The History Boys Movie Review

Jez Butterworth’s ‘Jerusalem’ creates a comic vision focusing on the ambiguities, turmoil and hypocrisies of the society presented on stage. Butterworth focuses on the characters’ degeneracies in which the form of humour tends to be the exposure of their unruly behaviour and their reluctance to conform to social norms. “The most basic difference between comedy and tragedy lies in its central characters, who are not heroes, and often, as with Shakespeare’s Falstaff, are anti-heroic” The key character Johnny

He shares his narcissistic and egotistical behaviour with the snobby private school girl, however is portrayed as a 37 year old effeminate drama teacher. Mr G believes his students share his passion for drama, as he progressively turns their free time to, “G time.” As Mr G’s over inflated ego gets the better of him, he self-appoints himself as the Director of Performing Arts, enjoying the jurisdiction he has given himself. However, this newly self-appointed position creates conflict with other staff, especially the principal. These unusual acts produced by Lilley is what creates the foundation for his perspective on Australian humour, as an event as abnormal as this is almost unheard of in the education system. In addition to the over inflated ego, Mr G shares the discriminative behaviour of Ja’mie, targeting the disabled students of Summer Heights High during his drama teachings. He believes their damaged minds and bodies will tarnish his supposedly talented pieces of ‘art’. In the present day, such behaviour is unprecedented as we are pushed to assist the disabled in anyway, refraining from any form of criticism, making this type of humour unique. However, this unique type of comedy can be perceived as overly rude or so outlandish it’s

In Alan Bennett’s, The History Boys, the Holocaust Scene is vital to the development of drama in the play. Bennett uses the conflict in this scene to develop the significance of inter-character relationships. It is a significant moment because it forms a climax to the antagonism between Hector and Irwin, influencing the boys to take sides, and it is dramatic because of the uncomfortable and impermissible topic chosen.

This structure is commonly seen in any film or television production, as using the structure makes sure that the narrative is continuing to move forward, and is developing. The film plot line I will be studying and making an analysis on is The Lost Boys.

Finally, Irwin is, from my point of view, the main and the most important character of this play, since he is the “narrator” of this story. He has a completely different view of education than Hector, we could almost say they are opposite. One of the first thing we learn about him is that he studied in Oxford, which is probably one of the reasons why the headmaster hired him as the new history teacher for the boys. He seems very intelligent and cultivated despite his very young age since when being introduced to the students during their French improvisation, he uses a French word that even Hector doesn’t know: “Il est commotionné, peut-être?”. Unlike Hector, he really prepares his pupils for their exam, and teaches the boys to approach history in a way which can be seen as a game – taking an original approach by simply arguing the opposite to what the normal belief is. They take it as a game, seeing an opportunity to show off the facts which Mrs Lintott has taught them. But Irwin believes it can lead to greater truth, in that it forces them to think more deeply. During the lesson he shares with Hector, we really see the contrast between the two characters. For Hector, the Holocaust is a subject that cannot be argued, but Irwin sees there an opportunity to, once more, see history from a

In I Henry IV and II Henry IV, William Shakespeare brings together drama and comedy to create two of the most compelling history plays ever written. Many of Shakespeare's other works are nearly absolute in their adherence to either the comic or tragic traditions, but in the two Henry IV plays Shakespeare combines comedy and drama in ways that seem to bring a certain realism to his characters, and thus the plays. The present essay is an examination of the various and significant effects that Shakespeare's comedic scenes have on I Henry IV and II Henry IV. The Diversity of Society

In Alan Bennett’s play, The History Boys, a unique approach to education is continuously made by Hector, an aged english teacher, and Irwin, a young and ambitious “Oxford” graduate. Rather than solely focusing on his students future college endeavors, Hector chooses to highlight what he deems as important in the “real world”, as more exists to him than an acceptance letter to Cambridge or Oxford. On the other hand, Irwin places college at the utmost importance, continuously reinforcing this idea in multiple fashions. Throughout the course of the play, characters such as Irwin and the Headmaster provide a stark contrast to Hector's views, well simultaneously highlighting the underlying reasonability in each others’ ways.

During the play Cyrano de Bergerac there are often very deep and depressing moments and to pick the audience up Edmund Rostand used humor. This is seen in all of the acts throughout the play and is one of the main uses of humor in the play. This is not the only use of humor in this play it is also used by Cyrano to hide his insecurities. Throughout the play, Cyrano makes fun of his own nose to make it seem like he is comfortable with it and so others can not make fun of it. Humor definitely plays an important role in Cyrano de Bergerac and through this essay, I will be examining the role of Humor in the play in depth.

