This Video is a short film entitled 'The Red Balloon' (1956) which centres on a balloon which follows a litle boy around Paris. This in my opinion is the greatest short film I have seen and it is a perfect example of the use of an object in cinema. I would like to say how the director managed to get the balloon to follow the child, but I don't know how he and his crew did it, and to be honest, I don't want to know, it would ruin the magic of this wonderful film.
"Comedy is the art of making people laugh without making them puke" Steve Martin
Within this short comedy 'Rupture' I learned the true meaning of using everyday objects as comedy, which was a great inspiration for me. All of Pierre Etaix's films are a must see for any movie fan. Currently I am in pre-production for my own physical comedy which Pierre Etaix is a major inspiration, as well as Jacques Tati which I will discuss in the future.
“Life doesn't make any sense, and we all pretend it does. Comedy's job is to point out that it doesn't make sense, and that it doesn't make much difference anyway.”
While writing comedy requires a lot of creative and intuitive thought, it is also very difficult for performers to act out the screenplay, especially if physical action is required and even more so when it comes to physical comedy. The above video is again 'Duck Soup' (1993) which shows the famous mirror scene. If the Marx brothers hadn't repeated this sketch over and over again in there vaudeville days, then this sketch would have taken months of training to perfect. This scene truly shows how so much physical training is required to make people laugh. And the Marx Brothers act out this scene so well, that it is one of the greatest scenes of comedy history.
"Tragedy is when I cut my finger. Comedy is when you fall into an open sewer and die." Mel Brooks
The link above will take you to a website which shows you an early draft of one of the greatest comedies of all time, 'Duck Soup' (1933). When looking at this screenplay, I found out that it is extremely detailed on almost every single movement that the Marx's brothers make within the film. From reading this screenplay, I learnt that to write a physical or slapstick comedy, one must go into agonising detail to describe each individual action, no matter how small. And even though Groucho Marx was, in my opinion, the funniest man that has ever lived, Jack Ruby did right all of his dialogue for this motion picture...
"Humour heightens our sense of survival and preserves our sanity" Charlie Chaplin
Hello my name is Peter Moir and I am an independent filmmaker. I would classify myself as a Director but I also have skills in various other fields of the media e.g. Photography, Producer, Editor, Cinematographer, Lighting, Set Building, Scriptwriting, and Screenplays. I would eventually like to direct feature length motion pictures of any genre but I have always had a love affair with the 'Western' genre. I also am very interested in acting and it's craft and I also hope to become an actor. Within this blog I will discuss the various projects that I have done and the future projects that I will be completing with a brief on the history of cinema. "Anyone who has ever been privileged to direct a film also knows that, although it can be like trying to write 'War and Peace' in a bumper car in an amusement park, when you finally get it right, there are not many joys in life that can equal the feeling". Stanley Kubrick
