陳玉勳的喜劇轉折：一種數位時代的思考

A Turn on Yu-Hsun Chen's Comedy Film: A Digital-Age Perspective

臺灣喜劇電影導演陳玉勳，在1997年推出他的第二部喜劇電影《愛情來了》之後，由於票房失利而離開電影界。2010年重返電影界，陸續拍攝《茱麗葉》之〈還有一個茱麗葉〉（2010），《10+10》之〈海馬洗頭〉（2012），以及喜劇長片《總舖師》（2013）。基於他的電影創作生涯中有長達十三年的中斷，使他的喜劇表現有了極大轉變，本文因此將聚焦在他喜劇電影的轉折。從諾斯（Michael North）對於機器時代喜劇電影的研究發現，由於喜劇是最能顯現社會真實的電影類型，因此機器時代的喜劇電影所反映的正是一種機器性。從這個角度出發來思考陳玉勳的喜劇轉折：在他離開電影界的十三年中，正是數位科技革命性地影響社會所有層面的時代。數位時代的喜劇形式因此成為本文探索他喜劇轉折的主要焦點。基於此，本文首先比較陳玉勳早期與後期電影的喜劇表現，並將此置入數位時代的框架中思考，以掌握數位時代對於喜劇表現的可能影響。透過此一分析，本文得以發現陳玉勳近年來的三部喜劇正反映出某種數位時代的特質。但是正如諾斯的分析所顯示的，機器時代喜劇是基於機器性出發，而發展出超越傳統的喜劇形式。同樣地，數位時代喜劇如果作為一種反映數位社會真實的喜劇，其表現必然與過去有所不同，因此單純從過去喜劇表現方式來論證陳玉勳電影所反映的數位時代特質，事實上是值得商榷的。問題在於如何掌握這種新的喜劇的可能？對此一問題，本文從後人類的角度出發，透過檢視人與機器連結的發展，以思考從機器時代喜劇過渡到數位時代喜劇的可能變化，而陳玉勳的喜劇則提供一個探索此一變化的適切場域。

Yu-Hsun Chen is one of the new generation of Taiwanese directors, famous for his comedy films. After his second comedy, Love Go Go (1997), failed at the box office, Chen decided to stop making movies. He returned to directing in 2010, and soon shot three comedies, including the short film Another Juliet (2010), a five-minute mock horror short film, Hippocamp Hair Salon (2012), and a long film, Zone Pro Site (2013). Due to the thirteen-year hiatus in Chen’s film career, there are many obvious differences between his earlier and later films. These differences and their implicit meanings will be the chief concerns of this project. According to Michael North’s study on machine-age comedy, given that comedy maybe an especially significant genre in revealing social realities, it is to be expected that machine-age comedy will display a mechanical nature. Consistent with this view, Chen’s recent comedies might be expected to reveal the nature of the digital age, in which rapid technological development has changed all aspects of society during the thirteen-year gap of his film career. In this regard, the paper first compares the comedy gags and forms in his films before and after this thirteen-year interruption, with specific attention paid to the influence of digital technologies on the selection of the gags and forms employed. The findings confirm that Chen’s recent three films are indeed of a digital nature. However, as North points out, machine-age comedy developed into a new form beyond that of traditional comedy due to its mechanical displays. For the same reason, digital-age comedy should create its own distinct form of comedy. This makes analyzing Chen's new comedies in terms of traditional gags and forms problematic, and raises the question: in which way is it possible to identify digital comedic forms? To answer the question, the paper, inspired by post-human theory, examines the possible change from machine-age to digital-age comedy, with a particular concern for the relationship between human and machine. Chen’s comedy films will be appropriate research objects for investigating this change.