CONCEPT AND FUNCTION OF “FOIL” IN COMEDIES
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The thumb rule for making people laugh in a comedy is that somebody has to be a butt of the joke. In real life situations, when you pull a fast one on someone or what is popularly called leg pulling, that he or she becomes the butt of the joke and everyone has a laugh at his/her expense. Instead of having pity for the victim, we take pleasure in deriding him. That’s cruel. Well, comedy is cruel.
How does this translate into movies? No one likes to be a butt of the joke in real life – but in films, one is forced to be – otherwise, there is no humour. That’s why there’s a general misunderstanding and a mistaken belief in the actors when they’ve to play the role of a “butt” i.e. they don’t want to look like a fool or a fall guy. On the contrary, it requires great art or perhaps greater art to play the role of a fall guy. The actor playing the role of a fall guy is the “foil” whose sole function is to set off or enhance the other actor by contrast and also willingly becoming the butt of his jokes, pranks or mischiefs. An example will put it in perspective.
Take the classic sequence of a horror film story-narration between Mehmood and Om Prakash in “Pyar Kiye Jaa”. Om Prakash is obviously playing “the foil” to Mehmood and it’s his par excellence performance that enlivens Mehmood’s brilliant story narration. Om Prakash’s role is absolutely passive (with no dialogues to speak of!) but his graded and orchastrated petrified reactions build to a crescendo and the sequence ends with a topper when a casual calling of a third party off-frame frightens the blue lights out of them. There’s a fantastic give and take between the two which enhances their roles. More Om Prakash gets frightened i.e. bigger and better the fall guy he enacts, juicier the scene. The story goes that when Mehmood got a film award for his performance in this film, not only he gave full due to his “foil” Om Prakash on the stage but went and touched his feet in the audience. A comic actor always realises the contribution to his own performance by his co-actor and is humble about it.
Well, not always. Manier times people under estimate the importance and function of “the foil” with a disastrous result that the whole comic sequence falls on its face. Take another film “Dostana” directed by the veteran Raj Khosla. Salim-Javed, the script writers, lifted a scene from the film “Paigham” and placed it between Amitabh Bachchan and Zeenat Aman who’re whiling away time at an airport field. They’re in love but just out of curiosity, she asks him whether he ever had any other girl friend in his life or some one he had fallen in love with. This sets Mr Bachchan off into building a casual encounter with a girl (Mina) into a majestic romantic Romeo and Juliet love tale. The idea is to make Zeenat Aman jealous to her teeth and how well she would enact to be the “the foil” with her mounting chagrin. Well…..? With due respect, Zeenat Aman fails to be a perfect “foil” which makes the scene into a long drawn out affair and probably affecting Mr Bachchan’s performance, too. (It also looks that Mr Bachchan enacted the role too confidently and in a calculated way instead of a casual and spontaneous approach taken by Dilip Kumar in “Paigham”. Maybe Mr Bachchan wanted to contrast his approach from the thespian but sorry to say it doesn’t work here.) In contrast, the “Paigham” scene sparkles and remains in your memory for years with Vyjantimala playing a perfect foil. It also helps in delivering probably one of the better comic moments in the thespian’s life.
A small note about the directorial technique in executing the same scene in both the films – both have two-shot without any close-ups as the reactions of one are important while the other enacts. “Dostana” has two different 180* axis two-shot, each favouring one of the actors and as such has many cuts. Unfortunately, it has many continuity jumps which, too, couldn’t save the scene. While “Paigham” has frontal two-shot equally favouring both the actors and the scene is so engrossing that many cuts from the same axis to same axis without much image change are not noticed, or probably, forgiven.
The same lapse in “foil” results in an unsatisfying scene in the film “Hum” with Mr Bachchan delivering the drunken repeat and repeat and repeat scene of “Gandi naali ke kidde…” speech or soliloquy or whatever you wish to call it. Who is the “butt” of the joke here? The “butt” or the “foil” had to have a rising irritating curve of listening to the same thing again and again and, probably, should’ve attempted to walk out every time with Mr Bachchan stopping him and promising to narrate something different but ending up narrating the same thing! Is it then the scriptwriter’s fault? But believe me, probably a correct “foil” would’ve contributed and made the magic of the scene come alive.
