Contesting Tears: The Hollywood Melodrama of the Unknown WomanUniversity of Chicago Press, 1996 - 255 sivua What is marriage? Can a relationship dedicated to equality, friendship, and mutual education flower in an atmosphere of romance? What are the paths between loving another and knowing another? Stanley Cavell identified a genre of classic American films that engaged these questions in his study of comedies of remarriage, Pursuits of Happiness. With Contesting Tears, Cavell demonstrates that a contrasting genre, which he calls "the melodrama of the unknown woman," shares a surprising number and weave of concerns with those comedies. Cavell provides close readings of four melodramas he finds definitive of the genre: Letter from an Unknown Woman, Gaslight, Now Voyager, and Stella Dallas. The women in these melodramas, like the women in the comedies, demand equality, shared education, and transfiguration, exemplifying for Cavell a moral perfectionism he identifies as Emersonian. But unlike the comedies, which portray a quest for a shared existence of expressiveness and joy, the melodramas trace instead the woman's recognition that in this quest she is isolated. Part of the melodrama concerns the various ways the men in the films (and the audiences of the films) interpret and desire to force the woman's consequent inaccessibility. "Film is an interest of mine," Stanley Cavell has written, "or say a love, not separate from my interest in, or love of, philosophy." In Contesting Tears Cavell once again brilliantly unites his two loves, using detailed and perceptive musings on melodrama to reflect on philosophical problems of skepticism, psychoanalysis, and perfectionism. As he shows, the fascination and intelligence of such great stars as Ingrid Bergman, Bette Davis, and Barbara Stanwyck illuminate, as they are illuminated by, the topics and events of these beloved and enduring films. |
Sisältö
Naughty Orators Negation of Voice in Gaslight | 47 |
Psychoanalysis and Cinema Moments of Letter from an Unknown Woman | 81 |
Ugly Duckling Funny Butterfly Bette Davis and Now Voyager | 115 |
Postscript To Whom It May Concern | 151 |
Stellas Taste Reading Stella Dallas | 197 |
Notes | 223 |
Bibliography | 231 |
Filmography | 241 |
243 | |
Muita painoksia - Näytä kaikki
Contesting Tears: The Hollywood Melodrama of the Unknown Woman Stanley Cavell Esikatselu ei käytettävissä - 1997 |
Yleiset termit ja lausekkeet
Adam's Rib Barbara Stanwyck Beast Bette Davis Blonde Venus camera Cary Grant Cavell Charlotte Charlotte's Claim of Reason closet cogito comedy of remarriage conversation culture denial deny Derrida Descartes desire difference drama Emerson essay example existence expression fantasy fate father feminine film's Freud further Gaslight gaze genre George Cukor hence Hollywood homosexual human husband idea imagine Ingrid Bergman interpretation irony James's Jaquith Jerry Kant Katharine Hepburn knowledge language Laurel let us say Letter madness male man's Marcher marriage mean melo melodrama metaphysical mind Modleski moral mother narrative negation one's ordinary Paula perhaps philosophical skepticism philosophy play present psychoanalysis Pursuits of Happiness question reading relation remarriage comedy Sedgwick seems sense sequence sexual skepticism speak specifically Spencer Tracy Standard Edition Stella Dallas story suggests thing thought tion transfiguration turn understanding University Press unknown woman voice Voyager Wittgenstein's women words
Suositut otteet
Sivu 27 - And the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept; and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof; and the rib, which the LORD God had taken from man, made he a woman and brought her unto the man.
Sivu 34 - A boy is in the parlour what the pit is in the playhouse; independent, irresponsible, looking out from his corner on such people and facts as pass by, he tries and sentences them on their merits, in the swift summary way of boys, as good, bad, interesting, silly, eloquent, troublesome.
Sivu 43 - Have you not heard of that madman who lit a lantern in the bright morning hours, ran to the market place, and cried incessantly, "I seek God! I seek God!
Sivu 35 - ... nobody ; all conform to it ; so that one babe commonly makes four or five out of the adults who prattle and play to it. So God has armed youth and puberty and manhood no less with its own piquancy and charm, and made it enviable and gracious and its claims not to be put by, if it will stand by itself. Do not think the youth has no force, because he cannot speak to you and me. Hark ! in the next room his voice is sufficiently clear and emphatic. It seems he knows how to speak to his contemporaries.
Viitteet tähän teokseen
Taste and the Household: The Domestic Aesthetic and Moral Reasoning Janet McCracken Rajoitettu esikatselu - 2001 |
The Woman Who Pretended to Be Who She Was: Myths of Self-Imitation Wendy Doniger Rajoitettu esikatselu - 2004 |