I think of wit as being a particular kind of verbal play based on concision and the quick turnaround. Though, of course, wit can also be expressed visually - I think it still has a highly compressed, quick, allusive quality.

I want to see this movie! The Decay of Fiction

The Decay of Fiction, Pat O'Neill's magnum opus (opening for a one-week run next Wednesday at Anthology), takes the historical phantom zone first evoked by Wilder [in Sunset Boulevard] as its subject. Literally superimposing dream on documentary, it defines sunshine noir. Special-effects whiz O'Neill uses a combination of 35mm location shooting and a digital overlay to transform the once grand, long-shuttered Ambassador Hotel into a haunted mansion. The Ambassador has enjoyed a curious afterlife as a movie set (used in Pretty Woman, Forrest Gump, and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, to name a few). O'Neill allows the hotel to represent itself in a state of physical deterioration.

The past feels material. Everything is time-lapse. Empty rooms are animated by creeping shadows, fluttery curtains, and the memory of guests past. Silver ghosts gather around the derelict swimming pool. The old Coconut Grove nightclub, originally furnished with papier-mâché monkeys and the fake palms from a Rudolph Valentino vehicle, is a moldering wreck populated by gangster apparitions. O'Neill coaxes the suggestion of a story out of various movie moments, bits of soundtrack, and references to the Ambassador's legendary past (including Robert Kennedy's assassination in the hotel kitchen), but The Decay of Fiction is less a narrative than a monument. In its abstract movie-ness, this 74-minute carnival of souls exudes a wistful longing to connect, not so much with Hollywood history as with the history of that history.

It's like, ha ha ha, you didn't think I'd actually go there, did you? Well now I have.

So, The Aristocrats?

I think Shaun of the Dead was damn witty.

The description of The Decay of Fiction reminds me of the book House of Leaves.

I like this discussion on wit:

In his book Paradigms Lost, John Simon points out that humor and wit are nearly polar opposites. Humor is inclusive: it invites everyone to join in on the laugh and feel like one of the crowd. Wit is exclusive: it addresses itself only to those who are in the know, and if the other people in the room feel uncomfortable because they don't get it — hey, that's a bonus.

But I'm not sure how to apply it. I think, a lot of the time, the witty bits are the bits that have me saying "Oh, it's meant to be funny" in some confusion.

Which I hadn't thought about before -- wit is exposure, shock, something absurdly revealing and attractive and offputting all at the same time. It's like, ha ha ha, you didn't think I'd actually go there, did you? Well now I have.

I don't see wit as that at all. To me it doesn't require shock--in fact, I don't associate the two. Wit is deft. Humour isn't in any way orthogonal to wit, though wit doesn't have to be funny. It has to be pointed, deft, perhaps painful, whereas humour can be gentler, or broader, or more overwhelming.

What ita said.

I pretty much agree with Simon's statement also, except I think wit is a subset of humor. Humor includes wit, but wit does not include all of humor.

I read an article some years back on insider/outsider humor, and how one will be more popular than the other depending on what the society is experiencing. The article postulated than when society was stressed, laughing at someone's misfortunes (Charlie Chaplain, Buster Keaton, Three Stooges, Tom Cruise) was ascendant, and when society felt confident, humor that required the audience to be "in the know" was more popular (Johnny Carson, SNL, Eddie Izzard).

I'm not sure I agree with that broad a generalization, but I do think that humor is often consumed as a reassurance. And I think "insider" and "outsider" might apply to wit vs. broader humor.

Of course, I completely forgot about Gilmore Girls, which is so witty that the CW is using the tagline "Free to Be Witty" to promote it.

But yeah, mostly on TV now.

when society was stressed, laughing at someone's misfortunes (Charlie Chaplain, Buster Keaton, Three Stooges, Tom Cruise) was ascendant, and when society felt confident, humor that required the audience to be "in the know" was more popular (Johnny Carson, SNL, Eddie Izzard).

Buster Keaton is a lot more nuanced and layered than that. There is an aspect of laughing at his misfortune, but then there the realization of just how clever and skillful the visual gag is, and then the realization that he is the one who planned and executed the gag himself. So I do think it falls into the realm of wit, even without dialogue.

I keep thinking about The Importance of Being Earnest, which is damn near perfectly witty -- almost every single line is gorgeously crafted wit -- and which Wilde described as "written by a butterfly for butterflies." Quick, light, darting, every line ending someplace you couldn't possibly have predicted, but which on looking (listening) back is exactly right and inevitable.

What are the wittiest movies of the past 25 years? Is wit dead?

Would Wilde count, what with much of the wit having originated in the 19th century?

when society was stressed, laughing at someone's misfortunes (Charlie Chaplain, Buster Keaton, Three Stooges, Tom Cruise) was ascendant, and when society felt confident, humor that required the audience to be "in the know" was more popular (Johnny Carson, SNL, Eddie Izzard).

American society was very stressed during the '30s and '40s (at least, if the Depression and WWII aren't significant stressors, I don't know what are). Yet that era may have given us the peak of witty comedies.

Also, technology matters. Just looking at the movies, verbal wit only became possible when the talkies arrived.

Thirding what ita said.

I think wit is a subset of humor. Humor includes wit, but wit does not include all of humor.

But this, too. Maybe because of phrases like "keeping your wits about you," I usually associate wit with smart humor -- definitely a Gilmore Girls type of thing. Whereas broader humor includes things like Benny Hill and pretty much anything starring Tom Green. Not witty at all, but funny (in a completely subjective way).