How Does Team America And In Bruges Use Comedy To Make Us Laugh?
In this essay I will be talking about how to do the movies Team America (October 11, 2014, Los Angeles, Trey) and In Bruges (8 February 2008 USA Martin Mcdonagh) and how they use comedy to make the audience laugh. Both of these films include comedic techniques like gags, social situations, gross out and screwball.
Team America is a comedy film with elements of animation and action film where the main character is a Broadway actor and he is recruited by the counter-terrorism organisation that is Team America to defeat the evil dictator Kim Jong Il. The two types of comedy that Team America uses the most is slapstick and gross-out. Team America made $12,120,358 on its opening weekend.
The other film that I will be talking about is In Bruges, which is described as a dark comedy thriller, which also includes elements of drama in it. This film is set in Bruges in Berlin where two hit men have to go into hiding after Ray accidently kills a child. In Bruges made $459.575 on its opening weekend.
Situational comedy is used in both films in different ways, for example, Team America uses situational comedy right from the beginning, this is the scene when the terrorists are attacking Paris, the way in which this is situational comedy is because of the stereotyping they do in the scene, if you look at the floor it is made out of croissants which typically associated with France, they also has characters walking around the Eiffel tower holding baguettes and wearing berries, another scene where they stereotype nationality is where you first see Kim Jong Il and they purposely make his accent more prominent.
Opening Scene Of Team America https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d4cR5mvnFPs
Copyright to Jobatone
Meeting Kim Jon Il
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5TEvacFETvM
Copyright to Erik Fogelström
In Bruges, they’ve used the technique of situational comedy in a different way, they do this by putting the characters in a place that is known to be quite boring and expect them to stay there without getting into trouble, another reason is because the two main characters in the film are polar opposites. Ken is older than ray and therefore just wants to stay at the hotel at night and read where as Ray would rather go out and see the nightlife, but this strikes a conflict with both of them because they are both stuck there due to the orders from their boss harry.
Another comedy technique is gross-out, this is used in Team America when one of the main actors, Gary, was being sick in the alleyway, this is also exaggerated to make it funny.
Alleyway Gary Scene
Copyright to NOshtSHERLOCK25
The target audience for team America is teenage boys because of the immature humour, the idea being that the humour is so absurd that they find it funny. The main theme that is shown in the film is gross-out humour, (1)this type of comedy is used in other films like Borat, Jackass: The Movie and The Hangover.
In Bruges contains a lot of dark humour, it takes on some sensitive issues like suicide and turns them into funny situations, an example is when the ray is about to shoot himself but Ken was to sent to kill him by their boss Harry.
Copyright Focus Features.
An example of slapstick humour in In Bruges is the scene where Ray calls a group of Americans ‘bunch of f**king elephants’ and then the American man tries to punch Ray and then chases him around the square. The way that Team America uses slapstick humour is much more obvious, they tend to use it in the form of fights between characters, an example is the fight between a Team America member and a terrorist, the scene is funny because of the way that they are fighting which can be seen below.
Team America Fight Scene
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BQAACsFAOTY
Copyright to 1994ramone
Another comedy technique is satirical humour, this meaning that you exaggerate things to make people laugh. An example from Team America is when Gary has to dress as a terrorist to spy on the other terrorists they do so by darkening his skin and putting a towel on his head. (2)the films that use this type of comedy are Ali G, Four Lions and Life Of Brian. An example from In Bruges is that they swear repeatedly to make the audience laugh, an example is when Ken and Harry meet up and the word c*nt is repeated to make the situation funny.
Ken and Harry Scene
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xB7BWvD5B5Y
Copyright to ishunlimted’s channel
To conclude this has been an essay on what comedy techniques the films Team America and In Bruges use to make the audience laugh.
Footnotes
1=Other films that use gross-out humour
2= Films that use satirical humour
Acknowledgments
Thank you to Matthew Goyne for the assistants in my classes.
Erin Gaukrodger for the assistants in my classes.
