Pursuits of Happiness: The Hollywood Comedy of Remarriage

Couverture
Harvard University Press, 1981 - 283 pages

During the '30s and '40s, Hollywood produced a genre of madcap comedies that emphasized reuniting the central couple after divorce or separation. Their female protagonists were strong, independent, and sophisticated. Here, Stanley Cavell names this new genre of American film--"the comedy of remarriage"--and examines seven classic movies for their cinematic techniques and for such varied themes as feminism, liberty, and interdependence.

Included are Adam's Rib, The Awful Truth, Bringing Up Baby, His Girl Friday, It Happened One Night, The Lady Eve, and The Philadelphia Story.

 

Table des matières

Words for a Conversation
1
Cons and Pros
45
Knowledge as Transgression
71
Leopards in Connecticut
111
The Importance of Importance
133
Counterfeiting Happiness
161
The Courting of Marriage
189
The Same and Different
234
Film in the University
265
Acknowledgments
275
Droits d'auteur

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À propos de l'auteur (1981)

Stanley Cavell was born Stanley Louis Goldstein in Atlanta, Georgia on September 1, 1926. He received a degree in music from the University of California, Berkeley and a Ph.D. in philosophy from Harvard University. From 1953 to 1956, he was a junior fellow in Harvard's Society of Fellows. He then taught for six years at the University of California, Berkeley. He returned to Harvard to teach in 1963, becoming professor emeritus in 1997. His first book, Must We Mean What We Say?, was published in 1969. His other books included The Claim of Reason: Wittgenstein, Skepticism, Morality, and Tragedy; Pursuits of Happiness: The Hollywood Comedy of Remarriage; and Themes Out of School: Effects and Causes. He died from heart failure on June 19, 2018 at the age of 91.

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