I found myself torn between Crafton and Gunning’s differing conceptions of gags in relation to narratives in terms of what made most sense to me and what felt right. Thankfully, my long career in the humanities has taught me that what always feels right is picking the side of “both, but also neither”.
The repeat cut of Lancelot running from Monty Python and The Holy Grail fits into Crafton’s conception well, as this scene abandons linearity and continuity through its editing: “rather than providing knowledge, slapstick misdirects the viewer’s attention, and obfuscates the linearity of cause-effect relations” (Crafton 119). It is hard to see how this gag is “contained” by the narrative, as it foregoes any development in order to reproduce itself. However, as Gunning writes about another gag based on “progression ad absurdum“: these gags are not non-narrative , but rather they are rooted in “their adoption of narrative’s form of logical anticipation, and then their subversion of it” (Gunning 121). Through this lens, the gag’s withholding of a logical payoff cannot be nonnarrative as it is built on the audience’s preconceived expectations of narrative.
I thought of this gag in particular because of how its editing makes it feel as though the joke is non-diegetic. However, with Holy Grail‘s fourth wall being as thin as it is (a montage of such breaks/looseness), this repeat cut’s rupture in continuity and linearity does not mean a rupture in the narrative: the scene intercuts with the guards nonchalant reactions to the repeated approach. In Holy Grail‘s diegesis, these gags are “contained” and “recovered”, yet both filmmaker and audience are aware that the narrative is holding on only so.
I think me being torn stems from how little extra-/meta-textual consideration there is from both authors. How people make, consume, and enjoy gags is as much based in narrative as it is in larger comedic, cinematic, and social expectations. With this in mind, I’ll quit my yapping with the fence-jumping gags from Edgar Wright’s films. These scenes are at once narratively “integrated” as vignettes of these characters, but, if the audience is aware of the self-reference, the later rendition can be separated from its diegetic context and understood meta-textually. The logic the gag plays on is flexible, open to both narrative and a non-/meta-narrative readings.
Though, if my long career in the humanities has taught me anything else, it is to be wary of narratives, regardless of its prefixes.
–
Bib:
Donald Crafton, ‘Pie and Chase: Gag, Spectacle and Narrative in Slapstick Comedy’ and Tom Gunning, ‘Response to “Pie and Chase”’, In Classical Hollywood Comedy, ed. Karnick and Jenkins (Los Angeles, 1995).
https://youtu.be/gHdDxKy2QW0?si=XklQB4waP4rnXTbH, https://youtu.be/lWHRqtBem9I?si=Dxpv36TT84pSSCLL, https://youtu.be/6qbl3aUdgFI?si=1x_-DK8gDmU6Hs1D
This was a great analysis of Crafton’s chapter and use of examples to support the discourse. Your perspectives are very interesting and insightful!
I like how you managed to find two suitable examples (I can barely think of one myself) of gags that are based on principles of surprise, as described by Gunning
I think the use of Monty Python is so fitting in this instance, especially as each of those movies essentially consist of a sequence of loosely-related gags; as you state, they can’t be a distraction from the narrative if it is aware of the audience’s preconceptions of narrative structure and is playing with them on purpose.
Monty Python and the Holy Grail is such a good example of these concepts. The film’s ability to embrace its absurdity, enable its jokes and gags to drive its narrative and define its comedic qualities.