==Description drivel==

This entry is utter drivel. Having studied Hollywood slapstick for the past three years, I barely recognise most of the 'conventions' of slapstick cited here, nor do I see the point in listing such trite cliches. One might as well list under 'Abstract Expressionism': blotches of paint with no real meaning; dribbles to cause interest in the spectator; colourful lines; off-canvas use.' Any first-year art history student would laugh their socks off, and so should anyone familiar with the art of slapstick dismiss this lame attempt at characterising the genre. So, just for the record:

1) "Pain with no real consequence." Whilst the bodies of characters in slapstick are sometimes magically resilient, I can think of no case where there is 'no real consequence' to that pain. Stan kicks Ollie in the shin; Ollie whacks Stanley round the head. Cause and effect, pain and consequence. A million examples.

2)"Impossible situations". I can't think what the author has in mind. Perhaps s/he means 'implausible', but even so very few situations involving Chaplin or Keaton or Lloyd or Langdon or Laurel and Hardy are manifestly 'implausible' within the terms of the films themselves.

3) "Zooms to confuse the audience". Absolute garbage.

4) "Off screen use". Well, I think I know what is meant, but this is incredibly vague. Buster Keaton's gags often involve an unseen entity just offscreen (say, a speeding train about to smash through his mobile house, in One Week), as if to suggest the limited perspective of an embodied observer, including the camera or film spectator. One might also point to the misleading camera perspectives often used by Keaton, and some other slapstick artists, which play upon the distinction between the two-dimensional plane of the screen and the three-dimensional world it depicts. (See Walter Kerr, The Silent Clowns, and others)

5) "Using sounds for impossible stunts". I suppose the author is imagining some sort of 'boing' sound. This could only be the lazy assertion of a charlatan. Jerry Lewis and Jacques Tati use sound in very distinctive, original and sophisticated ways in their slapstick comedies, although not very much in relation to stunts, 'impossible' or otherwise. Whilst we are on that subject, the slapstick stunts performed by Buster Keaton or Jackie Chan are assuredly possible: these stunts are often cleanly arranged before the camera so that we trust the camera's veracity. It is an important part of their effect that we are seeing real bodies in the world performing these amazing movements in space.

6) "Tension for audience anticipation". Bit of a tautological description, but suspense is of course important to slapstick, as it is for most (all?) film entertainment. One might think of Chaplin, in City Lights, stepping backwards and forwards to appreciate a nude statue, unaware of the large hole in the sidewalk we can see behind him. This gag plays on relations of knowledge and vision between audience, performer and character, more than simply 'creating tension'. Just as often slapstick gags play on the inevitability of future events, a feature one might think would kill off any suspense. It certainly doesn't kill off the laughter. We are never 'tense' as to whether Laurel and Hardy will get the piano safely up the steps... in fact, we're certain they won't!

I hope the article as it stands is entirely scrapped. I notice your entries on other art forms are, if not perfect, at least considered and informed. I find it a pernicious assault on the art of cinema that film comedy is considered so irrelevant and banal that an entry can be so crudely characterised in this way.

Alex Clayton.

:It just doesn't belong here. This is a ''category page'', not an article. All the junk belongs in a [[comedy film]] article, not here. I'm trimming all the content to a single sentence, like categories should have. I'll move the existing content to the [[Talk:Comedy film|Comedy film Talk page]] so anyone who wants to can attempt to integrate it. [[User:Frecklefoot|<nowiki></nowiki>]]&mdash; [[User:Frecklefoot|Frecklefoot]] | [[User talk:Frecklefoot|Talk]] 18:18, August 19, 2005 (UTC)