No where the concept of “foil” becomes more obvious than when the enactment of scenes is between two actors. Marx Brothers’ films are replete with long comic sequences constructed between Groucho and Chico Marx. Groucho is always the fall guy and what a brilliant fall guy he is! In fact, in every comedy, each scene may have its own fall guy and, that too, sometimes in minor roles but their casting becomes crucial for the above reasons. They may end up ruining or enhancing the performances of your main protagonist/s.
The concept of “foil” should not be mixed up with comedy duos such as Jay & Viru in “Sholay”, Munna and Circuit in “Munnabhai Series” or many, many more such pairings of actors on which the films or series of films are based. What we’re talking about here is chemistry between their characters to create comic ambience. Of course, there are exceptions. No where the concept of “foil” as well as “character chemistry” is more brought to life together in one pair than in Laurel and Hardy film series. They’re perfect “foil” to each other and their chemistry itself can give rise to a comedy scene. Imagine Laurel and Hardy on a bus-stop and your mind can get so excited with permutations and combinations of things that can happen or can go wrong. In no time, your imagination can create a laugh riot.
To conclude: For comedy to be or not to be – don’t be a fool and cast a Hamlet when he’s not required. Just a clown would do – like Falstaff or Oliver Hardy or Groucho Marx or Mr Om Prakash who know that they also serve (and exceptionally, too!) and who are willing to be such brilliant fools or fall guys on the screen.
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Chalrie chaplin has also said “To be a successfull comedian you have to make people laugh at you”. And he used to this in his off screen life too. Your point of view is same, as he made himself ‘butt’ to make others laugh. Mostly we need someone to laugh at.There are very few people and very few jokes which can make everyone laugh(no one being a ‘butt’).
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Kundan sir, Telugu films always had a parallel comedy track that had nothing to do with the story just because there were a bunch of actors who could pull this routine time-after time just for tickles.
Now its clear to me that most of the time I laugh out is not because of the joke but because of how naive the fall guy commits to be?
So the question I have is this – can a situation be made a “foil” to pull off this routine – like heist films? is it possible at all?
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A lovely insight into the directorial thought that goes into the making of a comedy scene.
I watched Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro again just last week and now when I read this and relate it to the classic, all I can think of is…JBDY wouldn’t have been the tour-de-force that it is…had Sudhir Mishra and Vinod Chopra (not the real ones, I’m talking about the ones in the movie) been streetsmart hustlers.
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sir…aur chahiye….aur jyada….
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Tom and Jerry could well be a classic example..
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The creator of the classic comedy scene you have mentioned in the first instance (Pyar Kiye Jaa) has passed away yesterday – the director Sridhar.
He created the movie narration scene based on his personal experience when he saw an aspiring assistant director excitedly narrating a story to a producer.
He took the narrator and placed the foil to create the rip roaring effect. In the thamizh original it was the legendary comic villain Baalaiah who plays the foil to the explosive Nagesh with minute laugh evoking expressions and offcourse the sweat on the face is offcourse the final nail in the act convincing that the effect is really scary on him.
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Thank you sir. A wonderful write-up reinforcing the importance of one of comedy’s basic elements.
Can you please write a post about how you direct actors in a comedy? How do you talk to them? How do you fine-tune their timing? How do you embed spontaneity in a scene without making it look rehearsed? Comedy comes out of realism, so if the actors are trying to be funny, chances are they will fail in making the audience laugh, which is the case in most Hindi comedies nowadays. How do you curtail them from trying to be funny?
Just a few aspects I am interested in.
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These scenes look so simple and funny on screen. You’ve put the process of creating these in perspective. The role of the two actors here, mainly.
It’s not so easy as it looks like. Informative snippet this was…
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yup i agree with wt arthi says….very informative article…i always had a vague idea regarding synergy amongst actots but this article helped me in dealing with few of my doubts….
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Nice article there Mr. Shah on importance of foil. I felt somewhat like that for you movie Kabhi Haan Kabhi Naa, and Shahrukh’s character throughout the movie was a foil for the movie. He played the boy next door, except he was the boy next door who was good at nothing, and even thought SRK was not a big star at that time, it still was nice of him to play that character and do justice to it.
