whether or not the trope of the violent schizophrenic serves an artistic end or merely perpetuates an existing stigma and stereotype against the mentally ill.
To push this further, and if you want to open up the discussion to the more general question of representing mental illness on screen, you should look at other films that deal with this issue. Psycho won't be enough to open up the discussion, although it is a great one to focus on. An extra paragraph at the end exploring more representations through other films would be interesting – Rachel Elfassy Bitoun9 years ago
Rachel Elfassy Bitoun! Thank you for expressing interest. I think that a comparative study would be very valuable, indeed. – InAugust9 years ago
I think to expand this topic into further films would be a good idea, with The Shining and Jack Torrence being another one tha would be good to look at, as well as Black Swan for a more modern and female perspective.
As for mental illness being represented itself in film (and especially in Psycho and The Shining) is the character that usually has the illness is villainised. I think this is a reflection of how society looks down on those who suffer with mental illnesses. There's a grey area whether the villainisation is of the people who suffer the ilness or the illness itself. I would say in earlier films the former would be true, where the latter would hopefully be true of more recent film portrayals. – Jamie White9 years ago
I would look at Bates Motel maybe? Or just a more recent film in its depiction of mental illness. Cause although a classic it is an old representation of mental illness and bringing it to today's existing stigma seems like an issue. Not to say it shouldn't be talked about, more the relevance on the portrayal is called into question. So either look into more recent depictions OR bring up the relevance of such an analysis on a classic. Are we still doing this? Does this film have influence on other portrayals including today? Did it start a pattern in film? – Erin Derwin9 years ago
I know that this film is seen as a horror film, especially in the year of 1960. This film is actually quite sad to me. You see that Norman Bates is externally happy, but you can sense that he isn't quite there. Many people think that this characteristic in one is intentional, but it often is unavoidable due to lovely biology. It is all what it comes down to; yes, Norman ended up murdering within this film. What this film leaves us at, if we haven't seen Bates Motel, is what caused him to be this way? Was he always like this? There are so many questions that I don't think is fair in the retrospect of the monster is proclaimed to be. – caitlinndwyer9 years ago
This article should focus on viewing films and stories that take place in the past – how accurate are their outfits, props and locations? Obviously this wouldn't apply to full-on fantastical worlds, but stories that are meant to take place in our world like the Rurouni Kenshin films, the Last Samurai and the like could all be considered. It would also be interesting to discuss how important historical accuracy is – although many of the audience may not catch the small details, are they worth putting in regardless?
Might be worth looking at films that deal with famous criminal affairs or political affairs and see how the director presents facts - is he biased? can he be completely neutral? Same for historical dramas. Might be worth looking at how films can differ depending on their country of origin and how countries can have different perspectives on the same events. – Rachel Elfassy Bitoun9 years ago
I would like to see the focus of this article be focused on which details are important to the story in the sense that they are there for a reason. I've stopped reading many "historical fiction" novels b/c the author was more invested in displaying their research than in telling a story. In film, the stakes are raised b/c production staff are required to physically reproduce those details, so it becomes even more important to decide which are worth the money and screen time, and which are "padding". So it becomes a dance between the writers, director, and production crew -- how are those decisions made? – Monique9 years ago
Throughout the years, many films have tackled the theme of growing old. They have changed our perspective on aging and moving with time. With new technologies and modern behaviours, old people of the 21st century seem completely different to old people in the 1950s – attitudes change, and fun seems to be at the heart of aging, whereas it was once depicted as a curse or a synonym of tranquility and sometimes lethargy. Think about Sorrentino's Youth, Haneke's Amour, Reiner's The Bucket List – what do they tell us about aging? How do attitudes change?
I think it would be great to include Benjamin Button in this analysis – kathleensumpton9 years ago
I think it would be valuable to set up a control group, i.e., a film from the 1950s to compare with your experimental group, a film from 2015. – InAugust9 years ago
The new British film 45 Years shows a fantastic depiction of the elderly in their more vulnerable years. Not only are the characters shown to be physically unstable, gone is the fleeting unpredictability of youth and the possibility of adventure, leaving plenty of room for regrets and the realisation that certain possibilities are now off the table. – thehustler1959 years ago
It might also be interesting to compare films that target older viewers as opposed to films that target young viewers and just happen to have an older character. It seems likely that the subject will be handled differently depending on the intended audience. – KASquires9 years ago
Florence Foster Jenkins was a woman who was passionate about singing and opera. Yet she could not sing, had no rhythm and no one would tell her, too scared to hurt her or too amused by her ridiculous singing. She even performed at the Carnegie Hall in New York, her first public performance. The critics were so negative and mocking that she took it very much at heart – in fact, died 2 days later of a heart attack. Her tragic story is the theme of a French film called Marguerite coming out this week, and Stephen Frears is shooting a film about her with Meryl Streep which will be in theaters in 2016. Write a post on her life story and reflect on why she continues to fascinate the public and the film industry especially.
I think this article would be stronger and better if, after you talk about the above, you incorporate how the film (2016) portrays her and whether it was accurate, etc. since it seems as though this fits into the film category. – Nof9 years ago
This topic could explore major artists who worked in film when the transition from black and white to film occurred, such as Disney and Hitchcock.
That was the original intention - to leave that fine-tuning up to the author of the topic instead of limiting the focus too much. Ideas, however, on things one might choose could be, as you say: How did they deal with it? Who was most successful at it? What are the best practices? And so on. – kathleensumpton9 years ago
Another way to narrow the topic down that may be interesting could be to look at how the transition occurred for specific roles on the creative side of film making, like how the creation process was affected for animators, editors, or cinematographers specifically. – Marcie Waters9 years ago
This topic is interesting but an article has already been written on this a couple of months ago. If you choose this topic, be careful not to repeat the exact same! It could be interesting to look at films that both exist in colour and in black and white and compare them, or take one black and white film from Hitchcock and one coloured one and compare them. – Rachel Elfassy Bitoun9 years ago
Thanks for the helpful note Rachel!
– kathleensumpton9 years ago
