Laughter in films that are not comedies

Batutta said:
I can see you're really upset about this. I honestly think you ought to sit down calmly, take a stress pill and think things over.
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Awesome answer.

The audience loved this line too. If I had to choose, it probably was the "funniest" line in the movie. Two girls sitting in front of me (about my age) laughed hysterically through this whole scene.

As HAL kept saying, "I can feel it. I'm afraid. I can feel it," they laughed each time, but softer and softer. I admit, I almost laughed at their laughter.

I can see what Zak and Luis mean about enjoyment, but all I can understand is a smile. I smiled with excitement when I noticed how awesome 70mm looked (yes Luis, it was at the Paramount theater), but that's it.

Just remembered more moments of laughter. Audience chuckled throughout the first 20 minutes. I think the audience was a mixture of people who had seen the film dozens of times and people who were seeing it for the first time.
 
Some of these classic films have become parodies of themselves. 2001, The Exorcist, Jaws, etc. They're excellent films but they've been spoofed so many times that it's hard for many to take them completely seriously. This could be a reason for the laughter.
 
I think the benefit of seeing a movie with a crowd far outweighs the negatives. I'm not one of these people who needs absolute quiet reverence for the film, unless it's Schindler's List (and even then, that film has its share of deliberate laughs). And while you may have to put up with a few jackasses here and there, it's par for the course. I will say you have never really experienced the upper limit of positive audience response, until you've seen a crowd pleasing film in a mostly black movie theater. Black folks can get into a movie like nobody else.
 
True. Movies I've seen with predominantly black audiences, have been a very different experience, than movies seen elsewhere.
 
I'm also for some reason reminded of the documentary John Pierson did about the year he spent operating a movie theater in Fiji, and how eye opening it was for him to screen films for an audience with such an unsophisticated taste. Movies like Apocalypse Now went over like a lead balloon. People walked out. But Sorority Girls and Jackass brought down the house.
 
I think audiences seeing a movie like 2001 for the first time today are jaded by the prevailing technology. When I saw 2001 in its original theatrical release in 1969, we were absolutely in awe of the proposed technology, not to mention the SFX. If you weren't around then, you don't realize how fascinated everyone was with satellites and emerging computer graphics. Those things on 2001 are by comparison to today, almost comical.

I can still remember the rush I got when Moonwatcher's bone turned into a spacecraft. Without that context, I don't think today's audiences know how to really appreciate what Kubrick accomplished.
 
..... and often times folks laugh when they are uncomfortable and don't know what else to do.

FWIW I laughed out loud a few times at Todd Solondz "Happiness" and quite often at "In the Company of Men".

I wouldn't exactly classify those as comedies but they did have some LOL parts in them.
 
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