Dartmouth Events

20th Century American Film Comedy

Film and Media Studies Class taught by Joanna Rapf at a 3A. Still room available.

Friday, September 7, 2018
3:00pm – 6:00pm
Loew Auditorium, Black Family Visual Arts Center
Intended Audience(s): Staff, Students-Graduate, Students-Undergraduate
Categories: Arts, Films

Comedy celebrates the human capacity to endure rather than to aspire and suffer. It is, as François Truffaut once said, "by far the most difficult genre, the one that demands the most work, the most talent, and also the most humility." Tragedy is traditionally more "respectable," but essentially both the tragic and comic responses to life come from the same source: our consciousness of the gap between existence as it is and existence as it ought to be.    

       With this in mind, Film 41 will focus on a select group of 20th-century American comic films and filmmakers, looking at how they reflect and comment on the society that produced them. These will include artists from the silent era such as Chaplin, Keaton, the screwball comedy of the 1930s, comediennes such as Mae West and Whoopi Goldberg, etc. Forms of comic theory, including surrealism, genre theory, and feminist film theory, will be addressed.

For more information, contact:
Cheryl Coutermarsh

Events are free and open to the public unless otherwise noted.