The Movies of Sykes, Barker, Tati and Chaplin have all been comedies. We did not set out to find comedies but movies telling their stories without significant quantities of dialogue. They have turned out to be comedies and while not remotely constituting a genre have threads in common. Before discussing those threads it would be useful to consider what comedy itself might be. The link below makes a number of observations about comedy. That
- Traditionally, comedy has to do with the concerns and exploits of ordinary people. And
- Again, the true hallmark of comedy isn't always laughter. More often, it's the simple satisfaction we feel when we witness deserving people succeed. (David L Simon De Paul University Chicago 1998)
Read the link and consider how this relates to the work of Sykes et al.
http://condor.depaul.edu/~dsimpson/tlove/comic-tragic.html