A comedic work of literature is often just one that was meant as pure enjoyment for the reader. Other times, comedy is meant to shed light on a serious situation or instance the public refuses or is uncomfortable talking about in a non-comedic setting. However, the greatest type of comedy is one that makes the reader think, one that provokes “thoughtful laughter” from them. “The Importance of Being Earnest”, a satirical play written during Victorian Era Britain by Oscar Wilde, is such a piece literature. By poking fun at the time period in which his characters live in during one particular scene, as well as illustrating the unsubdued hilarity of a character during that scene, Wilde is able to elicit thoughtful laughter from his audience, ultimately showing them that life is far too serious and needs to be taken more lightly.

I know that, Dorothy. But I am thinking league tables.” Furthermore the fact the French scene is allowed to go ahead in lessons demonstrates the boys and Hector are willing to cheekily challenge and mock authority figures with their intelligence, all knowing French to a better degree than the Headmaster. The use of “ma tante!” creates bathos for the pretend character with “tante” showing desperation for ideas to keep the lie going. The following questioning “sa tante?” by the Headmaster and Timms’ reply of “la famille entiere” as if the headmaster missed something embarrassingly obvious adds to the comedy because the boys team up with each other to justify and ridicule the headmaster. Irwin’s unexpected input of “Il est commotionné, peut-etre?” is another example of Bennett’s clever character juxtapositions but also of using unexpected events to contrast what was being done before it, with the stage directions of “the classroom falls silent” suggesting that the boys’ found it rude and out of place for Irwin to but in. The language “fall silent” contrasts with the hectic and the loud situation that occurred before it, using Irwin’s awkwardness to change the tone of the scene. Hector not knowing what the word means and using the interrogative “comment?” adds to this awkwardness.

Comedy, professional entertainment consisting of jokes and satirical sketches, intended to make an audience laugh. Comedy is incorporated in the play A Midsummer Night’s Dream by William Shakespeare several times. In several scenes there are characters called The Mechanicals who are young men shown as comical by the way they talk and how they go about doing things. These men are putting on a play to perform for the King and Queen of their home. One major type of comedy the characters use is character comedy. This is when the characters exaggerate features or have comical personality traits. Throughout the play, character comedy is used several times by The Mechanicals.

The theme of this movie was not that you never give up, although that was shown, and not that “an underdog can win” even though that's what was happening. The theme was that you need to keep your honor and character throughout your wins and your losses. Manassas High School was not known for winning. Most of the kids there did not come from perfect families, and yet they carried for the most part, manners onto the field. There were three kids that were specifically put in the spotlight in this movie, Money, OC, and Chavis. Chavis was the example of a kid who was more tempermental and the stereotypical “bad” kid. He was in prison and on suspension for getting into fights multiple times. Although his coach constantly preached about it Chavis

Miss Ever’s Boys is a docudrama film that was produced by the HBO cable network. The movie explores ethical and social issues involved in the infamous Tuskegee Study. The study was about untreated black men with syphilis. The U.S. Public Health Service is said to have conducted a study among 600 black Americans from the years 1932 to 1972. This study was done in Macon County. This paper will exclusively explore the critique the Miss Ever’s Boys film using ethical frameworks. The ethical framework includes beneficence, justice, and respect for persons, duty-based ethics, virtue-based ethics, and the right’s-based ethics. The paper will identify how the above listed ethical principles were

One act in particular stood out as a parallel to the acts performed by the King and the Duke in the story. Both of these groups cared about money, in the King and Duke’s case, or winning over the audience, in the case of the Will and Iain’s act. In other words, they wanted popularity over realness. Nobody seemed to care in both circumstances that the performances were meant as a serious representation of the talent show. Will and Iain’s act included singing and dancing, but that was only the surface of their “talent”. Their true talent was making the audience laugh. For the King and the Duke, their audience was glad to have a performance that made them laugh as well. It was different than just a reenactment of a Shakespearean play, which eventually led to what the King and Duke wanted most, money. These two groups showed that you can do more than what the people are expecting and that you can use your humorous personality for the greater

In a comparison of comedy and tragedy, I will begin by looking at narrative. The narration in a comedy often involves union and togetherness as we see in the marriage scene at the end of Midsummer's Night Dream. William Hazlitt tells us that one can also expect incongruities, misunderstandings, and contradictions. I am reminded of the play The Importance of Being Ernest and the humor by way of mistaken identity. Sigmund Freud tells us to expect excess and exaggeration in comedy. Chekhov's Marriage Proposal displays this excess both in language and in movements. Charles Darwin insists that in a comedy "circumstances must not be of a momentous nature;" whereas, Northop Frye identifies