Burlesque

Literature

In the traditional French literature, the burlesque one proceeds of a shift between size and smallness. The theater of Molière frequently resorts to the burlesque one. The burlesque one is born thus from the shift between the comic one and the lyric one or the tragedy or pathetic. As example the many tirades of Arnolphe appear (the School of the women, 1662, of Molière) which employs the lexical field of the love (“in love heat”) with an aspiration with the nobility of the feelings and which, at the same time, is turned into ridiculous by the commonplace of its préocupations (the woman is only one object “married to half”). The public attends the revelation of the two facets of the character, suggesting the ridiculous one, the burlesque one.

Alive arts

In alive arts, in particular with the circus (19th century), the burlesque spectacle is comic surprise (a woman attacks a man sexually) and excess, often slightly raccolor.

Cinema

The burlesque one is a cinematographic kind adapted of the light comedy and typical of the dumb era (Charlot, Harold Lloyd, Buster Keaton) of the Années 1910 with 1930 but there not being confined: certain films of Jacques Tati, Pierre Richard or of Jackie Chan can completely be described like primarily burlesques.

Style and the tone

The burlesque one makes laugh thanks to comic absurdity and the irrational one. Exceptional occurrences do not cease making irruption without reason in the daily newspaper. Coherence forever time to settle.

Burlesque is called also slapstick, literally “blow of stick”. Stripped of psychological logic, the gag rests on a comic physics and violent one. It shows falls, brawls, continuations, shocks… The bodies as the objects are maltreated. The general tone is that of the provocation and of the caricature, “Keystone Kops” indicates the caricature of stupid police officers who continue the hero.

Treatment

The burlesque one escapes the rules from the traditional narration. It consists of a succession of gags which enjoy each one of a perfect autonomy and which do not fit in a total narrative strategy. Especially in the short films, the history constitutes a pretext for the connection between the gags.

One of the bases of comic burlesque resides in the rate/rhythm. That Ci results from the timing in the play of the actor (good gesture at the good moment) and of the assembly. The short films are often frantic. The feature-length films, on the contrary, install necessarily times of pause. They make alternate accelerations and moment of respite. The rate/rhythm is measured more there. The full use of broad plans puts in of value the decoration, the objects and the characters whom one sees delivered to themselves and to enter in conflicts.

Manufacture

There exists a true repertory of gags from which realizers and actors draw all kinds of comic ideas. It frequently happens that a gag passes from a film to another. The burlesque film rests to a large extent on the personality of the actor who imposes a style, a profile of character and constitutes the high-speed motorboat. When it is not itself the director, the actor takes part in the development of the scenario and the design of the setting in scene. The slapstick is often a collective work.

The burlesque one finds its origin in the theatrical tradition of commedia LED' arte and the variety, tradition from which it borrows the practice of the improvisation bringing a particular freshness, spontaneousness and an energy.

The feature-length films, more built and thought, grant less place to the improvisation and privilege the adjustment and the precision.

Some artists of the burlesque one

Mack Sennett (1880-1960), Québécois founder of the Keystone.
Charles Chaplin (1895-1966)
Buster Keaton (1895-1966)
Stan Laurel (1890-1965) and Oliver Hardy (1892-1957)
Harold Lloyd (1893-1971)
max Linder (1883-1925) French actor and realizer.
Harry Langdon (1884-1944)
Mel Brooks (1930-)

See too

New burlesque

burlesque

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