End of the line for the British film comedy?

[john audley]

It is clear we shall not agree on this point of issue but like so many 'liberal' minds
you miss the point! Gore, as you put it, is totally unpalatable too and Raiders was successful because of the old fashioned script approach i.e., 'the ludicrous stupidity'.
It would have made just has much money without the gore from the plane but on the other hand everyone knows it was nonsense fun. So was Where Eagles Dare with 1000 machine gunned Germans.
Not so with gratuitous nasty stuff that is so realistic that it will not fill cinemas the same.
I still say that your quoted film would have done even better if it had appealed to the
majority with better taste buds. I still claim they are the majority otherwise there is no hope for the film industry or even mankind itself
Art should enrich the mind.

[Cheeky Bob]

Originally Posted by john audley It is clear we shall not agree on this point of issue but like so many 'liberal' minds you miss the point! Gore, as you put it, is totally unpalatable too

Well, clearly it isn't because Raiders of the Lost Ark - your own, copiously gore-drenched example - was one of the most successful films of all time. As was Jaws before it.

and Raiders was successful because of the old fashioned script approach i.e., 'the ludicrous stupidity'.

Well, a decent script helped, but the fact that it was an expertly-constructed thrill-ride was the main reason for its success.

It would have made just has much money without the gore from the plane but on the other hand everyone knows it was nonsense fun.

As were Carry On films, innuendo and all - which is why, until the very end of the cycle, the BBFC made a point of only giving them U or A certificates, admitting all ages.

Not so with gratuitous nasty stuff that is so realistic that it will not fill cinemas the same.

What, like that well-known box-office calamity Shaun of the Dead?

I still say that your quoted film would have done even better if it had appealed to the majority with better taste buds.

Er... how?

The whole comedic POINT of Borat was that the character existed to expose virulent bigotry or contradictory attitudes caused by unthinking political correctness. Sacha Baron Cohen targeted bigots by wholeheartedly agreeing with them and then proposing even more extreme views, with the usually successful aim of pushing them onto such a plane of absurdity that the people he was talking to become figures of fun. And he targeted the overly PC by behaving so outrageously and offensively as to challenge their ingrained views that we should always invariably respect the culture of darker-skinned foreigners, regardless of how disgusting their beliefs might be.

That's precisely why it garnered such good reviews and support from people who normally wouldn't be seen dead attending a gross-out comedy, and why it was a mammoth hit beyond its producers' wildest dreams. And also why it was so gut-bustingly funny, because of this constant tension between Borat and his interlocutors. Take away that tension, which would be the inevitable side-effect of what you're proposing and the humour fizzles out - and so does the film.

Note that I'm not saying that all films should be like Borat - for various reasons I think that would be a very bad idea indeed. But I would absolutely defend the right of that and similar films to be outrageous and offensive, as this in itself can generate worthwhile satirical points.

Chris Morris's brilliant Brass Eye is an equally good example, and the 2001 paedophile special is one of the greatest pieces of satire of the last decade - and genuine satire, in the original Swiftian sense of the term. Again, milder, more tasteful humour would have failed to make a valid point, as Morris was responding to a situation so extreme (the ludicrous tabloid hysteria of summer 2000) that it demanded a similarly over-the-top response.

I still claim they are the majority otherwise there is no hope for the film industry or even mankind itself

Going from the evidence of the surviving plays, the Elizabethans' taste wasn't that far removed from ours. We still seem to be around five centuries later.

Art should enrich the mind.

And entertainment should entertain - we're talking about British comedies, remember? In fact, it's when they self-consciously try to aspire to art that they usually end up clattering loudly between two stools.

[john audley]

Cheeky Bob
But, Jews was probably an accurate portrayal of how a 30ft shark would behave. The public would know what to expect from the beach if told the true, the point of the first half being that the truth was held from the public and a mother slapped the policeman's face.
The publicity was accurate and the paying public knew what to expect from the film and there was no unnecessary violence or language, both would have made the film less commercial (in my view)
The Carry Ons got worse and worse until they were totally unpalatable to a family audience - they died.

The old cinemas (full) seated two thousands maybe three thousands (there were also many thousands of cinemas)

Did Borat HAVE to be so unpalatable to make a sensible point as you put it?

The targeting of 'bigots' can become dangerous ground if it is scripted by one person - it becomes that persons opinion to shape and HE/SHE could be a bigot!
I would stick with the truth - it is bad enough.

The middle ages were terrible but the year 2008 is many times worse.

Good comedy is a fine art form - lavatory humour is guttural.

[Cheeky Bob]

Originally Posted by john audley Cheeky Bob But, Jews was probably an accurate portrayal of how a 30ft shark would behave.

That's a glorious Freudian slip! But it's inspired me to cite another Steven Spielberg example - given that audiences in certain US inner cities were reportedly whooping and cheering at the killings in Schindler's List, do you think they should have been toned down? Or do you accept that an artist shouldn't be held responsible if a small section of the audience fails to get the point?

The Carry Ons got worse and worse until they were totally unpalatable to a family audience - they died.

That's because the "family audience" had migrated to television, where the older Carry On films were screened regularly by the 1970s. And it is a deeply embarrassing but nonetheless entirely true historical fact that On the Buses and Confessions of a Window Cleaner were the two biggest domestic hits of 1971 and 1974. There were plenty of family films being made at the time too - so why, given your claim that that's what audiences really wanted, did they not flock to those instead?

The old cinemas (full) seated two thousands maybe three thousands (there were also many thousands of cinemas)

Yes, because prior to the early 1950s the cinema was the dominant mass medium. But television took over that function, which is when audiences started to plunge and cinemas either twinned and tripled or threw in the towel and begame bingo halls. However, this had nothing whatever to do with increasing amounts of filth in comedies - the BBFC didn't start letting that through in significant amounts until the late 1960s, by which time the cinema had been in decline for a decade and a half.

Did Borat HAVE to be so unpalatable to make a sensible point as you put it?

Yes, because the whole point was that what he did and said should have been unpalatable by any rational standard of civilised behaviour, and yet people tolerated it. And the question the film was asking pretty much throughout was "why?"

The targeting of 'bigots' can become dangerous ground if it is scripted by one person - it becomes that persons opinion to shape and HE/SHE could be a bigot!

Indeed, but this hypothetical bigoted screenwriter then has to go out and rustle up funds, a cast and a crew to make the film. Which is why you don't get many genuinely bigoted films outside the camcorder-toting Youtube-distributed lunatic fringe. So it's not something that I'm overly concerned about in this particular medium.

True, some very very stupid people took Borat's comments at face value and interpreted the film as being anti-Semitic, which rather ignored (a) the context made it obvious that the Jew-baiting was clearly designed to expose, not endorse, racism, and (b) the fact that when Borat spoke 'Kazakh', he was in fact speaking Hebrew - in other words, sending a coded message to genuine Jews (as opposed to those who merely took offence on their behalf) that he was one of them.

I would stick with the truth - it is bad enough.

But that's exactly what Sacha Baron Cohen was trying to expose. And his film is a lot more truthful than most comedies, in that the attitudes it reveals are (worryingly) genuine. Johnny Speight would make a similar point about Alf Garnett, which is why he didn't soften the character to please Mrs Whitehouse, even when it became clear that some dimwits were adopting him as a role model.

The middle ages were terrible but the year 2008 is many times worse.

Unless you have a lifespan of thirty, crap out of the window, have no vote, and routinely see your neighbours hanged (or worse) for petty offences when they're not being mown down in swathes by bubonic plague, that's an absurd statement.

Good comedy is a fine art form - lavatory humour is guttural.

Assuming that by "guttural" you mean "in the gutter" as opposed to "a sound coming from the back of the throat", you're rather eliding the point that it's perfectly possible to mix good comedy and baser instincts.

After all, Shakespeare did it all the time. So did Geoffrey Chaucer. So does Stephen Fry, who recently spoke out in praise of the joys of uninhibited swearing. Jonathan Swift's original Gulliver's Travels (as opposed to softened-up film and TV versions) are full of lavatorial humour. The very title of The Importance of Being Earnest is riddled with homosexual innuendo (never mind the rest of the text), and that's one of the most perfectly pitched comedies in the English language. Even Waiting for Godot has an erection gag - and Beckett's work in general is a marvellous demonstration of the almost invisible gap between high art and low humour.

