Knowra Comedy film Comedy film A film genre designed to amuse through humorous situations, dialogue, characters, or visual gags. Its stories often use exaggeration, surprise, and social incongruity to produce laughter.
Slapstick : Physical comedy built around exaggerated movement, accidents, and bodily mishaps. Its falls, chases, and collisions make physical action itself the joke.
Incongruity theory : A theory that humor arises when an expectation is disrupted by an unexpected idea or event. Many film jokes depend on a setup that collides with an unforeseen payoff.
Commedia dell'arte : An Italian theatrical tradition of improvised comedy built around stock characters and scenarios. Its masks, character types, and physical play fed later comic performance traditions.
Drama film : A film genre focused on emotionally serious conflicts and character relationships. Comedy and drama differ in emphasis, though films can combine both modes.
Satire : Humor that exposes or criticizes folly, hypocrisy, or abuse through ridicule and irony. Satirical comedy turns its jokes toward social institutions, public figures, or shared beliefs.
Comic timing : The control of pauses, pacing, and emphasis to strengthen a comic effect. A pause or delayed reaction can turn the same line into a stronger joke.
Vaudeville : A popular form of live entertainment featuring varied short acts, including comedy, music, and acrobatics. Vaudeville performers and routines helped supply early cinema with comic material.
Tragedy : A dramatic form in which serious conflict leads to suffering or a disastrous outcome. Its movement toward loss contrasts with comedy's usual resolution of disruptions.
Parody : An imitation of a recognizable work, style, or genre that exaggerates its features for comic effect. Parody makes familiar film conventions funny by copying and distorting them.
Punch line : The concluding part of a joke that delivers its surprise or comic turn. Dialogue-driven scenes often build toward a final verbal reversal.
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