Wednesday, April 2, 2008

romantic comedies vs. screwball

Telling the difference from romantic and screwball comedies isn´t all that challenging. In Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind we saw ¨relations¨ that would have never occured in a screwball. The quick witted responses in His Girl Friday were in place of ¨relations¨ that couldn´t be shown on screen (or anywhere for that matter) durrin the time period. Screwball comedies are all about leading you on to believe rather than assuring the facts visually as in a romantic comedy. As for the debate over if screwballs were a genre only existant durring the time period of the 40s and early 50s I´m really not all that sure, and honestly don´t care. The classification of a movie doesn´t determine its greatness. When it comes down to which I prefer its screwball hands down. With romantic comedies they´re either totally predictable or when they throw you for a loop and don´t have everything be happily ever after you´re left disappointed. Screwball comedies on the other hand are less predictable and no matter what happens whether you´re left disappointed or not it at least gave you the chance to think. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind was really great in an odd way but I wouldn´t classify it as romantic comedy because it was far to dark and complex. Romantic comedies are all about knowing the ending from the very begining, which didn´t happen. Only a dickheaded concided genius like Stephen Hawkins could claim to know what was going on, but nobody cares about him because hes a total dickhead.

No comments: