Alternative Worlds in Hollywood Cinema

234 Pages·2008·9.25 MB·English

by  James Walters

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The use of alternate realities in cinema has been brought to new a
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and Donnie Darko. Alternative Worlds in Hollywood Cinema is the first n
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book to analyze these imaginary realms, tracing their construction
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Through an analysis of such landmark films as The Wizard of Oz,
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It’s a Wonderful Life and Groundhog Day, Walters reveals how
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unconventional worlds are crucial to each film’s dramatic agenda ld
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and narrative structure. This groundbreaking volume unifies decades
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of divergent work by film scholars and points the way towards a

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new theoretical framework for understanding fantasy in the context o
of popular film. Alternative Worlds in Hollywood Cinema will be an lly
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essential resource for film studies scholars and movie buffs alike.
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James Walters is a Lecturer in Film and Television Studies at the University of Birmingham. d

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Alternative Worlds in
Hollywood Cinema
Resonance Between Realms

Alternative Worlds in
Hollywood Cinema
Resonance Between Realms
James Walters

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First Published in the UK in 2008 by
Intellect Books, The Mill, Parnall Road, Fishponds, Bristol, BS16 3JG, UK
First published in the USA in 2008 by
Intellect Books, The University of Chicago Press, 1427 E. 60th Street, Chicago,
IL 60637, USA
Copyright © 2008 Intellect Ltd
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,
stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means,
electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without

written permission.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Cover Design: Gabriel Solomons
Copy Editor: Holly Spradling
Typesetting: Mac Style, Nafferton, E. Yorkshire
ISBN 978-1-84150-202-1/EISBN 978-1-84150-252-6
Printed and bound by Gutenberg Press, Malta.
C
ontents
Acknowledgements 7
Introduction 9
Chapter One: Establishing Contexts 15
Part One: Imagined Worlds 41
Chapter Two: Imagined Worlds 43
Chapter Three: Making it Home: The Wizard of Oz (Victor Fleming, 1939) &
The Woman in the Window (Fritz Lang, 1944) 55
Chapter Four: Return to Innocence: Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
(Michael Gondry, 2004) 81
Part Two: Potential Worlds 105

Chapter Five: Potential Worlds 107
Chapter Six: Reclaiming the Real: It’s a Wonderful Life (Frank Capra, 1946) 115
Chapter Seven: The Search for Tomorrow: Groundhog Day (Harold Ramis, 1993) 135
Part Three: Other Worlds 155
Chapter Eight: Other Worlds 157
6 | ALTERNATIVE WORLDS IN HOLLYWOOD CINEMA
Chapter Nine: Life Beyond Reason: Brigadoon (Vincente Minnelli, 1954) 169
Chapter Ten: Rehearsal Space: Pleasantville (Gary Ross, 1998) 191
Conclusion 213
Filmography 221
Bibliography 227
Index 231
A
Cknowledgements
This study has benefited from the guidance and support of many individuals and institutions. I
would like to thank the staff of the Department of Film Studies at the University of Kent for three
crucial years of undergraduate education, and especially Andrew Klevan whose energy, rigour
and vitality as both a teacher and a scholar continues to be a source of inspiration. I would
also like to thank the staff and students of the Institute of Film Studies at the University of
Nottingham, where this book began life, for their helpful comments and suggestions in the early
stages, especially Mark Jancovich for his careful assessment of the work. Nottingham and then
the Arts and Humanities Research Council have supported me financially in my research and
I thank them for the faith they have shown. Danny Rubin kindly agreed to be interviewed for
this book and I am deeply grateful for the insights he gave into the writing and filming of
Groundhog Day. I am also immensley grateful to Sam King at Intellect Books, who has guided
the book through its publication with care, enthusiasm and dedication.
The Department of Film and Television at the University of Warwick provided a perfect
environment for the growth and development of the thoughts and ideas contained in these

pages. I am indebted to a host of fellow researchers who shared suggestions and sympathies
throughout, and I would especially like to thank James Bennett and Tom Brown for their
enduring friendship and good judgement. Many of the staff in the department offered insights
into the work, both formally and informally, and I thank them for their generous investment. V.F.
Perkins, particularly, has had a prominent influence on my work both as a teacher, colleague,
and through a body of scholarship that is indispensable for anyone engaged in the study of
film. I reserve greatest thanks for Ed Gallafent, whose generosity, vigour and understanding
has driven the project and profoundly shaped its outcomes. I cannot adequately articulate his
contribution so I simply thank him for the depth of his commitment.
Finally, I would like to thank my wife, Amy, who understands so much about films and whose
humour, intelligence and support has constantly inspired me to work. This book is dedicated
to her.

I
ntroduCtIon
Hollywood films have always exhibited a general tendency to contrast ‘worlds’ of particular
kinds and orders. We might consider, for example, the ways in which the worlds of domesticity
and criminality are brought together in Max Ophüls’ The Reckless Moment (1949) and how,
in that film, Ophüls succeeds in exposing the shortcomings of Lucia Harper’s (Joan Bennett)
conventionally safe domestic world precisely by having the criminal underworld invade its
apparent sanctity. The integral detail in the film’s elucidation of these shortcomings lies in the
way that a supposedly unscrupulous blackmailer from the criminal world, Martin Donnelly
(James Mason) is shown to offer the loyalty, sympathy and tenderness unavailable to her in her
own world. Potential threat becomes temporary salvation, therefore, as a character from one
world provides unexpected relief for a character who belongs to another.1
Similarly, we may think of Alfred Hitchcock’s North by Northwest (1959) in which Roger
Thornhill (Cary Grant) is forced to exchange his world of work with the world of international
espionage. As with The Reckless Moment, this can, on the surface, be read as a move from
safety to danger, from order to disruption. However, as with Ophüls before, it might also be

said that Hitchcock makes his character’s life precarious precisely to illustrate existing deficiencies
and, particularly, to exemplify Thornhill’s own shortcomings in one world by throwing him
unceremoniously into another. This view is taken up in Robin Wood’s landmark study as he
remarks that, at the beginning, Thornhill is:
a man who lives purely on the surface, refusing all commitment or responsibility
(appropriately, he is in advertising), immature for all his cocksureness, his life all the more
a chaos for the fact he doesn’t recognize it as such; a man who relies above all upon
the trappings of modern civilization – business, offices, cocktail bars, machines – for
protection, who substitutes bustle and speed for a sense of direction or purpose; a
modern city Everyman, whose charm and self-confidence and smartness make him
especially easy for the spectator to identify with, so that at the start we are scarcely
conscious of his limitations as a human being.2