Slapstick Comedy

Extremely exaggerated form of physical comedy. Film genre.

Origin

As the term already indicates, Slapstick Comedy derives from the genre comedy. Comedy cannot be separated as a distinctive genre because its elements can be found in different film categories (and also in drama). Comic gangster films, comic horror films or comic disaster films are just some examples.

The first comedy film appeared in 1895 with the title Watering the Gardenertalic. The topic of the film based on an out-of -control water hoe that wetted its owner, the gardener. But 10 years later the actors and their behavior became the focus of the films. Their intentional actions which were seen as unintentional kept the audience laughing. Although it is not seen as the most respectable genre today, it belonged to the viewers’ most favored genres especially at the beginning of the film and cinema industry and earned its “hilarious“ reputation.

Slapstick Comedy - Beginning and Success

The term slapstick comedy is closely connected to an item used by clowns. The instrument consists of a pair of wooden sticks which are slapped together, makes loud noises and underlines violent actions like punches of the entertaining clowns. Slapstick comedy rather focuses on physical humor, facetious violence and skirmish which could end in pass outs. The elements of slapstick show that malicious joy is the key element of the entertainment which is broadcasted in this genre. Slapstick films were created in the Silent Cinema era. The plot was only based on actions but not on verbal communication.

Viewers have a distance to actors which are portrayed as not being perfect. But even that effect can be traced to the Italian Renaissance and the Commedia dell'Arte in which comedians wore masks to hide their faces and created a distance between themselves and the audience. In the time of the Renaissance and the Slapstick era, it created naiveté, plainness, intensity and extremity which make self-identification harder or even impossible for the audience. This can especially be found by actors like Buster Keaton, Harold Lloyd, The Three Stooges.

Important Actors

Roscoe ‘Fatty’ Arbuckle, Buster Keaton and Mark Sennett were some of the most famous stars of that era. Although the Slapstick Comedy era took place in the United States of America, the British actor Charlie Chaplin promoted and caused the popularity of these films. Chaplin signed a contract with Mack Sennett’s Keystone Studios, one of the most successful film studios in the 1910s and played in more than 35 films in 1914. He is said to be responsible for the focus shift from the comic action to the personality based blockhead or clumsy fellow [source??]. His fame rose so fast that the produced movies were not promoted by the production company’s name but his instead. Posters, other items and the main success of films started to depend on the face and name of the actors. Actors that also profited from it were Buster Keaton, Harry Langdorn and Harold Lloyd.

Sources

King, Geoff. Film Comedy. Columbia: Columbia Press, 2002.

Schmitt, Johannes. Eine dramaturgische Studie. Berlin: Lit, 2006.

Blanford, Steve. The Film Studies Dictionary. Oxford & New York: Oxford UP, 2001.