Comedy is a genre of film in which the main emphasis is on humor. These films are designed to make the audience laugh through amusement and most often work by exaggerating characteristics for humorous effect. Films in this style traditionally have a happy ending (black comedy being an exception). One of the oldest genres in film, some of the very first silent movies were comedies, as slapstick comedy often relies on visual depictions, without requiring sound. When sound films became more prevalent during the 1920s, comedy films took another swing, as laughter could result from burlesque situations but also dialogue. Comedy, compared with other film genres, puts much more focus on individual stars, with many former stand-up comics transitioning to the film industry due to their popularity. While many comic films are lighthearted stories with no intent other than to amuse, others contain political or social commentary (such as The King of Comedy and Wag the Dog).
I want to write a comedy... Does anyone know if there is a school that teaches comedy writing?
No matter how slow the film, Spirit always stands still long enough for the photographer it has chosen.
The difference between fiction and reality? Fiction has to make sense
To young actor. Eugene Roach on the subject of acting
Don't ever let 'em catch you at it.
Who the hell wants to hear actors talk?
I think there is a world market for maybe five computers.
I can't wait to one day shoot in Detroit and say 'Let's have this double for Toronto'.
While attending a Production Meeting
This is no place to ask questions!!
Sage Advise to a Young Oregonian, Barbara Niven
If you want to make it in show business, get the hell out of Oregon!
Life ain't no dress rehearsal.
No passion in the world is equal to the passion to alter someone else's draft.
The faster I write the better my output. If I'm going slow I'm in trouble. It means I'm pushing the words instead of being pulled by them.
When asked what he thought of William Shakespeare
I'll moider da bum!
From: "Tuesday's with Morrie"
We must learn to love one another or die.... We must!
Seeing a murder on television, can help work off one's antagonisms.
And if you haven't any antagonisms, the commercials will give you some!
When you're down and out, something always turns up -- and it's usually the noses of your friends.
Television enables you to be entertained in your home by people you wouldn't have in your home.
The difference between sex and love is that sex relieves tension and love causes it.
I must say that I find television very educational. The minute somebody turns it on, I go to the library and read a book.
Writing is the only profession where no one considers you ridiculous if you earn no money.
The embarrassing thing is that the salad dressing is outgrossing my films.
Do, or do not. - There is no 'try'..
The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and, if they can't find them, make them!
Our doubts are traitors and make us lose the good we oft might win by favoring to attempt.
I saw a woman wearing a sweatshirt with 'Guess' on it.
I said, Thyroid problem?
I don't want to achieve immortality through my work; I want to achieve immortality through not dying.
Knowledge speaks, but wisdom listens.
You don't write because you want to say something; you write because you've got something to say.
Television has done much for psychiatry by spreading information about it, as well as contributing to the need for it.
I don't know anything about music. In my line you don't have to.
All I need to make a comedy is a park, a policeman and a pretty girl.
I'll give you a definite maybe.
My mother never saw the irony in calling me a son-of-a-bitch.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic
The world is a fine place and worth the fighting for and I hate very much to leave it.
The movies are the only business where you can go out front and applaud yourself.
It's kind of fun to do the impossible.
Kiss and make up...
but too much makeup has ruined many a kiss.
Imitation is the sincerest form of television.
I never forget a face, but in your case I'll be glad to make an exception.
The problem is not that television presents us with entertaining subject matter,
but, that all subject matter is presented as entertaining.…
The one function TV news performs very well is that when there is no news we give it to you with the same emphasis as if there were.
Why should people go out and pay to see bad films when they can stay at home and see bad television for nothing?
The remarkable thing about television is that it permits several million people to laugh at the same joke and still feel lonely.
From the moment I picked your book up until I laid it down I was convulsed with laughter. Some day I intend reading it.
Advise to a young Richard Roundtree
Whatever you do in this business, It's much easier than lifting heavy things.
Women might be able to fake orgasms. But men can fake whole relationships.
The problem with television is that the people must sit and keep their eyes glued on a screen; the average American family hasn’t time for it. Therefore, the showmen are…
The camera makes everyone a tourist in other people's reality, and eventually in one's own.
It is difficult to produce a television documentary that is both incisive and probing when every twelve minutes one is interrupted by twelve dancing rabbits singing about toilet paper.
What's this business of being a writer?
It's just putting one word after another.
Sometimes a scream is better than a thesis.