So you're arguing that these people are all deluded?

[batman]

Originally Posted by Cheeky Bob It's also revealing that on both The Office and Withnail (each directed by their scriptwriters, which didn't hurt), the actors were ordered to stick rigorously to the text - there was no room for improvisation or clowning around. In other words, having a good script is only part of the battle - trusting a good script is also important.

Again I agree CB. For me, the script is the starting point for any successful production (stage or screen) and, with the right actors in place it is very difficult to muck it up, although many have done so over the years. When I was acting it used to frustrate the heck out of me if we had a reasonably successful stage production on our hands some idiot would think he/she knew best and would start changing lines or para-phrasing. I think this often happens in film these day but the interfering idiots are the men in suits.

[CaptainWaggett]

Galton and Simpson and Perry and Croft were all noted for never letting actors change their scripts and it really shows.

As for lavatory humour never being funny - let's not forget that no less a person than Alfred Hitchcock was quite the fan and snuck it in whenever he could. The Lady Vanishes is full of it.

[Cheeky Bob]

Originally Posted by batman Again I agree CB. For me, the script is the starting point for any successful production (stage or screen) and, with the right actors in place it is very difficult to muck it up, although many have done so over the years. When I was acting it used to frustrate the heck out of me if we had a reasonably successful stage production on our hands some idiot would think he/she knew best and would start changing lines or para-phrasing. I think this often happens in film these day but the interfering idiots are the men in suits.

It's well worth noting that Alan Bennett tends to favour the same very small pool of directors - Stephen Frears, Malcolm Mowbray, Giles Foster, Nicholas Hytner - and that all of them are renowned for a self-effacing approach that strongly favours the script.

And although Bennett had lots of reasons for regarding Thora Hird as his favourite actress, one key one was that she absolutely respected the text - even if she didn't like (or understand) what she was given to say, the author's wishes came first.

(There was a very funny entry in one of Bennett's diaries in which she said that she respected Bennett so much that he was the only writer who could persuade her to utter a swearword on camera. Bennett wryly noted that the "swearword" in question was "penis".)

[Cheeky Bob]

Originally Posted by CaptainWaggett Galton and Simpson and Perry and Croft were all noted for never letting actors change their scripts and it really shows.

And of course all four were hardly immune from lavatorial humour themselves - especially not David Croft, co-author of Are You Being Served? and 'Allo! 'Allo!.

As for lavatory humour never being funny - let's not forget that no less a person than Alfred Hitchcock was quite the fan and snuck it in whenever he could. The Lady Vanishes is full of it.

Of course it is, and so are most of the other films that Launder and Gilliat scripted. It's one of the key things that makes their work so endearingly British.

But the issue isn't lavatorial humour per se but whether or not it's used imaginatively. As I pointed out above, The Importance of Being Earnest is positively riddled with innuendo, yet this is the kind of work that's cited when people seek to demonstrate the virtues of "clean" humour. Which Oscar Wilde would have found hilarious.

It's also very much a class/snobbery thing - Stephen Fry once pointed out that Ben Elton only has to say "blimey" and the green-ink Points of View brigade would descend on him like a ton of bricks. Yet Elton has never sworn properly on television, whereas Fry swears like a trouper (he claims to hold the record for utterances of the word "fuck" in the shortest space of time on a peaktime BBC1 programme - it was on Parkinson, when he was demonstrating the word's versatility), and no-one seemed to notice, let alone mind.

[Steve Crook]

Originally Posted by batman Again I agree CB. For me, the script is the starting point for any successful production (stage or screen) and, with the right actors in place it is very difficult to muck it up, although many have done so over the years. When I was acting it used to frustrate the heck out of me if we had a reasonably successful stage production on our hands some idiot would think he/she knew best and would start changing lines or para-phrasing. I think this often happens in film these day but the interfering idiots are the men in suits.

Almost everyone involved in a film thinks they know better than the writer. And the more power they have (the more they're paid) the more they interfere.

So the leading actors will change the script, the director will change the script, even producers change the script. And that's the screenplay they're all mucking about with, the script as written to be filmed. Not the original story or play that it's based on. A script writer is doing well if 50% of their original work finishes up on screen.

