Romantic+Comedy+info

Theatrical romantic comedy is a distinct, historically specific genre that emerged with Shakespeare's comedies in the sixteenth century. It combines elements of two earlier forms having antithetical views of love and marriage. One ancestor is the New Comedy of ancient Greece, which centers on a young man who desires a young woman but who meets with paternal opposition. The play ends with some turn of events that enables the match to be made. Comedy here represents the integration of society, the concluding wedding standing for social renewal. The other ancestor is medieval romance, which appeared in both narrative and lyric poems. Romance here names a new sense of love—the passionate experience of the individual—distinct from the "social solidarity" love had previously meant. Romance was originally opposed to marriage, but in Shakespeare's comedies, such as //Much Ado About Nothing//, romantic love and marriage are united. Romantic comedies ever since have told audiences that their dreams of the right mate can come true. Romantic comedy in film falls into four distinct subgenres: romantic comedy proper, farce, screwball comedy, and the relationship story. Each of the subgenres is defined by the ways in which love, romance, and marriage are depicted and, especially, how they are related to each other. Filmic romantic comedy in the United States derived most directly from the stage. While higher forms of comedy were produced on stage before 1915, theatrical comedy was dominated by vaudeville, minstrel shows, and musical reviews. Vaudeville and other forms of "low" comedy were the first to influence film, and this influence accounts for the bulk of silent film comedy. Farce typically deals with characters who are or have previously been married, and it derives its humor by calling attention to the restrictions and boredom often felt by long-married couples. But farce also typically accepts marriage as the norm, and depicts extramarital sex as immoral. Beginning in 1915, however, Broadway theater generated a vogue for sex farce, which remained very popular through the early 1920s. These plays featured suggestive language and situations, and they often set out to test the limits of what authorities would permit. Given the limitations of silent film and its audience, it is not surprising that farce should be the first form of romantic comedy to become an established film genre. The importance of romantic comedy in this era is demonstrated by its leading stars, whose reputations and personas were established in such films, and the leading directors who made at least one romantic comedy, including even Alfred Hitchcock (//Mr. and Mrs. Smith// [1941]). Carol Lombard (1908–1942), the female lead in Hitchcock's film, was a star especially identified with romantic comedy. Her career was defined by her role opposite John Barrymore in //Twentieth Century//, and she later appeared in both //My Man Godfrey// (1936) and //To Be or Not to Be// (1942). Lombard's roles were often typical of the screwball heroine, who may be zany but also tough, determined, and intelligent. Irene Dunne (1898–1990) perhaps best embodied the seemingly paradoxical combination of the ditzy and the smart in films like //Theodora Goes Wild// (1936), //The Awful Truth//, and //My Favorite Wife// (1940). Romantic comedy declined in popularity and quality during World War II. The screwball cycle ended in the early 1940s, though several directors kept working at it. The most successful of these was Preston Sturges, whose films pushed the farcical side of screwball to the limit. //The Lady Eve// features a protagonist (Henry Fonda) so blinded by love that he marries the same woman (Barbara Stanwyck) three times without knowing it. //The Miracle of Morgan's Creek// (1944) took madcap comedy to a level beyond screwball and managed to become a box-office hit despite dealing with the sensitive subject of wartime promiscuity. The screwball cycle was clearly over by the time of //Unfaithfully Yours// (1948), in which Sturges depicts adultery not as an adventure but as a spur to fantasies of murder and revenge. Five romantic comedies featuring Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy (1900–1967)—//Woman of the Year// (1942), //State of the Union// (1948), //Adam's Rib// (1949), //Pat and Mike// (1952), and //Desk Set// (1957)—took the genre in a new direction that anticipated the relationship stories of the 1970s. These films focus not on getting the central couple together but on how they get along with each other. In all but //State of the Union//, Hepburn plays a working professional, and the films focus on conflicts that result from her not being willing to accept subordination to a man. In general, the 1950s and 1960s were a low point for romantic comedy. Doris Day (b. 1924) became one of the most popular actors of the era, appearing in several of what were called "sex comedies ," often opposite Rock Hudson (1925–1985). These films trade on the same kind of titillation that fueled theatrical sex farces, and they were equally conventional in their morality. By the mid-1960s, the genre virtually disappeared from Hollywood, with a few notable exceptions. //The Graduate// (1967) rewrote traditional romantic comedy by making the obstacle to the young lovers' union the hero's affair with the heroine's mother. //Two for the Road// (Stanley Donan, 1967) depicted a marriage as romantic comedy by In 1977, however, the success