What a wonderful thread! Feel sorry for rochette though! I just finished watching A Hard Days Night, from the time when they were the greatest beat band in the world!
I had my headphones on very loud, so I picked up most of the funny/Un funniness this time, and I had a blast! Im Swede and I know this type of care free nonsense absurdist humour since childhood, although I didnt watch this particular movie until I was teenager! (I was 6 when they showed Monty Pythons Flying Circusss on TV!)--- I was squeeking and laughed like a nutcase most of the time!
But I think the Ringo´s solo stroll scene is very touching, not only with all the mishaps and attacking polices everywhere (haha, poor guy!), but also, as he meet the young guy who ditched school. That was so cool, the boy didnt recognice who the man was, so they both could enjoy each others company for a little while! And Ringo, as any celebraty who barely can move outdoors without getting fans chasing you, he could now relax and just be cool together with that boy. Nice!
But in the beginning of the film, during the Title song, when the fab four is chased by fans on the street, we see (I think!) George really falls on the sidewalk, dragging another Beatle with him and a small domino effect occurs, which make them not holding back laughter. THAT WASNT REHEARSED! They took that shot for the movie and that was great!
Wonderful with a comedy with no traditionally "real" jokes and with great music, and the four guys look very handsome actually!
I think, (if rochelle is still with us), that this kind of humour which sprang from Peter Cook, Marty Feldman and others in UK, was the beginning of the so called "sick humour", which you could find in the MAD magazine in the 60´s (American though, so its not exactly the same, or?). Its anarchic standpoint was to break away fromn the traditional comedy with slapstick and funny lines which satisfie people who expects a joke during the lines. Although I dont get some of the funny meanings of some lines in A Hard Days Night, I know that much (If you say Im wrong Im gonna drown myself), that its majority of "fun", comes not from the words or lines, but whats in between them! The weirdness to hear such speaking in that particular situation, the unfunness which goes overboard in some parallell universe (Oh, boy, this was not easy to explain), the lines which are expressed in a way or a feeling that doesnt fit that very line, to do and say what is least expected etc...With this, I think its also a kind of sophistication of very childlike humour, and it works when you play with your little child, games like this! Spontane and impulsive! Maybe its a comical language that talks more to the uncounsciesness..I better quit now, I think Im getting lost in my own thinking, hhahahahaha!
Marx Bro´s did this too, and it seems to be a sort of timeless kind of humour, for people who find happiness in chaos, anarchy!
Right?
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xenatikkanen-1
11 years ago
Oh yes, when I talked about the different influences, I really forgot about Mel Brooks and Marty Feldman. Just watching Young Frankenstein or History of the World Part I - so many hilarious moments.
Screws fall out all the time; the world's an imperfect place.
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