That's why Emeric Pressburger was always particularly happy to have that joint credit with Michael Powell of "Written, Produced and Directed by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger". Emeric was involved all the way through the film-making process including when any changes were deemed necessary while they were filming and he was even involved in the editing. So that's why he would say that 80-90% of what you see on screen was the story as he had originally envisioned it. Something that's very rare, almost unheard of, for any other writer.

Steve

[Cheeky Bob]

Of course, just to play devil's advocate, another problem is that many British scriptwriters don't think cinematically, so the scripts are flawed to begin with. Clearly, it would be better if the writer made the necessary changes, but if the writer doesn't know any better that's not going to be much help - and the chances are that you'll end up with verbose, visually unimaginative stodge.

The answer is much closer collaboration between the writer and director - laced with a huge amount of mutual respect. I mentioned Alan Bennett and Stephen Frears earlier, and that's a perfect example: even in their television work, Frears contributed plenty of imaginative touches (particularly in the Renoiresque A Day Out or the vast empty spaces of the office block, populated only by telephones, in One Fine Day) - but never at the expense of the script.

But that doesn't mean that changes weren't made: the nature of the filmmaking process means that it's almost unheard of for scripts to end up on screen entirely untouched (for starters, sometimes material that worked on paper might not come off on screen) - it's just that they were made in a manner that both director and writer found mutually acceptable. Which is pretty similar to the Powell-Pressburger collaboration.

[batman]

Originally Posted by Steve Crook So the leading actors will change the script, the director will change the script, even producers change the script. And that's the screenplay they're all mucking about with, the script as written to be filmed. Not the original story or play that it's based on. A script writer is doing well if 50% of their original work finishes up on screen.

A 'Hypothetical' Script to Screen process ...

A terrific novel is bought by a producer. He hires a top scriptwriter to adapt it into a screenplay. The scriptwriter hands over the shooting script to the producer. The producer tinkers with it thinking he can get a few more thrills out of it by adding replicas of scenes already in there. He hands it to the director who also has a go at it and decides there are too many scenes like that and takes a some out, but not wanting to upset his producer he takes out the original scenes. The director also thinks that the actors he has been 'lumbered' with cannot possibly deliver some of the lines as written so he adapts them to suit what he's got. This annoys the producer and one of he stars so the director is replaced. The leading actor then has a look and doesn't like the fact that the actress playing opposite him has more lines. So he gets some lines deleted. While shooting the film it is decided that things aren't going very well at all so a 'script doctor' is brought in to do some re-writes. The original scriptwriter goes to see the film and finds only his title and a few basic scenarios remain.

... actually that is a true story. The name of the film was Duel in the Sun and the producer David O. Selznick. Gregory Peck got the hump 'cos Selznick gave his wife Jennifer Jones more lines than Peck, Peck refused to continue unless some of Jones lines went. The direction of the film was shared beween about half a dozen people. The original director, King Vidor, thought Peck was miscast (IMHO he was right) and tried to change the character .... exit Vidor. Finally, Ben Hecht is brought in to try and repair the damage by caused Selznick's own re-write. Oliver Garrett, the original scriptwriter reckoned about 10% of what he wrote is on the screen.

[john audley]

Cheeky Bob

That was indeed a ridiculous Freudian slip but Schindler's List was of course Spielberg's along with JAWS and Raiders so he seems to be credited much for some reason. I did not see Schindler's List because no matter how harrowing it was the film could never equal the real and total horror, there would be no need for gratuitousness. If certain audiences did cheer is this not a comment about our so-called 'humanity'? What then has changed for the better? These people 'failed to get the message' because they did not want the message!

You mentioned the Carry On films and other (getting worse) films of the 1970s and that decade saw the total decline of mass audiences along with the number of cinemas in Britain because of the puerile diet of most of the films that I would walk out on. This was not a fault of television. 'Confessions' were aimed at the over 18s and had an X rating.
Now, just tap in the word 'nudity' on your own computer and see what transpires. The worst kind of debauchery is available for children to view and I do mean the under 14s.

