Thursday, March 27, 2008

Screwball Vs Romanticism

As you all know we just finished the unit on romantic comedies and screwball comedies. We watched one example of each and saw clear differences between the two of them. For one, as we watched His Girl Friday, we saw how the emphasis was more on the comedy of the movie rather than the romantic plot. With Hildy Johnson and Walter Burns (Cary Grant) we saw how the director Howard Hawks spoofed the romantic process because the male character suffers from humiliation. I think the aspects of screwball comedy can be more comedic than those of a romantic comedy, say that of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. In the movie His Girl Friday, the plot starts to speed up towards the end when the case is solved and Hildy decides and it is shown that Hildy's character is not ready to leave the business of journalism because it gives her such a thrill to do so. For example, when her fiance Bruce comes to visit her at the press room, after he gets out of jail she barely pays attention to him and is completely focused on the task that Walter asked her to do.
In the romantic comedy, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, the main characters Clementine (Kate Winslet) and Joel(Jim Carrey) use reality as a way to show comedy through their relationship. Both of these characters as well as Mary, Patrick, and even the Doctor that creates all these terrible emotions are at threat for pain. I think Mark Ruffalo's character is definitly a great example as a romantic comedy characters because he defitly more funny than flaky in the way he was when he was performing the erasing of Joel's memory. I think I like romantic comedies a lot more because even though they have the same predictable ending it still gets me every time. I'm a sap for girly movies that have the cute guy to gaze at for two hours while they dish out cheesy lines.

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