The Palgrave Handbook of Music in Comedy Cinema

This handbook tackles the understudied relationship between music and comedy cinema by analysing the nature, perception, and function of music from fresh perspectives. Its approach is not only multidisciplinary, but also interdisciplinary in its close examination of how music and other cinematic devices interact in the creation of comedy. The volume addresses gender representation, national identities, stylistic strategies, and employs inputs from cultural studies, musicology, music theory, psychology, cognitivism, semiotics, formal and stylistic film analysis, and psychoanalysis. It is organised in four sections: general introductions, theoretical investigations, music and comedy within national cinemas, and exemplary case studies of films or authors.

FRONT MATTER:

Table of Contents

List of Figures

List of Tables

K. J. Donnelly (University of Southampton, UK)

Foreword

Preface. About This Handbook: Rationale, Organisation, and Contents 

MAIN BODY:

PART I: General Introductions

1. Emilio Audissino (Linnaeus University, Sweden)

From Dionysia to Hollywood: An Introduction to Comedy’s Long (and Bumpy) Road

2. Arthur Asa Berger (San Francisco State University, USA)

Humorous Techniques in Comedic Narratives

Scoring Laughs: A Meditation on Music and Mirth

PART II: THEORETICAL APPROACHES AND ANALYSIS OF DEVICES

4. Tom Schneller (Independent Scholar, USA) 

Audiovisual Parallelism and Counterpoint as Strategies of Musical Humour

5. Miguel Mera (City University, London, UK)

The Audiovisual Architecture of Musical Pauses, Punchlines, and Jablines: Paddington’s Punctuation

6. Marcel Bouvrie (Utrecht University, The Netherlands)

The Self-Aware Soundtrack: Film Music as a Metaleptic Device in Comedy Film

7. Rebecca Fülöp (University of British Columbia, Canada)

‘She’s a babe… SCHWING!’: Feminine Spectacle and Parody in Comedy Film Scoring

8. Nick Braae (Waikato Institute of Technology, Hamilton, New Zealand)

Pop-Rock Authenticity, Intertextuality, and Humour in the Films of Adam McKay and Will Ferrell

9. Catherine Haworth (University of Huddersfield, UK) 

‘The Man for His Time and Place.’ Identity, Musical Comedy, and the Compiled Soundtrack in The Big Lebowski

10. Paul Labelle (University of Bonn, Germany)

Mozart in the Kitchen. Musical Reference and the Crisis of Action in Last Action Hero

11. David Ireland (University of Leeds, UK)

‘The Music Shouldn’t Acknowledge Any of the Jokes.’ Audiovisual Incongruence and the Functions of Music in Contemporary Dark Comedy Films

12. Matt Lawson (Oxford Brookes University, UK)

Seriously Funny Music: The Use of Serious Music for Comedic Effect

13. Andrew Simmons (City University, London, UK) 

DJ, Interrupted: Delivering Punchlines with a Record Scratch

14. James Wierzbicki (University of Sydney, Australia)

On Being ‘In the Know’: When Classical Music Gets Played for Laughs

PART III: MUSIC AND COMEDY WITHIN NATIONAL CINEMAS

15. Mervyn Cooke (University of Nottingham, UK)  

Carry On Regardless: The Musical Humour of Eric Rogers

16. John O’Flynn (Dublin City University, Ireland) 

Musical-Comedic Stereotypes and Cinema. A Case Study of Irish-themed Features, 1946-1952 

17. Roberto Calabretto (University of Udine, Italy) 

The Paladin of Italian Comedy. Totò and Music

18. Ingeborg Zechner (University of Graz, Austria)  

Mocking Sound: Das Kabinett des Dr. Larifari (1930) as a Parody of Early German Sound Film

Marie-Hélène Chevrier (University of Strasbourg, France) 

‘Hubert, you are sooo… French!’: Musical Pastiche and Parody in Michel Hazanavicius’ Espionage Comedy Films OSS 117 (2006, 2009)

20. Laura Miranda (University of Oviedo, Spain) 

From Imperio to Lola: Mapping Comedy in the Tradition of Spanish Folkloric Musicals (1930-1960)

21. Peter Kupfer (Southern Methodist University, Dallas, TX, USA) 

We Can Sing and Laugh Like Children: Music as Comedy in the Film Musicals of Grigorij Aleksandrov and Isaak Dunaevskij

