Button-Home

Button-Description
Button-Schedule
Button-Requirements
Button-Essays
Button-Responses
Button-Grading
Button-Links

Screening: MW, 12:30-2:50
Class: TTh, 12:30-1:50
Room: Thompson 101

Instructors
Claudia Gorbman
Padelford A-504
543-2288
Hours: W, 10:30-12:30

Kimberlee Gillis-Bridges
Padelford A-16
543-4892
Hours: TTh, 11:30-12:30

Last Updated: 6/1/00
Comments or queries

 

 Course Materials

Midterm Exam Answers

Section One: Film Identifications

1.  The nation's new ruler is late to his own introductory fanfare.  His office is above a peanut stand and a lemonade stand.

  • Film:  Duck Soup
  • Director: Marx Brothers or Leo McCarey
2.  Eccentric German psychiatrist instructs the woman that "the love impulse in the male is manifested in conflict."
  • Film: Bringing Up Baby
  • Director: Howard Hawks
3.  Man travels deep into enemy territory, unaware of the retreat of the entire army he's serving.
  • Film: The General
  • Director: Buster Keaton
4.  Trying to impress his girlfriend, man makes $1 price tage into a $4 price tag on a candy box.
  • Film: Sherlock Jr.
  • Director: Buster Keaton
5.  Trying to impress his girlfriend, man pretends he's a manager in the department store.
  • Film: Safety Last
  • Director: Harold Lloyd or Fred Newmeyer/Sam Taylor
6.  Trying to impress the boss's daughter in the kitchen, man dries dishes and kneads dough through the washing-machine rollers.
  • Film: The Pawnshop
  • Director: Charles Chaplin
7.  Woman in very revealing dress sings "Sister Honky-Tonk." Later she puts on a record for a suitor, "No One Loves Me Like that Dallas Man."
  • Film: I'm No Angel
  • Director: Mae West or Wesley Ruggles
8.  Man changes clothing to pose as a tramp on the road, much to the disapproval of his butler, who knows that poverty is not interesting but a disease.
  • Film: Sullivan's Travels
  • Director: Preston Sturges
9.  "British heiress" is determined to marry a millionaire:  "I need him like the axe needs the turkey." In "romantic" scene on a hill, he proposes as the horse keeps getting in their faces.
  • Film: The Lady Eve
  • Director: Preston Sturges
10.  When detectives enter their cabin, they pose as a working-class couple in a loud marital dispute.
  • Film: It Happened One Night
  • Director: Frank Capra
11.  When the local police have locked them behind bars, they pose as a notorious robber gang; the woman cons her way out of her cell via a cigarette and an open window.
  • Film: Bringing Up Baby
  • Director: Howard Hawks
12.  After a skinny bearded man emerges from the steam room, a boy's ball bounces into the main character's shop and helps to catch an escaped thief.
  • Film: The Barber Shop
  • Director: W.C. Fields or Arthur Ripley
Section Two:  Short Answers (Answers Underlined)

1.  The Production Code was written in 1930, and enforced beginning in 1934.

2.  The term for a consistent character that a given actor becomes through his/her films is persona.

3.  The ex-Postmaster General who became head of the MPPDA and oversaw the instituting of the Production Code was Will Hays.

4.  The particular brand of movie comedy that arose from the Depression, the limitations of the Code, and casting of glamorous stars was called screwball comedy.

5.  Identify two categories of sight gag, as outlined by Noel Carroll.  Any two of the following would be acceptable:

  • mutual interference gag
  • mimed metaphor
  • switch image
  • switch movement
  • object analog
  • solution gag
Section Three: One- or Two-Sentence Answers

1.  Define low comedy and high comedy.  Give one example of each from any film seen so far. (An example in this case=your description of a particular scene or moment in a film that illustrates your definition)

  • Low Comedy: Comedy with little intellectual appeal, but which arouses laughter by jokes, gags, slapstick humor or physical activity.
    • Examples:  Chaplin kicking his co-worker in the pants in The Pawnshop, Buster slipping on the banana peel in Sherlock Jr, Susan's dress ripping in Bringing Up Baby, Charles's tumble over the couch in The Lady Eve.
  • High Comedy: Comedy that is intelligent, sophisticated, and highly verbal.
    • Examples: Ellie's exchange with Mr. Shapeley in It Happened One Night, Sullivan's butler's derision of his boss's posing as a vagrant in Sullivan's Travels, the chaise-lounge exchange between Charles and Jean in The Lady Eve.
2.  Which of these three scenes does Bergson's theory of the comic account for (correct answers underlined).
a.  W.C. Fields asks where his newspaper and glasses are when they're in his hands.
b.  Johnnie (Keaton) rescues his girlfriend from the enemy troops by carrying her in a sack.
c.  Susan, unaware that her evening gown is ripped up the back, is scoffing at David (Cary Grant).
Then, according to Bergson, what is laughter a "corrective" of?  How does it work in one example you've circled above?
For Bergson, to be human is to be in touch with the environment and able to adapt to changes.  We laugh when we witness a person's clumsiness, inelasticity, rigidity, automatism, or "unconsciousness" because we are attempting to correct his or her behavior and encourage awareness.  When viewing the restaurant scene in Bringing Up Baby, we laugh to alert Susan to her lack of awareness--she doesn't know her gown is torn--and thus correct her rigid behavior.
3.  What is Noel Carroll's overall definition of the sight gag?
Carroll defines the sight gag as visual humor predicated on incongruity.  The sight gag's humor emerges from alternative interpretations of an image or series of images. 
Home | Description | Materials | Schedule | Requirements | Essays
Responses | Grading | Links