December 13th, 2009
Status & Comedy
What makes stuff funny. I’m still trying to figure out with every new thing I watch, that captures my attention. This post is not about animation or film, really…it’s about comedy. Something that I’m not capable of explaining what it is, or how to get it. What feels funny to some people may not be funny to me, and viceversa.
Now what I’ve been observing are certain things that tend to keep us interested from a comedy point of view…and that’s great stuff for me as an animator. Can’t get enough of it, and continue trying to apply it to my work in whichever way I can.
One of those things is status. Great masters of comedy such as Charlie Chaplin, knew this all along. And they knew how to apply to his gags. Highly recommend studying Charlie Chaplin for this reason, and another million reasons as well. I’m a big Seinfeld fan, and have been learning so much from the show. Some episodes hold up today as much as they did fifteen years ago. So I wanted to use another example from it, this time from actor Larry Miller, who I consider to have great subtleties and a pretty unique and advanced sense of humor. In this clip Larry Miller plays a Doorman, and it opens this Seinfeld episode with the same name:
First, what really catched my eye here was the use of status and subtext. Status is used heavily borderline confrontational. Larry’s body language and delivery is played with a much higher status than Seinfeld himself, especially in a role of a doorman. Being used to seeing how in a job like that a doorman treats the client with the most respect, to see Larry Miller cross that line of respect so blatantly and over the top, made the introduction of this character instantly funny. Some areas to pay attention for example is the finger action…he’s not even looking at him to begin with. And that body language is more used when someone has a much closer relationship to another person. Which again brings it back to status for me. Also, he takes a while in making eye contact with Seinfeld. Another thing he does status wise, is to scan Seinfeld up and down, walking towards him slowly with a big smirk in his face. Again, somehow seeing someone in a position like that, behaving that way, became very funny to me. Goes back to doing unexpected things from certain personalities or characters….and it is that contrast that brings reactions out of us. Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin both did that.
Second, the subtext throughout the whole scene is something else. What the doorman character is implying by his facial expressions, by his timing…brings comedy to the scene as well. For example, the dialogue goes:
- “Can I help you? Benes. No one here by that name.”
The simple fact that he’s smiling throughout his delivery, to me adds another layer to his character, and his status in this scene.
Third, Larry’s delivery and timing in each sentence is really great. Pay attention to the timing when he says the word “Quickie”. He includes a pause in there which makes the overall sentence even funnier. If you cut that pause, guarantee the delivery of that sentence is not as funny. Breaking up the timing in our actions, pauses and dialogue, always adds a whole new dimension to comedy in my opinion.
Anyways, see how it feels to you.
Hopefully someone finds this useful.
C.
5 Responses to “Status & Comedy”
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Hi Carlos,
This is great post. Very imformative. I really learn a lot from your posts and i am amazed and at the way you look at details in things. This post has helped me in understanding a lot about performance, comedy and mostl how to observe characters the way u do!
Thanks
Keep Posting More!
Hi Carlos,
Great points about comedy. I often think about this stuff, so you're not howling at the moon alone!
I think it's also valuable to consider what the biological function of laughing is.
This article lists three possible reasons:
http://news.softpedia.com/news/Why-Do-We-Laugh-28974.shtml
1. The incongruity theory. Humour arises when logic and familiarity are replaced by things that don't usually go together.
2. The superiority theory (that dates back to Aristotle) we laugh when we see somebody else doing something stupid or having some kind of misfortune and we feel superior to this person. When we feel such superiority we laugh. (When we feel superior because we have done something we feel proud of and not amused.)
3. The relief theory holds that laughter occurs when tension breaks without anything serious happening. Dr. Lisa Rosenberg pointed out that humour helps people cope with stressful situations.
It goes on to talk about how laughter may have evolved as our way of saying "False alarm it's okay!"
From the last paragraph of the article;
"Thus, this explanation helps us understand the psychological mechanism of laughter and why it got to be the way it is, but it doesn't tells us anything about the function it serves today. The more advanced and subtle humour we find today in some books and movies is built on this ancient mechanism, but it puts the machine to a different use. The art of the comedian is how to create novel uses for this old tool."
And, in an ironic twist, the captcha I was given to type for this article was…cries :]
Rock on,
Matty
Excellent elaboration on how to approach character contrast for humor! Thanks again, Carlos! This post was definitely beneficial!
Thanks for sharing Carlos. The blogs I like the most are like yours, educational.
Here is a great book on comedy, it is called: The Comic Toolbox:How to be funny even if you are not.
http://www.redroom.com/publishedwork/the-comic-toolbox-how-be-funny-even-if-youre-not
It talks about truth and pain being the foundation of humour. I think that the truth in the doorman and Seinfeld is, as you pointed out, that the doorman is supposed to be subservient and everybody understands that. Furthermore I think that anybody could relate to that situation and even without the audio find that clip funny, just by looking at the body language.
Which is something that Charlie Chaplin and Seinfeld share in common, the ability to transcend language and culture and poke fun at us, humans.
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