It’s not funny! – On Wes Anderson’s comedy and genre hybridizations

Abstract

Wes Anderson is, arguably, the greatest heir to the traditional American comic genre in its different manifestations. Starting with the profound influence of the masters of comedy of the silent era, Buster Keaton and Charles Chaplin, Andersonian comedy also lines up with the works of masters of classical American Comedy such as Frank Capra, George Cuckor, Ernst Lubitsch, Billy Wilder or Preston Sturges, up to the existentialist tone of some of Woody Allen’s comedies. The present contribution analyses, from the perspective of the History of Cinema, the way in which Andersonian comedy draws on this long tradition, crystalizing in the coalescence of up to five comic subtypes: deadpan humour, slapstick, screwball comedy, verbal humour and parody. The latter is of particular significance, since it is the key to the hybridization of cinematic genres that is one of the traits of Anderson’s playful and postmodern approach as a postmodern auteur. Thus, the second part of the article will explore the genre hybridizations through which the Texan filmmaker resignifies the usual meaning of traditional genre conventions, often for the purpose of achieving a very particular comic effect.