To answer your question, now two hours old, Herr Schlangebyte:
Absolut Nein! Noch nicht...
Some of my best friends are German!
And didn't my long post with respect to Dr Strangelove answer your question as to whether I meant American Pie funny, or funny in the manner of a more sophisticated comedy?
You want to hear something funny, aus Spaß? I 'came of age' (hatte meine 'Umschuld' verloren, als wir sagen) with a Danish girl on a Rhein riverbarge when I was fifteen. Consequently, a warm glow suffuses me whenever I think of Germany (that has nothing to do with ovens)...
Have you ever seen One Two Three, BTW? Shot in Berlin, and starring James Cagney and Maximillian Schell, of all of Billy Wilder's films, it is as funny to me as Some Like It Hot, and much funnier than Oscar winner, The Apartment. It's a classic 'screwball' comedy. The writing (by Wilder and his longtime, writing partner, A.L. 'Izzy' Diamond), the pacing of the scenes, the rapid-fire dialogue, the impeccable timing of the actors and the breakneck editing are what make it so ferociously funny.
Aufrichtig, we just don't see that many German comedies in the USA. As truly funny as, zum Beispiel, some of the films of Rainer Werner Fassbinder were (Pathos is a form of Comedy, after all), they were ignored for years when he was alive, and since he's been dead, well... you've almost either got to study film in some aspect, or be lucky enough to live in a city with good resources to see anything (big ups, in my case, to the Enoch Pratt Free Library and Video Americaine).
Truthfully, though, Fassbinder's Berlin Alexanderplatz was so long (it's one of the longest films ever made if not the longest), I have to wonder how many German cinema-goers (apart from the audiences at the Bienalle) ever sat through it. You ever see it?
Vielen Dank! I'll see if I can find Papa Ante Portas somewhere. Lachen immer wieder tun!