During the mass media of the old cinema the films had to be good and most were with great art. Television did force the decline inevitably but TV was clean and showing much of the same stuff. I would be interested to learn the titles of the top TEN grossing films of all time (allowing for inflation)
I still claim that cinema (and television) audiences would increase with a better, more polite, output.

My point was that the majority of opinion must be healthier than this 'bigot' who may push a certain angle to change the majority his/her way. This might be called a totalitarian system. It does matter - the real truth matters.
I did not see the film but you claim that Cohen was speaking the truth. But what truth? In who's opinion?

If you do not think that our current age is worse, then take a look at the daily news, for plaques we have Bird Flu Aids and MRSA. The world is running out of food and clean air and water (clean or otherwise) and most of this planet do not have a flushing toilet if this country has!
How many countries have democracy and a credible legal system? And were we allowed to vote for this EU Constitution?
I did not make an Absurd statement.

I did not suggest that innuendo is not funny but there are limits in humour. The names you mention are mostly not for the masses (the literacy of Primary kids is a national scandal - according to what we read) We now have a dumbed down Shakespeare. But these great writers used subtlety. The Importance of Being Ernest is subtle as far as I can tell. Is Ernest saying the same things Cohen says?
The Trials of Oscar Wilde produced details of great depravity and Oscar Wilde avoided approaching any such language in his works but modern 'liberal' film producers would not think twice of re-making the trials with the worst depicted on the screen. Would this be advancement?

My point was sure, the human race will last another 500 years (hopefully) but civilization? That is a big if.

I do hope there is room for purity of thought in these threads

[Steve Crook]

Originally Posted by Cheeky Bob Of course, just to play devil's advocate, another problem is that many British scriptwriters don't think cinematically, so the scripts are flawed to begin with. Clearly, it would be better if the writer made the necessary changes, but if the writer doesn't know any better that's not going to be much help - and the chances are that you'll end up with verbose, visually unimaginative stodge. The answer is much closer collaboration between the writer and director - laced with a huge amount of mutual respect. I mentioned Alan Bennett and Stephen Frears earlier, and that's a perfect example: even in their television work, Frears contributed plenty of imaginative touches (particularly in the Renoiresque A Day Out or the vast empty spaces of the office block, populated only by telephones, in One Fine Day) - but never at the expense of the script. But that doesn't mean that changes weren't made: the nature of the filmmaking process means that it's almost unheard of for scripts to end up on screen entirely untouched (for starters, sometimes material that worked on paper might not come off on screen) - it's just that they were made in a manner that both director and writer found mutually acceptable. Which is pretty similar to the Powell-Pressburger collaboration.

But the difference with the Powell-Pressburger collaboration was that Pressburger did think cinematically. With his experience working as a "script doctor" at UFA and with his natural gift for creating a good story, he knew what would work well on screen.

And Powell recognised and appreciated those talents. So whenever changes did have to be made, Emeric was always consulted to make sure they didn't mess up the story. Emeric was often there watching the film being made, either in the studio or on location. Where that wasn't possible he was only a phone call or a telegram away.

With many collaborations it's more like a lowest common denominator where, as you say, they agree to something that they can both put up with. With Powell and Pressburger the total was greater than the sum of the parts. They both added to the collaboration, as did other members of the cast and crew, and they knew and respected each others talents.

Steve

[Cheeky Bob]

Originally Posted by john audley I did not see Schindler's List because no matter how harrowing it was the film could never equal the real and total horror, there would be no need for gratuitousness. If certain audiences did cheer is this not a comment about our so-called 'humanity'?

No, it's not a comment about our humanity, as I wasn't among those audiences, don't even live in the same country, and I wouldn't have reacted like that. It's certainly an indictment of the historical ignorance of certain portions of the filmgoing audience circa 1993 - which of course is precisely why Spielberg made the film in the first place.

What then has changed for the better? These people 'failed to get the message' because they did not want the message!

No, it's because they were approaching the film as a conventional Hollywood thrill-ride and reacting accordingly. Which is admittedly a drawback when exploring difficult subjects within the Hollywood commercial system, though the upside is that that film, while undoubtedly artistically inferior to Night and Fog and Shoah, got its message across to a far, far larger audience.

