Bergson notes

What is laughter?
Comic spirit living thing
Three points:
1. Comic doesnt exist outside what is human
a. Landscapes not funny
b. Laugh at animals but b/c detect in it human attitude or expression
c. Absence of feeling accompanies laughter: comic would not work unless audience is calm & unruffled
2. appeal is to intelligence
3. laughter is always a laughter of a group really?
a. People laugh more heartily in filled theater than emptier
b. Comedy b/w languages incapable of translation b/c refer to customs & ideas of a social group
group of men conc on one another, silence of emotions, call into play only intelligence
Laughters natural environment: society
Laughters function is social signification
result of rigidity or of momentum: continue to perform same movement when circumstances of the case called for
something else
victim of joke due to mechanical inelasticity; continuing in same straight line as machine where one would expect wideawake adaptability & living pliableness of a human being
comic accidental b/c brought about by external circumstance
absentmindedness: contiquous to a certain stream of facts/fancies which flows straight from the fountain-head of the
comic
the more natural we regard the cause to be , the more comic shall we find the effect
automatism: akin to absentmindedness
comic character is comic in proportion to his ignorance of himselfunconscious to himself but visible to everyone
around him
defect that is ridiculous, as soon as it feels itself to be so, endeavours to modify itself/correct itself
tension and elasticity: complementary forces life brings into play
society suspicious of all inelasticity of character both mind and body- b/c sign of eccentricity
laughter a social gesture: by the fear which it inspires, it restrains eccentricity, reduces mechanical inelasticity
rigidity=comic, laughter=corrective
comedy points out antisocial tendencies & invites us to laugh at them & thus encouraging us to correct them
III
Uglinessdeformitycauses laughter: deformity that may become comic is one that a normally built person could
imitate
Automatism, inelasticity, habit that has been contracted & maintained are the causes why a face makes us laugh;
intensity amplified when connect these characteristics w/ a certain fundamental absentmindedness
Caricature: exaggerates disproportions & deformations that exist in nature but have not have come to head
-for exaggeration to be comic, must not seem on purpose
-where matter succeeds in dulling the outward life of the soul, achieves an effect that is comic
IV
Gestures and Movements: laughable in exact proportion as that body reminds us of a mere machine but body should
still resemble life

Machine that works automatically no longer life, it is automatism established in life & imitating it comic
Gestures laughable when imitated by another individ; to imitate anyone brings out element of automatism
Incriminated gesture seems more mechanical when it can be connected w/ a simple operations, as though it were
intentionally mechanical
Laughable due to repetition i.e. identical faces together, public speaker repeats himself or another
-real living life should never repeat itself, so when repetition or complete similarity, suspect mechanism at work
-faces too similar give impression of manufacturing process
-deflection of life towards mechanical real cause of laughter
Several similar figures resemble marionettes, absolute uniformity prevails and actors transformed into automata
V
Mechanical element introduced into nature & an automatic regulation of society human regulation of affairs usurping
the place of the laws of nature
Something mechanical encrusted upon the living: comic from fact that the living body became rigid like a machine
Any incident is comic that calls our attention to the physical in a person when it is the moral side that is concerned
-a person embarrassed by his body
We laugh at every time a person gives us the impression of being a thing
PART II Comic Element in Situations and in Words
Any arrangement of acts and events is comic which gives us a single combo, the illusion of life & impression of a
mechanical arrangement
In comic repetition of words find repressed feeling & idea that delights in repressing the new feeling
Mechanical combination generally reversible
Inadvertently to say or do what we have no intention of saying or doing, as a result of inelasticity or momentum, is, as
we are aware, one of the main sources of the comic. Thus, absentmindedness is essentially laughable, and so we laugh
at anything rigid, ready- made, mechanical in gesture, attitude and even facial expression
Part III the Comic in Character