In the beginning, there was the prank (玩笑).
When motion pictures first appeared, movie cameras were used simply to record normal events. They showed things such as workers leaving a factory, or a train entering a station. It wasn’t long before simple stories were created for film. Since the films were extremely short, the story also had to be very short. So, in 1985. Louie Lumiere staged a simple prank. His film, originally titled Le Jardinere, is now commonly referred as L’ Arroseur Arrose, or in English, The Sprinkler Sprinkled. It shows a mail using a hose (软管) to water a garden. A boy enters the frame and steps on the hose, stopping the water flow. When the gardener looks into the hose nose, the boy releases the pressure and the gardener gets a face full of water. The boy laughs, but is immediately caught and spanked.
This creased the first film comedy type. Prank films became the common way to get laughs from an audience during the earliest days of cinema. It is an extremely simple but infinitely flexible method of creating a moment of tension and release. The audience gets to be “in on the joke” watching the situation being set up. The trap is sprung, forming the highest of the event. Usually, the prankster is caught, and spanked, giving closure to the narrative.
Similar stories involved people simply misbehaving and getting their comeuppance. Mr. Flip (The Essanay Film Manufacturing Company, 1909), directed by Gilbert M. Anderson, featured Ben Turpin as a lifeless flirt (打情骂俏). He goes to various shops and offices, trying to touch the cheeks of female workers. In each of the events, he gets punished. The women pokes him in the bottom with scissors, the customers in the bar spray soda water in his face, and the switchboard operator can somehow send electric shocks to the telephone he is using.
A comic strip called Foxy Grandpa by Carl E. Schultze featured an old man with a pair of rascally grandsons. They would try to play tricks on him, but he would always turn the tables on them by using his wits. The strip was developed into a vaudeville (杂耍表演) character played by Joseph Hart, who went on to play the same part in silent films.
It would be a mistakes to think of this as an outdated style of comedy. Prank films are certainly still a hit on YouTube. It is also a useful way to design an animated narrative. The best example would be the Wile E. Coyote and Road Runner cartoons. Each of the Coyote’s theme is comparable to a prank. He sets up a trap, tries to spring it on the Road Runner, it fails, and he gets the worst of it.
36. The author believes that The Sprinkler Sprinkled ________.
A.was a record of normal life events |
B.created the first sound comedy movie |
C.was made in a time of technical limitation |
D.was about a gardener making fun of a boy |
37. The underlined word “comeuppance” (In Paragraph 4) most probably means ________.
A.share | B.punishment |
C.dismissal | D.responsibility |
38. Which of the following statements is TRUE according to the passage?
A.The audience take delight in seeing the prankster suffering pain. |
B.Prank films gradually lose their appeal, giving way to animations. |
C.In Mr. Flip, Ben deserves the treatment as he takes advantage of women. |
D.The grandfather in the Foxy Grand pa always falls into his grandson’s tricks. |
39. How is the passage developed?
A.By analyzing statistics. | B.By making comparisons. |
C.By giving instructions. | D.By presenting examples. |