In ‘Chuckle, Chortle, Cackle: A Phenomenology of Cinematic Laughter’, Julian Hanich describes both ‘contagion laughter’ and ‘laughter-laughter’, both the reaction of one person’s laughter in response to another’s. In his writing, the example that he gives is viewers laughing at other viewers’ laughter, but his reasoning works for situations outside of this, and points towards people finding others’ laughter funny generally. In another reading for this week, Elias and Parvescu outline the basic characteristics of a laugh – the changes that occur in the mouth, eyes, and cheeks to indicate that the subject is laughing. With both their description and Hanich’s thesis in mind, the clips below should, in theory, incite a reaction of laughter from the viewer. Instead, in these clips, the action of laughter is subtly distorted, it retains its basic form but minor adjustments are made to these two characters’ behaviour that turn laughter from a positive and contagious experience to something much more menacing.
In this clip from The Matrix Revolutions (2003) of Agent Smith, the changes in his expression mostly follow Elias and Parvescu’s outline of the typical laugh, however these characteristics are exaggerated until it becomes something unfamiliar. For example, his mouth stretches into a wide grin, which would not be abnormal, but it continues to stretch open until most of his bottom teeth are visible. Furthermore, Elias and Parvescu state the changes that the eyes typically undergo during laughter (‘if people laugh, their lower lids are raised, […] radiating from the outer corners of the eyes, the well-known crow’s feet’). Agent Smith’s eyes and eyelids do not move at all during this clip, he does not even blink. If you watch this clip on mute while covering the bottom half of his face, you can barely tell that he is actually laughing. The way that Agent Smith laughs is certainly too uncanny and menacing to elicit the ‘laughter-laughter’ response, however this begs the question as to when does laughter become too uncanny to be funny?
Joaquin Phoenix’s Joker laughs like he could burst into tears at any moment. He uses a slightly longer ‘ha’ sound at the beginning of every laugh which, alongside his high-pitched intonation, makes his laughter resemble more of an anguished cry. Although his expression follows Elias and Parvescu’s description, the context of his situation in the film distorts laughter from a joyous shared experience to a lonely and humiliating one. Are Hanich’s ‘contagion laughter’ and ‘laughter-laughter’ theories distorted here to create an opposite effect? In seeing the Joker laughing, does this force the viewer to automatically recognise the urge to laugh alongside him, only for this to morph into a sense of discomfort as the situation here is absolutely not funny at all?