Pursuing the ‘basal element’ in the laughable, Henri Bergson proposes a ‘mechanical elasticity’ in place of typical human ‘adaptability’ and ‘living pliableness’.[1] The character of Martin in The Institute (Amit Lahav, 2020) embodies this absent-minded type who adapts themselves to a past, imaginary situation instead of present reality.[2] We also get subjective glimpses into his ‘life-history’, garnering a ‘definite, positive cause’ for his unconscious ‘automatism’, which Bergson asserts heightens the comedy.[3]
However, the scene where Martin enacts a date with a pair of mannequin hands also has a distinct sense of horror. This duality seems to exist to varying extents in many onscreen representations of automatism, from zombie flicks to Chaplin’s Modern Times (1936). What is it about automatism that treads this line between humour and uneasiness so precariously? I’d argue that it is the threat of societal punishment in response to problems of automatism and inelasticity largely caused by society itself. ‘Martin’s Room’ is a literal representation of Bergson’s notion of laughter as societal ‘corrective’.[4] Martin is locked in a room, forced to perform his automated habits or ‘mental deficiency’ for the audience’s entertainment, until his ‘inadaptability to social life’ has been improved.[5] The institutionalisation of this process exposes its more harrowing extremes. Accompanying our laughter, there is a note of horror in the idea that this grim punishment is being sanctioned as a result of the isolation and lack of effective mental health support generated by the doctrines of individualist society. His inelasticity of character strikes a chord within us and yet we still enact his punishment; we too fear what will happen to us because of things outside our control.
Zombies are killed due to viruses created by the systemic exploitation of the natural world and the Tramp is hospitalised, jobless, and imprisoned due to the repetitive work of industrial capitalism turning him into a machine. We laugh because we have internalised society’s corrective tendencies, yet we dread the potential consequences of our own eccentricities becoming incompatible.
[1] Henri Bergson, ‘The Comic in General- The Comic Element in Forms and Movements- The Expansive Force of the Comic’, in Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic, trans. Cloudesley Brereton and Fred Rothwell (New York: Macmillan, 1914), 10.
[2] Ibid., 11.
[3] Ibid., 12, 13, and 16.
[4] Ibid., 21.
[5] Ibid., 18.
Bibliography
Bergson, Henri, ‘The Comic in General- The Comic Element in Forms and Movements- The Expansive Force of the Comic’, in Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic, trans. Cloudesley Brereton and Fred Rothwell (New York: Macmillan, 1914), 1-66.
Filmography
Chaplin, Charlie, dir. (1936), Modern Times, United Artists, USA.
Gecko, ‘Institute (Film) Gecko: Martin’s Room Teaser’, YouTube, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xK1tP-asImE&ab_channel=Gecko [23/01/23]- a clip from Amit Lahav, dir. (2020), The Institute, Gecko, UK.
Fascinating read! I found your thoughts on comedy as a response to the horrors of the real world rather enlightening. A lot of comedy certainly seems to rely on exploiting the absurdities of depressing situations, finding what makes us laugh in the face of what should otherwise make us cry. It could be said that there is something sickening of horror comedy as a popular genre, yet their compatibility is telling of the interlinked nature of the two ideas. Does comedy thus rely on this despair in order to function?