Stanley Cavell and Film: Scepticism and Self-Reliance at the Cinema

321 Pages·2019·3.23 MB·English

by  Catherine Wheatley

Stanley Cavell and Film
Series Editors:
Lúcia Nagib
Professor in Film at the University of Reading
Tiago de Luca
Associate Professor in Film & Television
Studies at the University of Warwick
Advisory Board:
Martine Beugnet, Université Diderot Paris
Thomas Elsaesser, University of Amsterdam
Catherine Grant, Birkbeck University
D.N. Rodowick, The University of Chicago
Ágnes Pethő, Sapientia University
David Martin-Jones, University of Glasgow
Philip Rosen, Brown University
Laura U. Marks, Simon Fraser University
Film Thinks is an original book series that asks: how has film influenced the way we think?
The books in this series are concise, engaging editions written by experts in film history and
theory, each focusing on a past or present philosopher, thinker or writer whose intellectual
landscape has been shaped by cinema. Film Thinks aims to further understanding and
appreciation, through sophisticated but accessible language, of the thought derived from
great films. Whilst explaining and interpreting these thinkers’ ideas and the films at their
origin, the series will celebrate cinema’s capacity to inspire and entertain – and ultimately
to change the world. Aimed at film fans as well as specialists, Film Thinks is devoted to
knowledge about cinema and philosophy as much as to the pleasure of watching films.
Published and forthcoming in the Film Thinks series:
Adorno and Film: Thinking in Images
By James Hellings
Georges Didi-Huberman and Film: Politics of the Image
By Alison Smith
Noël Carroll and Film: A Philosophy of Art and Popular Culture
By Mario Slugan
Roland Barthes and Film: Myth, Eroticism and Poetics
By Patrick ffrench
Slavoj Žižek and Film: A Cinematic Ontology
By Christine Evans
Stanley Cavell and Film: Scepticism and Self-Reliance at the Cinema
By Catherine Wheatley
Queries, ideas and submissions to:
Series Editor: Professor Lúcia Nagib – [email protected]
Series Editor: Dr Tiago de Luca – [email protected]
Senior Commissioning Editor at Bloomsbury: Anna Coatman – [email protected]
Stanley Cavell and Film
Scepticism and Self-Reliance
at the Cinema
Catherine Wheatley
Bloomsbury Academic
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First published in Great Britain 2019
Copyright © Catherine Wheatley, 2019
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Contents
List of Figures vi
Acknowledgements viii
Introduction 1
1 A Life in Movies 5
2 Everything Matters 29
3 Screening Scepticism 61
4 Acknowledgement, Other Minds 95
5 Self-Reliance 137
6 Perfectionism, Friendship, Education 181
7 Love’s Work 215
Postscript: The End. The Beginning 251
Notes 254
Bibliography 287
Index 299
List of Figures
1 Wittgenstein’s imagined duck-rabbit (University of Berkeley,
www.ocf.berkeley.edu). 25
2 The famous packed cabin sequence from A Night at the
Opera: In the world of the Marx Brothers, to honk is to
speak, which is how Cavell can claim that in their world
‘nothing goes without saying’. A Night at the Opera
(Sam Wood, 1935). 50
3 Deeds lies on his bed in Mr Deeds Goes to Town. Here, the
camera’s attention to the ordinary asks us to linger on this
moment, to turn and return, to respond to it. Mr Deeds
Goes to Town (Frank Capra, 1936). 55
4 Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho (1960) diagnoses modernity’s
obsession with ‘the phony psychological explanations we
give ourselves to ward off knowledge’. Psycho (Alfred
Hitchcock, 1960). 89
5 Buster Keaton’s Sherlock Junior (1924): ‘it’s as if every lie
ever told by a photographer’s backdrop or prop … had
suddenly come to life’. Sherlock Junior (Buster Keaton, 1924). 92
6 In the finale of The Awful Truth, Jerry returns to Lucy’s
room three times, building into the scene an ‘acceptance
of repetition’ that entails the ‘acceptance of human
relatedness’. The Awful Truth (Leo McCarey, 1937). 124
7 Instead of the festival of marriage The Awful Truth closes
with a shot of a cuckoo clock, which implies that the
festivity of marriage will play out over the days and nights
to come. The Awful Truth (Leo McCarey, 1937). 124
8 Adam’s Rib: ‘Vive le difference!’ Adam’s Rib
(George Cukor, 1949). 126
List of Figures vii
9 The myth of the Fall: in The Awful Truth Lucy handles an
orange – a substitute for the apple Eve hands Adam.
The Awful Truth (Leo McCarey, 1937). 131
10 It Happened One Night: The couple are embarking upon
an endless journey towards something better and
something endlessly out of reach. It Happened One
Night (Frank Capra, 1934). 133
11 Garbo, according to Cavell: ‘the greatest, or the most
fascinating, cinematic image on film of the unknown
woman’. Queen Christina (1933, dir. Rouben Mamoulian). 154
