Stanley Cavell and the Magic of Hollywood Films

173 Pages·2019·12.52 MB·English

by  Dan Shaw

S T A N L E Y C A V E L L
A N D T H E M A G I C O F
H O L LY W O O D F I L M S
DA N S H AW
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.
CStiannelmeya tCica vNeilhl ialnisdm the
Magic of Hollywood Films
Encounters, Confrontations, Overcomings
John Marmysz
Dan Shaw
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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
I have come to the work of Stanley Cavell late in life, as I have to the writ-
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 stanley cavell 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 precur-
sors, 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 intel-
lectual 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 of King 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.