How the Unknown Woman Finds her Voice in Contesting Tears

While comedies of remarriage feature women becoming who they are within the sanctity of marriage, Cavell recognized what he called the Hollywood Melodrama of the Unknown Woman as celebrating independent unmarried women coming into their own by forsaking a spouse as necessary to do so. Both types of women pursue Emersonian perfectionism in their own unique stories, which Cavell argues are more liberating than regressive. An analysis of Now, Voyager precedes reflections on why Cavell did not include The Heiress as another one of his unknown women , The chapter concludes with a discussion of their respective attitudes towards the past, and whether they have overcome what Nietzsche called “the spirit of revenge”.

Comedies of Remarriage and the Transfiguration of the Commonplace

Romantic comedies have a difficult task before them, restoring our faith in a love that lasts. The sub-genre of the comedies of remarriage do this best of all rom-coms, by showing a divorced or alienated couple coming back together despite their difficulties. This furthers the myth that love conquers all, and that some couples were made for each other, with the distinct help of scintillating and hilarious conversation. This chapter analyses Cavell’s paradigm in his reading of The Philadelphia Story and demonstrates its contemporary relevance by applying it to one of the more philosophical of films of this century, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.

Lockean Liberalism and Mr. Smith Goes to Washington

Skepticism about Congress is, of course, nothing new, though it may be at its height in Trump’s America. John Locke’s theory of a workable democracy as involving three branches of government, two of which must be directly responsive to the consent of the governed, is stirringly championed in one of Frank Capra’s most moving films, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. Jefferson Smith’s use of the filibuster to block a graft ridden deficiency bill shows how effective Congressional institutions can actually be.

Cavell and Wittgenstein on Skepticism: Redeeming the Law

A discussion of the influence of Ludwig Wittgenstein on Cavell is followed by an attempt to expand the latter’s account of the Hollywood response to skepticism to other film genres. In particular, this chapter examines what I call the redemptive lawyer drama, where a barrister at the end of his rope saves himself by winning an honourable legal case in a David vs. Goliath situation. The examples here are Paul Newman in The Verdict, and Billy Bob Thornton in the Amazon Prime miniseries Goliath.

Thoreau, Civil Disobedience, and Selma

Henry David Thoreau is Cavell’s other bellwether American philosopher; he has an entire volume devoted to commentary on Thoreau’s Walden. This chapter will discuss the radical individualism Thoreau advocated in that classic, as well as his revolutionary treatise On Civil Disobedience. Martin Luther King made specific reference to this groundbreaaking work, and then engaged in successful attempts to put Thoreau’s principles into action. The recent Hollywood epic Selma celebrates one of the outstanding examples of such disobedience as leading directly to the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

Stanley Cavell: Emersonian Individualist

Ralph Waldo Emerson was Cavell’s most significant intellectual mentor. He claimed that Emerson made a singular contribution to the history of American thought with a clarion call to humanity to become who we are. Emerson sought to revolutionize moral thought by making self realization as central to that enterprise as the Kantian concern for duty or the Utilitarian calculus of what will best serve the greatest number. Cavell situates Emerson’s perfectionism at the heart of his genre theories, and of his account of what “The Good of Film” really amounts to. The chapterl illustrates Cavell’s notion of this Emersonian paragon by discussing Steven Spielberg’s recent treatment of the ascendency of Kay Graham (Meryl Streep), as she takes the reins at The Post and decides it should publish the Pentagon papers despite the legal ban on doing so.

Projecting Reality

Following Andre Bazín, Cavell saw Film as the most realistic of the visual arts. But, unlike Bazín, he never made the prescriptive claim that filmmaking would hence be better served by making more realistic films. He attributed the singular power of the Hollywood mythmakers to inspire their audiences to the credibility this most realistic of media lent to their flights of fancy. Realism was a good making characteristic in Cavell’s writings, and I will show how it fulfills its promise in Kathryn Bigelow’s Oscar-winning tale of addiction to the drug of war, The Hurt Locker.

Halls of Montezuma and the Utility of War

Cavell acknowledged John Stuart Mill as a fellow perfectionist, with reference to On Liberty and its aversion to conformity. But the primary focus of this chapter is Mill’s principle of utility, and the hedonic calculus that springs therefrom. One of the hardest things to accept about war is its cost in human lives. Hollywood films often help us do so by arguing that more lives are saved than are lost by such sacrifices. From the Halls of Montezuma makes the case convincingly in explicitly utilitarian terms. In this regard, it will be contrasted with the mission in Saving Private Ryan, which makes no sense in utilitarian terms.

Heidegger, Cavell, and Woody Allen: Another Woman

Martin Heidegger is another German philosopher to whom Cavell makes frequent reference. His central themes of authenticity and resoluteness, and of the importance of avoiding the conformity and superficiality of the idle talk of the they-self, find perfect expression in Woody Allen’s Another Woman. The protagonist here is a Heidegger scholar facing a midlife crisis brought on by her unwillingness to face who she is, and who she really cares about. Her ability to work through it reassures us that authenticity is indeed possible, and fits Cavell’s template for the melodrama of the unknown woman like a glove. It depicts a healthy image of womanhood and should be recognized for doing so, given the rarity of such depictions.

Cavell on Nietzsche: The Ascetic Ideal, Eternal Recurrence, and “Higher Self”

Cavell saw Friedrich Nietzsche as a fellow devotee of Emerson, and adherent to the notion of self-overcoming. He admired several aspects of Nietzsche’s philosophy, including the notions of Eternal Recurrence, striving for the “Higher Self” and the Three Metamorphoses of the Human Spirit from Thus Spoke Zarathustra. He refers to the conjunction of Emerson and Nietzsche in numerous works, as talismans for some of his deepest insights into film. An interpretation of Jane Campion’s Ada in The Piano depicts this notion of a Higher Self faithfully,as a resolute and self-willed pioneer woman in mid-nineteenth century New Zealand.