Stanley Cavell Hollywood Films

STANLEY CAVELL AND THE MAGIC OF HOLLYWOOD FILMS DAN SHAW Stanley Cavell and the Magic of Hollywood Films This book is dedicated to the memory of Professor Stanley Cavell, its subject. His writings have enriched my life immeasurably, by introducing me to the philosophies of Emerson and Thoreau, and to the most creative account of the magic of the movies I have yet come across. I only hope it is as therapeutic to my readers as his work has been for me. CinematicStanley Cavell Nihilism and the Encounters,Magic of Hollywood Confrontations, Overcomings Films JohnDan ShawMarmysz Edinburgh University Press is one of the leading university presses in the UK. We publish academic books and journals in our selected subject areas across the humanities and social sciences, combining cutting-edge scholarship with high editorial and production values to produce academic works of lasting importance. For more information visit our website: edinburghuniversitypress.com © Dan Shaw, 2019 Edinburgh University Press Ltd The Tun—Holyrood Road 12 (2f) Jackson’s Entry Edinburgh EH8 8PJ Typeset in 11/13 Monotype Ehrhardt by Manila Typesetting Company, and printed and bound in Great Britain A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN 978 1 4744 5570 1 (hardback) ISBN 978 1 4744 5572 5 (webready PDF) ISBN 978 1 4744 5573 2 (epub) The right of Dan Shaw to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 and the Copyright and Related Rights Regulations 2003 (SI No. 2498). Contents 1 Introduction: Defining the Magic—Why Stanley Cavell? 1 2 Projecting Reality 7 3 Stanley Cavell: Emersonian Individualist 25 4 Cavell on Nietzsche: The Ascetic Ideal, Eternal Recurrence, and “Higher Self ” 42 5 Comedies of Remarriage and the Transfiguration of the Commonplace 58 6 How the Unknown Woman Finds her Voice in Contesting Tears 76 7 Cavell and Wittgenstein on Skepticism: Redeeming the Law 93 8 Heidegger, Cavell, and Woody Allen: Another Woman 105 9 Halls of Montezuma and the Utility of War 118 10 Thoreau, Civil Disobedience, and Selma 129 11 Lockean Liberalism and Mr. Smith Goes to Washington 140 12 Cavell’s Notion of Acknowledgment and Boys Don’t Cry 151 References 160 Index 162 CHAPTER 1 Introduction: Defining the Magic—Why Stanley Cavell? Figure 1.1 have come to the work of Stanley Cavell late in life, as I have to the writ- I ings of Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau. They have been a revelation to me, and an infusion of optimism that has helped me to overcome the anxiety of aging. They pursue a brand of philosophy that represents what is best and most progressive about the American spirit, making a singular and 2 S TA N L E Y C AV E L L AND THE MAGIC OF HOLLYWOOD FILMS distinctive contribution to World Philosophy in the process. In the last decade or so, I have become an unabashed acolyte of their shared world view, and an advocate for Cavell’s approach to talking about motion pictures. Film theorists have sought to account for the magic of the movies in the Golden Age of Hollywood ever since the age ended with the breakup of the Studio system. I know of no one that has captured its essence as perfectly as Cavell. His twin theses, that film is the most realistic of artistic media, and that good movies share a common vision of the good (in Plato’s sense of the term), go hand in hand. As realistic, the filmic medium is particularly effective in securing the suspension of disbelief on which the movies depend. The value system championed by classical Hollywood is a uniquely American one, the striving to better oneself through transformation that Cavell has identified as Emersonian perfectionism. It is no accident that Hollywood films in the classical age embody these values; they are at the heart of the American Dream. Striving for social mobil- ity (sustained by the myth that anyone, no matter how humble their back- ground, can become President of the United States), and for our children to enjoy a better standard of living than we do, constitute that dream. The desire to better ourselves, and the faith that we can do so, have driven the nation since its founding. Striving to become who we are is the major task of the radical individualism and self-reliance so often lauded by American philosophers Emerson and Thoreau. So I was inspired to write this book, to discuss Cavell’s philosophy (and in particular, his philosophy of film) and its acknowledged intellectual precursors, and to propose original readings of films from a Cavellian perspective. My goals are to convince more film-philosophers to adopt Cavell’s paradigm (as the best among several competitors in the field), and to popularize his point of view for the general public. My viewing experience in watching films has been