STUDIES AND RESEARCH
Screwball Comedy
The US Comedy of Thirties
The paper presents an interpretative overview
of the basic characteristics and subtypes of Hollywood
screwball comedy, its historical place among the other
contemporary comedy modes: sentimental, sophisticated and
anarchistic.
The arrival of sound caused the important structural
changes within the genre of Hollywood comedy. Previously
predominant type — slapstick comedy had vanished, and new
types emerged in twenties, thirties and into forties, the
basic ones being: sophisticated comedy, sentimental comedy,
anarchistic comedy and screwball comedy (categories based
on Tino Balio’s division). The screwball comedy took over
some characteristics from all the other contemporary types;
from sophisticated comedy it took the thematization of
man-woman relationship; from sentimental comedy its emphasis
on typical American virtues, sentimentalism, optimism and
populism, and from anarchistic comedy it took over its
pace, emphasis on humorous dialogue, its eccentricity and
anarchistic drives. Screwball comedy was introduced in
1934. with the comedies It Happened One Night by
Frank Capra, Twentieth
Century by Howard Hawks and The Thin Man by
W. S. Van Dyke, and it dominated over US comedy till
1938, when the change in audience interests caused the
vanning of this comedy type.
The films were characterized
by the quick pace dictated by the antagonistic relationship
among the male and female protagonist, the relationship
that eventually end in marital or love bondage. The antagonism
is often social (different classes), but it is mostly sex
based. The basic dilemma of the genre is how to reconcile
sex and class (ideological) differences (there is an
obligatory Happy End) the different films of this comedy
type vary the modes of the antagonism, and look for its
different possible solutions. But, as Shatz stated, the
most interesting aspect of films, and the main creative
focus was the antagonistic, very dynamic conflict itself,
not so much the nature of the ending. Screwball comedy
was a variety of »new comedy« (according the Frye’s distinction),
teleologically structured, with mostly young man tending
to fulfill his sexual whishes against the obstacles. Final
solution implies the birth of the »new community« were
the old antagonisms are either humorously or romantically
surpassed. Variety of narrative proposals in different
films are investigated, and specifically the main subtype
of a screwball comedy a comedy of remarriage.
Bruno Kragić |
