Response Assignment Three: The Production Code, Bergson, and Levowitz

Length: One page
Due Date:  Thursday, May 4, by 7:00 p.m. via email

Assignment

Develop a response to one of the following questions, citing specific details from the readings and films to support your points.  For this response, you may select scenes from Bringing Up Baby, It Happened One Night, The Lady Eve, Sullivan's Travels or Some Like it Hot.

1) We have argued in class that the Production Code engendered codes for reading sexual content, codes that modern audiences often cannot understand.  Analyze a scene or scenes from one or two of the listed films, making an argument regarding how the scene(s) encode sexual content. 

2) Briefly define Bergson's theory of the comic.  Which of the film situations and comedians seen over the past three weeks are "comic" in Bergson's definition?  Which do not accord with his definition?  For notes and study questions that may help you to compose your response, click here.

3) Briefly explain Levowitz's developmental theory of laughter.  Explain why your favorite comic moments--both visual and verbal--from the films above are funny under Levowitz's theory.  Does the theory adequately account for the humor of these moments?  For notes and study questions that may help you to compose your response, click here.