Bibliography
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xB7BWvD5B5Y
Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:British_satirical_films
You Tube:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BQAACsFAOTY
YouTube: https://youtu.be/rjAFSe-UfyY
Appendix
| In Bruges | Team America | |
| Budget | $15 million | $32 million |
| Grossed Opening Day | $125.541 | |
| Grossed Opening Weekend | $459.575 | $12.120.358 |
ARE THE COEN BROTHERS AUTEURS?
In my opinion, I think that the Coen brothers are auteurs. The word auteur means that the director of the film influences so much that they can call themselves the author of a film. The theory of being an auteur is that it depends on the director whether the film is good or not.
The Coen brothers are known for their distinctive stamps that they put on their films, these include things like the types of characters that they use or the themes and issues that they address in their films. Firstly in the Coen brothers films, they break several screenwriting rules, for example in a few of their films bad things happen to the good people and the bad guys, get off clean. Another way that the Coen Brothers put their stamp on the films is the sound effects that they use, in No Country For Old Men (November 9, 2007, USA, Joel David Coen
Ethan Jesse Coen) they use sounds like just the wind blowing, this makes the audience feel isolated, this makes the character also look like he is isolated and alone.
The Coen Brothers also include themes that are in a lot of their films, one of these themes are kidnapping, this takes part in Fargo ( March 8, 1996, USA, Joel Coen, Ethan Coen) when Jerry at the start of the movie he asks Carl to kidnap his wife. The overall theme of characters that are in the Coen Brothers films are that they are trying to understand the absurd world that then live in, this can be reflected in the lengths that Jerry goes to in order to get out of debt. Another convention in the Coen brother films is that it is never really clear which is the hero and which is the villain.
The Auteur Theory is something that started from the enthusiasts who wrote for Cahiers du Cinéma and argued that films should reflect a director’s personal vision. This meaning it’s always down to the director whether it’s a good film or not. Andrew Sarris is a well-known film critic in America who says that to be an auteur you need to have technical competence, personality and interior meaning. I think the Coen Brothers have technical competence because of the way that they film, most scenes in their films are lengthy because Coen Brothers think that they should show what would really happen in real life. Additionally, I think that they have a personality in their films, they demonstrate this through the characters that they use, in several of these films they have one character that is referred to as the ‘motor mouth’, this character can be found in films like The Big Lebowski and Fargo. Lastly I think the Coen Brothers have interior meaning because at the ending of their films they always seem to have a moral to the story, more often than not it is the same moral which is that if you do bad things you will get away with it and if you do good things bad things will happen to you. For example in both Fargo A
Another big factor in the Coen brother films is dialogue, a distinctive characteristic of the films is the accent, which in most of their films is southern American, this is because the films are set in southern America. Another characteristic is that the villains tend to swear a lot. Here is an example Carl Showalter: ‘I am through fuckin’ around here! Drop that fuckin’ briefcase!’. I think this is because the villains are generally very angry in the mood.
Video Game Cover Analysis
Call Of Duty
This video game cover is very stereotypical of a game that is aimed at boys, one of these stereotypes is having a face of a man who is clearly masculine and is clearly in the army due to his clothing, this is stereotype because everyman who is seen to be in the army is seen to bed very manly and a strong figure
FIFA 14
•Grand Theft Auto V
•This poster represents elements of violence in the game because they are holding weapons
•The font for the title is the same as all the other GTA games, this will be easily recognised by the customers.
•In the letter ‘V’ it is the same colour as American dollars which suggests there is an element of money in the game.
Grand Theft Auto V
- This poster represents elements of violence in the game because they are holding weapons
Initial Game Cover Design
Final Game Cover Design
TV Guide
http://jackseville1997.wix.com/763media#!who_we_are/c1enr
Book Cover
http://jackseville1997.wix.com/763media#!book-cover-ideas-/c20au
Analysis
The way I have shown representation in my work is firstly on my book cover, I have used very neutral hands to hold the utensils in this graphic, In this I was trying the convey the message of that any gender can be a good cook.
In my second piece of work my Game cover, becuase the theme of my game was Game Of Thrones, in the centre, I placed one of the strong male leads from the programme.
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