22. Ann-Kristin Wallengren (Lund University, Sweden) 

Playing with Borders. Film Music and Social Criticism in Swedish Comedies by Hasse and Tage

Harassing Hogwash Scored with Happy Hardcore: The Ruthless Humour of the Dutch New Kids Films

24. Jingyi Zhang (Harvard University, USA) 

On and Beyond Mickey-Mousing: Revisiting Yuan Muzhi’s Scenes of City Life (1935)

25. Emaeyak Peter Sylvanus (University of Nigeria, Nsukka, Nigeria) 

Overview of Music in Nollywood Comedy Cinema

26. Gregory D. Booth (University of Auckland, New Zealand) 

Comedy and Parody in the Songs of the Hindi Cinema 

27. Alexander Binns (University of Hull, UK) 

Parody, Commentary, Subversion: Music in Japanese Comedy Cinema

28. Nathan Platte (University of Iowa, USA) 

Music for Tricksters and Music as Trickster in the Classical Hollywood Score

PART IV: COMPOSERS, STYLES, AND CORPUS STUDIES

The Joke’s on You: Puns and Punchlines in the Music of the Marx Brothers

30. Jim Lochner (Independent Scholar, USA)  

‘Valse Elegante’: The Comedic Film Music of Charlie Chaplin

31. Anna Stoll Knecht (Swiss National Science Foundation, Switzerland) 

Jacques Tati and the Musical Construction of the Comedic

32. Paul Mazey (Independent Scholar, UK) 

Music for Low Comedy and High Romance: Malcolm Arnold’s Score for Hobson’s Choice (David Lean, 1954)

33. Joakim Tillman (Stockholm University, Sweden) 

The New King of Comedy: Theodore Shapiro and the New Millennial Comedy Score

34. Raymond Knapp (University of California, Los Angeles, USA) 

‘Cut it Out, Cricket’: Affective Management through Diegetic Music and Song in Howard Hawks’s Comedies and Comic Dramas

35. Lindsay Carter (University of Bristol, UK) 

Music, Satire, and Smutna Comedy in the Zbigniew Preisner-Krzysztof Kieslowski Collaborations

36. Michael Baumgartner (Cleveland State University, USA)  

Louis de Funès as Gendarme: Comic Incongruity and Self-Reflexive Music in the Golden Age of French Comedies (1964–80)

37. Ronald Sadoff (New York University, USA) 

Songs and Scores in the Films of Mel Brooks: The Collaboration with John Morris

38. James Deaville (Carlton University, CA)

Taking Mancini’s Comedy Scores Seriously

39. Franco Sciannameo (Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, USA) 

Ennio Morricone’s Music for La Cage aux folles (1978)

40. Emilio Audissino (Linnaeus University, Sweden)  

Chloé Huvet (École Normale Supérieure de Lyon, France) 

Irony, Comic, and Humour. The Comedic Sides of John Williams

41. Emile Wennekes (Utrecht University, The Netherlands)

Jocular Juxtapositions, Parody, and Ludicrous Lyrics. Music in Monty Python’s Comedy Films

42. Alexander Binns (University of Hull, UK) 

END MATTER:

Mark Slobin (Wesleyan University, USA)

Afterword

Index

Emilio Audissino is Associate Professor at Linnaeus University, Sweden. His research interests are film and television history; audio-visual style and techniques; screenwriting; neo formalist film analysis; comedy; horror; and sound and music in media. Notably, he is the author of The Film Music of John Williams. Reviving Hollywood’s Classical Style (2021/2014) and of Film/Music Analysis. A Film Studies Approach (2017).

Emile Wennekes is Chair Professor of Musicology: Music and Media at Utrecht University, The Netherlands. He is the author of multiple books and edited volumes, as well as some hundred scholarly book chapters, articles, and conference presentations. Among his most recent publications are two co-edited books entitled Advances in Speech and Music Technology (2021; 2023 – with a.o. Anupam Biswas). Wennekes chairs the Study Group Music and Media (MaM) of the International Musicological Society. Previously, Audissino and Wennekes edited the volume Cinema Changes: Incorporation of Jazz in the Film Soundtrack (2019).