GO READ THIS: Directors On Comedy

Sean Witzke linked to this fantastic roundtable with Judd Apatow, John Landis, Edgar Wright, Todd Phillips and Adam McKay talking about comedy in film:

Landis: I do think the biggest things about Animal House were the score and the photography. I wanted it gritty and dark. You asked about danger. I’ll tell you one more true story: When I showed the movie to Ned Tanen, the president of Universal, for the first time, he stopped the movie after the black bar scene, actually stopped the projector, and stormed out. A little bit later we get a memo that we have to cut the whole road trip to the bar. ‘There’ll be riots! There’ll be riots!’ So we showed the movie to Richard Pryor. And Richard sent a hand-written note, on blue stationery: ‘Ned, Animal House is fucking funny and white people are crazy.—Richard.’ And that’s the only reason we were able to finish the film.”