lightreads

I remember watching the commentaries for the LOTR extended films, where Peter Jackson mentioned that when a film has extended grimness, sooner or later the audience are going to laugh, because they just need to, and if the filmmaker doesn’t give them an occasion to laugh which supports the story they’re trying to tell, the audience will laugh in a moment which wasn’t meant to be comic relief. I think the same is true of novels; maybe less so because we’re more likely to experience them with breaks while we pause the story. But still.