immeasurably enriched by seeing them through Cavell’s lens. The structure of the book is dictated by these goals. It begins with a chapter on Cavell’s general account of film as a uniquely realistic artistic medium, offered in The World Viewed (1971) and elsewhere, and his stunning insight that the content of a striking number of good Hollywood films share a vision of moral goodness. To illustrate the former thesis, I offer an analysis of The Hurt Locker (2009), which uses the realistic potentials of filmic representation to persuasively convey its thesis that war is a drug to which it is disturbingly easy to become addicted. Two chapters on the philosophers who most influenced Cavell’s world view follow. More than anything else, Cavell champions what he calls Emersonian perfectionism, striving for the “unattained but attainable self ” that we all have the potential of becoming. As I do throughout, I allow Cavell to speak in his own words, quoting extensively from his published works. It may strike the INTRODUCTION 3 reader as odd that in this, and in all the other chapters of the book, there are no quotes from secondary sources. Inspired by Emerson’s warning that if all you do is quote from others there is nothing to learn from you, I have taken the unorthodox step (in film scholarship) of unpacking quotes from primary sources on my own, with no help from my philosophical colleagues. In so doing, I seek to allow those sources to speak with their own voices, and to develop my own voice in the process. Cavell contends that striving for Emersonian perfectionism is what drives the female protagonists in both the remarriage comedies and the melodramas that he dedicated separate volumes to analyzing. I will demonstrate its rele- vance both to contemporary Hollywood films and to genres apart from the two he singles out by discussing how Katherine Graham in The Post (2017) takes the reins of her own life and determines the fate of the nation in the process, in one of the most stirring of Steven Spielberg’s cinematic creations. Friedrich Nietzsche is arguably the second most influential of Cavell’s intellectual precursors. Like Cavell, Nietzsche acknowledged his profound debt to the writings of Emerson, and Cavell had a lot to say about Nietzsche as well. Nietzsche’s imperative to become who we are, and his search for what he called a “higher self,” resonated naturally with Cavell’s Emersonian project. Nietzsche’s famed (and notorious) concept of the Übermensch (literally “Overman,” not “Superman”) provides a useful template for what such a “higher self ” might look like. I will illustrate their shared concept by applying a list of the purported traits of the Overman to an unforgettable cinematic character, Ada Stewart from The Piano (1993). A Victorian stranger in the strange land of mid nineteenth-century New Zealand, Ada arrives in complete control of herself, and soon exerts a similar degree of control over everyone around her. Her resolute will is depicted as indomitable, to an extent that even Nietzsche, despite his misogyny, might have respected. My summary of Cavell’s classic treatise on remarriage comedies, Pursuits of Happiness, will follow, the book that first hooked me on his approach to philos- ophizing about film. It focuses on his contention that such rom-coms are best suited to assuage our doubts about the validity of marriage, because they depict people who have questioned that validity, broken up, and choose to come back together again. It is also here that Cavell utilizes most persuasively his notion of acknowledgment, first introduced in his interpretations ofKing Lear. In his account, reconciliation of the romantic couple requires them to acknowledge the independent identity of the other, coming to know and respect each other through extensive conversations. I will have a good deal more to say about that notion in the Chapter 12. The chapter will show how relevant this theory remains to contemporary Hollywood films by applying it to Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004), one of the most beloved romantic comedies of the twenty-first century. 4 S TA N L E Y C AV E L L AND THE MAGIC OF HOLLYWOOD FILMS Analyzing Cavell’s theory of the Hollywood Melodrama of the Unknown Woman in Contesting Tears is my next task. More than a decade after Pursuits of Happiness, Cavell returned to classical Hollywood to propose yet another genre theory that focuses on female protagonists searching for self-realization. What both the comedies and the melodramas have in common is the striving for Emersonian perfectionism. What distinguishes them is that their central women find themselves either within the confines of marriage or outside of it.

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