Bergsonian Comedy and the Human Machines in 'Star Wars'

Roth, Lane. "Bergsonian Comedy and the Human Machines in 'Star Wars'." Film Criticism 4.2 (1980): 1-8.

Applies H. Bergson's theory from "On Laughter" (q.v. under Background) to the first STAR WARS movie, now called A NEW HOPE. Some of the comic business in the film is traditional Bergsonian superimposition of the mechanical upon the organic, more specifically upon the human. Much of the comedy, though, is from C-3PO and R2-D2. "The comic droids . . . demonstrate the Bergsonian comic principles primarily though reversal—a machine acting like a person—and sometimes through double reversal—a machine acting like a person acting like a machine" (8). (Caution: Someone associated with Film Criticism consistently changed LR's "antinomy" ["opposition" or "contradiction"] to "antimony" [a "metallic chemical"], which might be confusing.)