CINEMA IN ENGLISH

This English-taught course is part of the JOINT DEGREE IN ENGLISH AND AMERICAN STUDIES, an international educational programme, which offers motivated students the opportunity to attend some courses at a foreign partner university.

At the end of the course students will be able to think, read and write critically about films and their relationship with theories about humour and comedy. They will also have acquired a good knowledge of the salient features of British society between the 1980s and the 2020s.

Advanced knowledge of oral and written English (≥ C1).

DEAD PARROTS, UPSTART CROWS & CRINGE FLEABAGS. COMEDY AND HUMOUR ON THE ENGLISH SCREENS

In this course we will look at British films, tv series, programs, sketches created to make people laugh, smile, and sometimes reflect. We will start from an overview of theories of comedy and humour, with specific emphasis on the English cultural tradition(s). Our time frame will cover exactly fifty years: from 1969, the year of Ken Loach's *Kes* and Monty Python’s Dead Parrot sketch, to 2019, the year of Fleabag’s last episode. We will cut our teeth on Shakespeare and consider if and how his comedies still speak to us (and wonder: who is us?). *Much Ado About Nothing* will be our case study of Shakespeare’s 1990s revival spurred by director and actor Kenneth Branagh. To be or not to be … offended with Monty Python's *Life of Brian*? This religious and political satire will be our stress test of the relationship between humour, collective and individual sensibility. We will then move to mainstream British comedy, looking at working class plots (courtesy of Mike Leigh and Ken Loach) and middle- and upper-class stories (with Charles Crichton and Mike Newell). In our next segment, Britain goes postcolonial with the TV satire of *Goodness Gracious Me* and Christopher Morris’s film *Four Lions*. In this overwhelmingly male canon – one issue we are definitely going to discuss! – we jubilantly conclude with the caustic humour of Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s *Fleabag*, representing the brave new world of streaming television. Within this main narrative, there will be occasional digressions featuring Mr. Bean and David Mitchell’s Shakespeare, and other more or less familiar faces, including ones that you younger students will want to bring to the attention of a middle-aged professor. Sure we will take everything very seriously, so be prepared to work hard. (BTW – King Charles III will also make an appearance).

FILMOGRAPHY

MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING, dir. Kenneth Branagh
MONTY PYTHON'S LIFE OF BRIAN, dir. Terry Jones
KES, dir. Ken Loach
HIGH HOPES, dir. Mike Leigh
A FISH CALLED WANDA, dir. Charles Crichton
FOUR WEDDING AND A FUNERAL, dir. Mike Newell
FOUR LIONS, dir. Christopher Morris
FLEABAG, Phoebe Waller-Bridge
Selected episodes from MONTY PYTHON’S FLYING CIRCUS, MR. BEAN, GOODNESS GRACIOUS ME, UPSTART CROW


BIBLIOGRAPHY

Michael Wood, FILM: A VERY SHORT INTRODUCTION, Oxford University Press, 2012.
Noël Carroll, HUMOUR: A VERY SHORT INTRODUCTION, Oxford University Press, 2014.
Other critical essays available on the Moodle page

A final, 2-hour-long written exam with questions about all the assigned films and the critical texts.

Lectures, screenings, and class discussion. It will be mandatory for students to watch the assigned films and read the assigned texts before class.

English

written

This subject deals with topics related to the macro-area "Poverty and inequalities" and contributes to the achievement of one or more goals of U. N. Agenda for Sustainable Development