Film

Shepherd’s Delight

1984 · 35m

IMDb

6.7

Many of my films involve humour, but unlike the earlier work Shepherd’s Delight attempts to confront the problem of humour head-on, referring directly (since a large part of the film is composed of jokes and their analysis) to the viewer’s perception of the film itself. The film is largely concerned with how context determines the reading of information. Since the film’s statements oscillate between the deadly serious (concentrating particularly on an examination of the more sinister aspects of humour) and the totally bogus, with no clearly defined points of changeover, the context is often ambiguous. Hopefully, this strategy undermines both the authority of the ‘serious’ statements and any predictable effect of the ‘jokes’. John Smith, 1984

• John SmithDirector

Release date

January 1, 1984

Status

Released

Original language

English

Runtime

35m