You mentioned the Carry On films and other (getting worse) films of the 1970s and that decade saw the total decline of mass audiences along with the number of cinemas in Britain because of the puerile diet of most of the films that I would walk out on. This was not a fault of television.

No, I said that audiences first saw sharp declines in the 1950s, and that there wasn't any apparent causal connection between "the puerile diet of most of the films you would walk out on" and said decline. No serious film and TV historian disputes that television was the primary cause of declining cinema audiences from the 1950s to the 1970s, because the evidence is overwhelming.

As a result of that decline, film producers increasingly began to produce titles that for various reasons couldn't be shown on television, which led to Cinerama, 3-D and CinemaScope on a technical level - and began to push the envelope regarding content, hence the rise of so-called nudist camp documentaries, Hammer's definitive rebranding of themselves as horror producers and many, many other examples. Because producers and exhibitors knew that because television was such a strong competitor, they had to increasingly show material that for various reasons wouldn't end up on the box. So yes, it absolutely was the fault of television.

'Confessions' were aimed at the over 18s and had an X rating.

Which absolutely proves my point: despite being nominally banned to under-18s, Confessions of a Window Cleaner still managed to be the biggest domestic hit of 1974. Ergo, the family audience was far less important to the cinema in the 1970s than you're making out. (It's not as though there weren't any kids' films at all, was it?)

Now, just tap in the word 'nudity' on your own computer and see what transpires. The worst kind of debauchery is available for children to view and I do mean the under 14s.

With respect, this has absolutely nothing to do with the current argument, which is all about British comedies and their mass audience appeal.

During the mass media of the old cinema the films had to be good and most were with great art.

Actually, the vast majority of 1940s films were dross, a proportion that's remained pretty constant throughout cinema history - it's only because we only remember and celebrate the good ones that "golden age" myths get created. But you only need to pore through 1940s copies of the Monthly Film Bulletin - as I've done - to see legions of now totally forgotten films that looked resoundingly mediocre or worse.

As a point of historical curiosity, the only government I can think of that ever passed a law requiring films to be good in the artistic sense was run by Joseph Stalin, when he decided that if one in ten films was any good, then by eliminating 90% of the rubbish, what's left would be masterpieces. Needless to say, the result was a plunge in output with no apparent increase in quality, as any statistician could have told him (but they'd probably have been shot, so they didn't).

Television did force the decline inevitably but TV was clean and showing much of the same stuff.

As I said above, that's precisely why producers and exhibitors stopped showing the same stuff - because if it was already on television, how was that going to entice people back into cinemas?

I would be interested to learn the titles of the top TEN grossing films of all time (allowing for inflation)

Well, you can see just such a list here. But it doesn't actually prove anything: of course 1940s titles are going to do disproportionately well, since that was the decade when the UK box office was at an all time high. It certainly doesn't mean that films like The Best Years of Our Lives or Spring in Park Lane would be hits today: for various reasons, they spoke to a very specific audience at a very specific time (i.e. just after the war had ended).

I still claim that cinema (and television) audiences would increase with a better, more polite, output.

You've claimed a lot, but you don't seem very fond of supplying supporting evidence. Actually, the kind of people who share your views have pretty much given up going to the cinema and can't reliably be enticed back - so chasing them is a fool's errand.

In any case, I reject the assertion that "more polite" = "better". A few years ago I saw a film called The Jealous God, made by someone who claimed to share the views you appear to hold. It was bland beyond belief - and, worse, it achieved said blandness by carefully removing almost every truly interesting element of John Braine's source novel, from the protagonist's borderline racist views to his inability to reconcile his sexual urges with his equally strong Catholic upbringing. Filming that straight would undoubtedly have resulted in a less polite film, but it would certainly have been far more challenging, intriguing and worthwhile. Not to mention honest.

My point was that the majority of opinion must be healthier than this 'bigot' who may push a certain angle to change the majority his/her way. This might be called a totalitarian system.

You've lost me here - which bigot are you talking about?

It does matter - the real truth matters. I did not see the film but you claim that Cohen was speaking the truth. But what truth? In who's opinion?