12 Bette Davis: in her demeanour is a refusal to accept a
world that is second-rate. Now, Voyager (1942, dir.
Irving Rapper). 156
13 The controversial ending of Stella Dallas. Stella Dallas
(King Vidor, 1937). 166
14 Lucy sings for Jerry in The Awful Truth. The Awful Truth
(Leo McCarey, 1937). 172
15 Paula confronts her tormentor in Gaslight: her speech
is like a ‘mad aria’. Gaslight (George Cukor, 1944). 174
16 The Philadelphia Story: the husband as moral model. The
Philadelphia Story (George Cukor, 1941). 197
17 Félicie in Conte d’hiver: ‘She exists, as her thoughts exist;
she loves; she counts herself happy.’ Conte d’hiver
(Éric Rohmer, 1993). 201
18 The Band Wagon: Fred Astaire walks ‘the walk of a man
who is known to move in dance exactly like no other man’.
The Band Wagon (Vincente Minnelli, 1953). 228
19 The Band Wagon: the beginning of the shoeshine dance.
The Band Wagon (Vincente Minnelli, 1953). 230
20 The Band Wagon: as Astaire exits the scene, Daniels
is left on his knees (Vincente Minnelli, 1953). 231
Acknowledgements
Could a greater miracle take place than for us to look through each
other’s eyes for an instant?
– Walden, Or Life in the Woods
Fittingly for a work about a man who spent much of his life thinking
about teaching, this book began life in the classroom. My first debt
of thanks is to Sarah Cooper, for encouraging me to take over her
module Thinking Cinema and devote it to studying the works
of Stanley Cavell, as well as to the students who have borne with
me over the eight years that I have been teaching it and without
whose conversation this book would undoubtedly have taken a
very different shape. My colleagues in the department of Film
Studies at King’s College London have been a great source of ideas,
inspiration and encouragement. I am thankful for the stimulating
and supportive environment they provide, as well as their ongoing
friendship.
Thanks to Eugenie Brinkema, William Brown, Catherine Constable,
Andrew Klevan, Richard Rushton, Eva Sancho Rodriguez, William
Rothman, David Sorfa, Ben Tyrer and Ginette Vincendeau for advice,
coffees, kind words and moral support. Also to Fiona Handyside,
Stephen Mulhall, David Rodowick, Daniele Rugo and Kyle Stevens,
who were generous enough to let me read and watch work in progress
that has informed this book. Anna Backman Rogers invited me to
present my own work in progress at the Film-Philosophy conference
she hosted in Gothenburg in July 2018. John Ó Maoilearca very kindly
took the time to read and offer detailed feedback on an early draft of
the book. Lucy Bolton has been the model of intellectual and spiritual
friendship. To paraphrase Cavell, the academic life is a life whose
Acknowledgements ix
texture is a weave of cares and commitments in which one is bound
to become lost and to need the friendly and credible words of others
in order to find one’s way. These individuals, and the other scholars
who make up the Film-Philosophy community, are a constant source
of inspiration and guidance.
A supportive editor is worth her weight in gold. I am grateful to
the series editors Lúcia Nagib and Tiago de Luca for encouraging me
to submit a proposal to the Film Thinks series, to Maddy Hamey-
Thomas for her graciousness and forebearing as I worked through
various iterations of the book, and her judiciousness when wielding
her editorial pen. (I once accidentally told her I loved her at the end of
the phone call; Freud might, I think, have had something to say about
that.) My thanks also go to Rebecca Barden and Anna Coatman for
steering the project through its final stages. And of course to the two
anonymous reviewers whose careful reports have hopefully helped
me to improve the book in important ways. Manuscript reviewing is
often a thankless task: I do hope you read this and see how much I
appreciate your time and effort.
Love is the subject of this book’s final chapter; in a sense it is the
thread that runs throughout the whole work, arising out of three
of Cavell’s central themes: what it is to be a friend, what it is to be
a spouse and what it is to be a mother. During the writing of this
book I’ve been learning about all three. The book would never have
existed had my children’s grandparents not rallied round to provide
unpaid childcare to allow me to read, write, watch films and attend
conferences. Jennifer and Malcolm Parry, Ann and Les Wheatley:
thank you, thank you.
My greatest debt of gratitude goes to Christopher Parry (if Cavell
is right that bickering is the surest proof of a strong marriage, I think
we’ve got it nailed), and to Esther, Daniel and Felix Parry, who every
day are teaching me to view the world through someone else’s eyes.
This book is for them.