posted October 30, 2006 08:49 AM         

I had been thinking of this. I wondered if the youngsters would find the movie boring or even laugh about it when they weren't supposed to. I wouldn't be surprised, or too upset. Turned out that most of the time they did seem to find it boring, at times many of them got distracted, or chatting with each other; they did laugh when they weren't supposed to.

Like when Gerry Conlon and even Giuseppe Conlon curse in the first half of the film, the students would laugh because they probably found the F word funny in a way. Like when together in the cell, Gerry finds his father, Giuseppe is dying, gasping for breath, the students laughed. Some court scenes, I saw a girl nearby laugh too. Sometimes even I couldn't help smiling a little when they were giggling, feeling awkward. But mostly, watching this film once again, for free, with a bunch of uni students/med students, I considered it a blessing.

I just wonder why people laugh at violence and even at tragedy. Is it because we truly find it hilarious? Or we're just nervous ourselves, and having to release that nervous and perhaps even anxious energy, we let it out by laughing at the wrong moments?
Or it's a regional thing? Is it because these people have formed a culture which is to laugh at violence and tragedy? I have yet to find the answer.

I used to get very angry when people did this thing. Now I guess I'm coming to terms with this phenomenon somehow. But is this strange behaviour universal nowadays? Like, when they play some all-time classic movies, particularly tragedies, war dramas, and in the past, people's reactions would be genuine shock, sadness, fear, intense emotions, empathy...but now, some decades later, today's individuals aged from teens to 30s, 40s or over, would actually laugh at the moments when people would have shown those more natural emotions 20 or 30 years ago?

I have to admit that there have been times when I can feel nervous about certain violent scenes, and I suspect that some laughter may have originated from that nervousness. Why, then, ostensibly, people have become "more nervous" than those belonged to earlier generations? More disturbing, sometimes they are not even just a bit nervous. They end up quite indifferent. A few people have told me that all they wanted was go seeing a film, any film, which didn't require them to think, and just let them relax, laugh about it, and when they leave, "they'd forget it all". There was a woman who told me that she loved those horror flicks with beheaded humans running around with blood coming out of their necks, "How funny!" she remarked. Lots of blood, that was what she liked.

Most of the time I experience indifference from those around me, who was watching the same film as I was. Is this a common thing and am I making a big fuss out of nothing?

posted October 30, 2006 07:02 PM         

Thought I cannot personally understand it, we humans have been entertaining ourselves with violence for thousands of years. Human sacrifice, torture, gladiator rings...etc. Now since true violence is 'frowned upon' in society, we create the same entertaining violence in film

I do not find violence amusing at all. i have not tried to understand how others do. Keep up the fabulous thought process!

Welcome welcome Welcome!!!!

posted October 30, 2006 08:59 PM         

And some people never grow up!