In the opinion of just about any halfway intelligent viewer. Come on, it's not exactly rocket science to recognise that when a professional comedian is trying to goad a member of the public into admitting to holding appalling views, that we're supposed to find them ridiculous. In all seriousness, you really do have to be quite alarmingly thick to watch a film like Borat and come out thinking that anti-Semitism is a good thing - and if you are that alarmingly thick, a mere film is unlikely to convert you.

If you do not think that our current age is worse, then take a look at the daily news, for plaques we have Bird Flu Aids and MRSA.

Oh yes, I remember bird flu - it was going to devastate the entire population and reduce Britain to a withered husk, wasn't it? Round about 2005, as I recall. And unless there's been a huge media cover-up, it didn't happen, did it?

The world is running out of food and clean air and water (clean or otherwise) and most of this planet do not have a flushing toilet if this country has! How many countries have democracy and a credible legal system?

We're not talking about other countries, we're specifically talking about Britain. Remember the subject of this thread? British comedies and British audiences?

I did not make an Absurd statement.

Er... yes you did. Claiming that life in Britain in 2008 is worse than life in the medieval era is absurd by any definition you care to name. Howlingly absurd, in fact - unless you deliberately restrict your comforts to the extent I hinted at above, for some bizarre polemical reason. But that in itself would be howlingly absurd, so I'm guessing you don't.

I did not suggest that innuendo is not funny but there are limits in humour.

The "limits in humour" are ultimately whether you find something funny or otherwise. That's the only yardstick. And inevitably, it's always going to be a subjective reaction. Some people find Clive Dunn falling over while shrieking "They don't like it up 'em, Mr Mainwaring" to be the funniest thing they've ever seen, while others find it a little embarrassing. Both points of view are equally valid.

The names you mention are mostly not for the masses (the literacy of Primary kids is a national scandal - according to what we read) We now have a dumbed down Shakespeare. But these great writers used subtlety.

True, but they could also be staggeringly vulgar when the mood took them - just try reading the Wife of Bath's Tale, or an unexpurgated production of Romeo and Juliet (i.e. with the Nurse's various lecherous speeches left intact). And don't get me started on Jonathan Swift - or indeed much great 18th-century literature, in fact!

The Importance of Being Ernest is subtle as far as I can tell.

"Earnest" is Victorian slang for "homosexual". If you didn't know that, rest assured much of Wilde's original audience certainly would have done!

Is Ernest saying the same things Cohen says?

Actually, Wilde and Baron Cohen have a fair amount in common, in that they both sought to hold humbug and pomposity up to well-deserved ridicule, and would gleefully subvert conventional artistic vehicles in order to do it.

The Trials of Oscar Wilde produced details of great depravity and Oscar Wilde avoided approaching any such language in his works but modern 'liberal' film producers would not think twice of re-making the trials with the worst depicted on the screen. Would this be advancement?

This depends entirely on the context. Clearly, at a time when homosexuality was a criminal offence in Britain, any truly accurate portrayal of Wilde's life would have been out of the question - this was a year before Dirk Bogarde's extraordinary bravery in agreeing to do Victim. On the other hand, by 1997 it was perfectly possible to give a far more honest account, and I think the producers of Wilde acquitted themselves pretty honourably. I mean, we're not exactly talking wall-to-wall close-up bum-sex, are we? And neither would such an approach be especially edifying, either as art or entertainment, unless you were targeting an extremely specialist market.

My point was sure, the human race will last another 500 years (hopefully) but civilization? That is a big if.

Do you get your entire worldview from front-page Daily Mail headlines or something? For me, the last 15 years has seen the greatest communications revolution since Caxton's printing press, the potential of which we still haven't come close to grasping. It's opening minds, not closing them - which is as good a definition of the civilising process as anything.

I do hope there is room for purity of thought in these threads

I'm all for "purity of thought" unless your definition of "pure" means "untainted by evidence"!

[Cheeky Bob]

Originally Posted by Steve Crook But the difference with the Powell-Pressburger collaboration was that Pressburger did think cinematically. With his experience working as a "script doctor" at UFA and with his natural gift for creating a good story, he knew what would work well on screen.

Oh absolutely - but P&P are very much the exceptions. My point was much more general - which is that, on the whole, British screenwriters often don't think cinematically.

(In any case, Pressburger wasn't British...)