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THE WHOLE WORLD LAUGHS
by Daren Foster

The Whole World Laughs

DAREN FOSTER PODCAST about his recent columns - June 15 2009

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THE WHOLE WORLD LAUGHS
by Daren Foster

***A magical comedy tour around the world.***

Like snakes on a plane, humour does not travel well. One country’s guffaw is another’s head-scratcher. Even places that share the same language such as the United States and Great Britain have wide swaths of foreign comedic territory. With few exceptions, Americans don’t go dark for laughs. The Brits swim in it. Americans never fully got Bill Hicks. The Brits did.

The more divergent the culture, the bigger the humour gulf seems to be. How else can one explain why only the French seemed to get Jerry Lewis after the 1950s? Yet laughter is a peculiarly human characteristic so some aspects of funny must transcend language, race, ethnicity, location. Babies on every continent laugh at similar things. Peek-a-boo. Having their neck tickled. Noel Coward. Boys around the world find farting hilarious; a trait that doesn’t always go away with age. (For the record, semi-colons are universally not funny. I just use them because my editor says I have to. Now there’s a person with no sense of humour.)

To uncover the mystery of laughter and funny business, I recently ventured out to conduct some field research, taking in 3 movies from 3 different countries. Empties from the Czech Republic, the Norwegian O Horten and the American monster hit of 2009 thus far, The Hangover. As Goethe said: Nothing shows a man's character more than what he laughs at. If true, a country’s comedies will reveal nothing short of its national character.

Observation # 1. Based on Empties and O Horten, it seems that when Europeans use the word ‘comedy’ they don’t necessarily mean funny ha ha, so much as funny peculiar, odd, although mostly in a light-hearted way. Apparently in Europe, laughter doesn’t need to be present to qualify a movie as a comedy. If you permit me a broad-ish generalization, any film that isn’t set during World War II and doesn’t invariably allude to the Holocaust means, for Europeans, it is a comedy. They don’t need to bust a gut to feel like they’re watching something jovial. Just don’t talk about the war.

That’s not to say either Empties or O Horten was unpleasant or unwatchable. It’s just that as comedies, to this North American mind, these two movies weren’t laugh out loud funny. I might’ve chuckled a couple times. An odd smile crossed my lips now and then. What I did not do was laugh… which leads me to my next observation.

Observation # 2. Getting older, being forced into retirement from a job that you love and that defines you, and facing the spectre of your impending death are not (necessarily) subjects that lend themselves easily to the lightness of tone one usually associates with comedy. As a filmmaker, you tend to dig yourself a mighty big hole in which to climb back out of in order to set your feet down on fertile funny ground when your film tackles any of these topics. Yet this is the territory both Empties and O Horten mined for laughs. Perhaps the citizens of Norway and the Czech Republic find death, disappointment and despair pee-inducingly hilarious. It just kind of makes me sad. Usually when I’m sad, I don’t laugh a lot.

But let me reiterate. Empties and O Horten are good, engaging, intelligent movies that are beautifully shot and terrifically performed across the board. O Horten especially, presents stunningly stark winter bleakness that while captivating, is not the visual one necessarily associates with comedy. (Fargo aside and that only goes to prove the rule, smartass!) The truly amazing aspect of both films is that they were able to maintain such a blithe spirit throughout despite the rather gloomy material. In fact, it’s not surprising I didn’t laugh more. The surprising thing is that I in no way wanted to slit my wrists after watching them.

Observation # 3. European comedies seem to avoid laughter intentionally whereas big Hollywood comedies go largely laughless inadvertently. Case in point: The Hangover, which is one of those movies I usually try to avoid altogether or only watch when it appears on a TV movie channel and there’s absolutely nothing else on. It’s due to what I call the Ben Stiller-Will Ferrell Effect; (see what I’m saying? ; not funny) the funniest bits are in the ads and trailers. See those and there’s no need to see the rest of the movie. It doesn’t get funnier than the advertisements.

The Hangover is a narratively lazy film that takes a potentially interesting angle on a highly unoriginal idea and proceeds to do nothing with it. It is a movie of set pieces that must’ve seemed like a scream when it was pitched. Guys wake up from a stag bender and find a tiger in the bathroom! Mike Tyson’s tiger! And a baby in the closet!! They steal a cop car which leads to an endless taser scene! One of the guys gets married and can’t remember!! (You’ll never guess which one.) Did we mention Mike Tyson? He sings In the Air Tonight badly!! And there’s a flaming, foul-mouthed Chinese homosexual!! I guess everyone found these scenes so funny that no one bothered to take any time to piece them together in any interesting or intelligent way. The story simply unfolds as if by rote; (again, ; a laugh killer) a mere bridge to the funny scenes, characterlessly filled with mindless male chatter and slutty or shrewish women.

The one exception is Zach Galifianakis, whose seriously off-kilter performance simply stole the movie or what there was of it to steal. Had The Hangover tapped a whole lot more into his quietly twisted sensibility and ignored its single-minded pursuit of high concept gimmick laughs, it might’ve made for better viewing. It certainly couldn’t have been worse. Instead, it is reminiscent of an earlier effort by director Todd Phillips, Old School, where one character (Will Ferrell’s Frank the Tank in that case) is the single spark in an otherwise forgettable movie.

Observation # 4. If dealing with melancholic geriatric matters is a sure-fire way to avoid laughs, slavishly playing to the other end of the age spectrum doesn’t necessarily make things any funnier. Seriously. Who other than a slightly dim 12 year old still finds the sight of someone turning from the toilet in mid-stream and peeing on the floor funny? That’s comedy by committee and rarely does it work satisfactorily. Clearly it’s both money in the bank and sequel fodder but it makes for purely disposable movies that seldom stay with you much past the exit door of the theatre.

Observation # 5 and Conclusion. Comedy is a highly subjective, personal realm regardless of where you call home. One man’s fart noise is another man’s belly laugh. I for one, prefer my movies in the comedic vein where I laugh out loud fairly regularly. Failing that, I will always take movies that are well crafted and that assume the audience is relatively sentient over those that can’t even be bothered to do any more work than merely stringing a few funny bits together and calling it a day. Neither one is particularly funny but the latter is unfunny and insulting to boot. That’s the worst kind of unfunny.