of Woody Allen's (b. 1935) //Annie Hall// fundamentally reinvented the genre. Both a box-office hit and winner of the Academy Award® for Best Picture, it brought about a general revival of romantic comedy rooted in the changes in courtship and marriage that were occurring in the 1960s. The genre ratified the new reality that marriage was no longer the only socially sanctioned form of sexual relationship, a fact also reflected in the emergent use of the term "relationship." The basic premise of the new relationship story was serial monogamy, a possibility made likely by the climb of the divorce rate to 50 percent. In this new context, getting the central couple married off is no longer a guarantee of happiness nor is the failure to do so a tragedy. //Annie Hall// is a romantic comedy that from the beginning tells us it will present a failed relationship. It manages this by distancing the audience, using techniques such as flashbacks, voice-over narration, direct address to the camera, and other violations of filmic realism. These devices do make the film funny, but they are not so extreme as to produce an alienation effect. We care about the characters, and we accept by the end that they cannot be together. These changes in love, courtship, and marriage became increasingly the subject of journalistic coverage and popular advice books. Film relationship stories incorporated this new self-consciousness about these matters by overtly reflecting on the events they narrate. Rather than treating romantic love as the mystery it was in both romantic and screwball comedies, it now became something the characters could learn to understand and control. There is thus a therapeutic dimension to many of the films in this genre as the hero or heroine learns (or fails to learn) how to achieve intimacy. Allen made many other movies that fit this genre, including //Manhattan// (1979), //Hannah and Her Sisters// (1986), //Husbands and Wives// (1992), and //Deconstructing Harry// (1997). Relationship stories by other directors include //An Unmarried Woman// (1978), //Modern Romance// (1981), //When Harry Met Sally// (1989), //Defending Your Life// (1991), //Miami Rhapsody// (1995), and //High Fidelity// (2000). While of these films only //An Unmarried Woman// might be called explicitly feminist, all them feature heroines who have careers and thus choices beyond marriage. Other recent romantic comedies have used older conventions to new ends. Susan Seidelman gave screwball comedy a feminist spin in //Desperately Seeking Susan// (1985), in which heroine escapes from a bad marriage in the end. //Moonstruck// (1987) is also told explicitly from the heroine's perspective, and it adds Italian-American ethnicity and a middle-class setting. //Something's Gotta Give// (2003) depicts a romance between a geriatric Jack Nicholson and a realistically middle-aged Diane Keaton. Interracial romance was first broached in //Guess Who's Coming to Dinner?// (1967), but racial diversity and gay relationships have been notably absent from this genre. One exception is //Hsi yen// (//The Wedding Banquet// [1993]), in which Ang Lee focuses on a Chinese family in New York and plays off the conventions of the romantic comedy proper in depicting a gay couple (one of whom is white) who stage a heterosexual wedding in order to satisfy the families' expectations. //Four Weddings and a Funeral// (1994) includes a gay relationship that is depicted as loving and serious, but it is not the focus of the film's comic plot and ends in the funeral. In opposition to progressive films, there has been a revival of traditional forms and their politics. This trend may have begun with the success of //Pretty Woman// (1990), a Cinderella story, wherein Julia Roberts plays a hooker who not only wants to marry the prince, a corporate raider (Richard Gere), but to find real intimacy with him as well. Nora Ephron's (b. 1941) films //Sleepless in Seattle// (1993) and //You've Got Mail// (1998), a remake of //The Shop Around the Corner//, are typical of those that followed //Pretty Woman//. Both feature plot devices that keep the central couple apart and, therefore, out of bed, thus allowing a nostalgic return to romance as it existed before premarital sex became a routine part of courtship. Conservative treatments of the screwball formula also appeared, including //My Best Friend's Wedding// (1997), in which Julia Roberts plays the best friend who does not get the guy, and //Forces of Nature// (1999), which reverses the plot of //It Happened One Night// by having its heroine dropped for the hero's actual fiancée. In these films, romantic impulse is rejected in favor of social stability. //Love Actually// (2003) is a revival of the farce that deals with many couples but only one relationship, and even that, the marriage of Karen (Emma Thompson) and Harry (Alan Rickman), is seen through the prism of Harry's dalliance with his secretary. Like its generic ancestors, //Love Actually// takes monogamy for granted but also assumes that adultery is part of the institution. As the number and variety of these examples suggest, the romantic comedy remains a popular genre, and it is likely to remain so even if it is unlikely to regain the central role it had in the 1930s. **Romantic Comedy.**
 * //Schirmer Encyclopedia of Film//**. Vol. 4. New York: Schirmer Reference, 2007. p1-7. 4 vols. [[image:http://gimg.galegroup.com/gvrl/gvrl_2_3_8_234/images/dot.gif width="100" height="8"]]