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@Kundan Ji,
Thanks a lot for this wonderful post.
A very informative post and PFC would be fulfilling its best purpose with such articles.
Within the same premise I recall a scene from Gopi where Johny Walker tries to scare his maternal Uncle Pran and Pran’s reactions have made that scene a great scene. He plays the main villain but he also have fears because of Gopi- Dilip Kumar and Johny Walker understands this situation and acts smartly as if he is saving Pran from the anger of Dilip Kumar while in reality he wants to stop any direct conflict between DK and Pran so that DK does not get any harm because of money and muscle power of Pran.
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Thanks kundanji for the post.In fact films like Padosan remain etched in our memories forever because of the excellent coming timing of two actors mehmood and kishore kumar.Infact whenever mehmood worked with another good actor in a particular scene the result was excellent.I wish I could have seen mehmood and utpal dutt in one film pitted against each other….Hazaron khwaishen aisi.
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Wow, what an amazing observation sir. The scene you mentioned from Pyar kiye ja still remains one of my favourite scenes till date… Om Prakashji was good, but mehmood saab was always best, guess we will never have an actor par his excellence. Again remember Omji in chupke chupke?
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and let me bring one of my all time favorite “Kabhi Khaan Kabhi Naa” into this really interesting post.. and now I believe that KHKN too derived a lot of situation from the “FOIL” factor.. Sunil played foil to Chris a few times, but it was Chris who was prominently used for foil play… Similarly Naseer saab was used as a foil at so many times in the film..
One of the best chemistry in this Foil game is of Kishore Kumar and Pran in so many films.. specially Half Ticket..
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Kundan Sir,
Beautiful post. “Foil”, actually in your very own Kabhi Haan Kabhi Naa, Deepak Tijori played such a great foil to SRK in that scene where SRK expalins him about Suchitra’s past affairs…deepak acted awesome and so did SRK..infact SRK also plays the butt so effortlessly in most on the movie, especially when he is kicked out of the band..
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Re: Kabhi Haan Kabhi Na,
That particular breakfast scene always attracted me.
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SRK is asking his mother to give some Rupees (perhaps 30) and Anjan Srivastva comes there and start scolding SRK but in a sarcastic manner and when SRK says that “bas is baar paas ho jane dijiye,” AS says in double sarcasm,2 Lo sun lo aise keh raha hai jaise humne ise pass hone se roka hua hai”.
SRK and Anjan Srivastava have dialogues but SRK’s on screen mother and sister contribute in silent manner and this scene is such an impressive scene in every manner. acting and dialogues(written) and their deliveries etc.
This creates much desired impact.
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@ Kundan Sir,
“Dont cast hamlet. Just a clown would do”
one of the great tragedies is that those great clowns who make fun of themselves and be the perfect foil get trapped in playing the same buffoonish roles. from rajinder nath, jagdeep, johnny lever to now rajpal yadav all have fell into this trap. once a clown, you’d never get to be Hamlet.
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Very interesting write up sir!!
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Kundan Sir, please enlighten us as to how great comedy scenes in films are written and conceptualised, both in comic and serious films.
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another example that comes to mind is Utpal dutt and Amol Palekar in the interview scene in Golmaal!
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wonderful article kundan sir!
I was reminded of the scene between amitabh and amjad khan in satte pe satta where amitabh talks about his six brothers and ‘daaru peene se liver kharaab ho jaata hai’. I think amjad khan was an excellent foil in that scene…
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dear kundan sir
i am a big fan of your work particularly jbdy and nukkad[khopdi was my fav].i also loved ek se badhkar ek a mad comedy and kya kehna a contemporary issue brilliantly filmed and introducing to us the beautiful and talented preity.why dont u make films now a days.u should return to give us some great movies.
with best regards
nisheeth kr an ardent admirer.
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sir pls make more FILMS
please
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1 of the most beautiful yet simple scene to watch (very artistically acted by masters). And Kundan sir’s write up is so true. I really miss work of geniuses like Shri Hrishikesh Mukherjee, Shri Basu Chatterjee and Shri Kundan Shah.
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