The Funny Celluloids

Next to noir, comedy is the genre that most excites new indie directors. As in other genres, indie comedy and satire has built upon the work of influential directors: Robert Altman, George Lucas, and Barry Levinson. Quintessential films, such as Altman’s M.A.S.H., Lucas’s American Graffiti, and Levinson’s Diner, have all left a particularly strong mark on indie comedies on the past several decades.


Indie comedies have differed radically from those produced by Hollywood. Mainstream comedies of the 1980s were largely defined by Ivan Reitman, who has shown a knack for commercially viable material. After scoring box-office hits as the co producer of National Lampoon’s Animal House (1978), and the director of Meatballs (1979), Reitman launched a spectacular Hollywood career, capped by the quirky blockbuster, Ghostbusters (1984). When Reitman made Legal Eagles (1986), critics praised his foray into adult comedy, yet the film was still a teenage comedy in feeling, although one populated by adult characters.


American comedies of recent years have been mechanical retreads of old formulas. Filmmakers seem unable to recognize that it’s hard to make screwball comedy these days when the social norms and manners that gave rise to those cinematic conventions no longer exist.

Most American comedies are so broad they are about nothing- take for example a couple of Jim Carrey’s films, Ace Ventura...and its sequel. The distinct sensibility that that permeated American comedy of the 1970s, in the works of Woody Allen, Mike Nichols, and Paul Mazursky, no longer exists. Woody Allen has retained his strength as an inventive comedy director, but he has lost his broad base and now works as a niche filmmaker supported by a small audience.


The work of gifted indie directors has tapped into the zeitgeist, armed with topicality and point of view that defy the mass-marketing approach. Christopher Guest’s style of mockumentary and improvisation, Kevin Smith’s verbal gyrations among the twentysomethings, David O. Russell’s neo-Woody Allen, neurotic tinged comedies, and Alexander Payne’s political satire are all examples of this. Successfully pitching comedies to studios seems like it must be harder than ever, because the conglomerate nature of studios. Studies seem seduced by expensive projects to the point where it sounds like a disgrace to make a movie for only $2 million.

Let’s get back to the character based comedies of the 1970s please.

….and thank you.


Woody Allen