THE LADY EVE

I’ve been spending quite a bit of time lately watching what Stanley Cavell calls “second-marriage comedies” and his essays on them in his book The Pursuit of Happyness. We can leave aside the question of whether or not such films really constitute a genre in themselves – there seems to be some debate about this – but repeated viewing of these films, together with careful study of Cavell’s essays on them, It is certainly a more profitable exercise.

One of the things that strikes me is how little Cavell cares about a movie qua movie; Throughout most of his essay on Sturges’s glorious comedy starring Stanwyck and Fonda, he might as well be writing about a play, whether written, staged, or filmed. It is true that from the beginning he discusses a camera movement (which is misidentified as ‘wandering’: the scene in question is achieved with a straight cut), the humorous sequence of the opening credits and, later, he addresses REFLEXIBILITY in terms from the photograph of the three card swindlers, as well as stating, in a discussion of the mirror Jean holds up to watch the other passengers on the ship, that “…we are informed that this film is known to have been written, directed, photographed and edited”. Maybe he does, maybe he doesn’t, but if he does, he does it in a way that is obvious only to a philosopher or serious film student. He does not display this self-awareness in the way that, say, the microphone hanging over an actor’s head is clearly visible in a Godard film.

But aside from this, there is little in Cavell’s essay that treats the film as a member of a single artistic medium. For example, I think it would be completely out of character for Cavell to comment on the transition cut from the “chimney” of the little boat Fonda and Demarest consuming the Amazon to the cruise ship’s chimney (think of Kubrick cutting from the bone thrown to the spaceship ) or in the use of footage of a cruise ship sailing on the ocean that Sturges uses here. There are also scandalous Hollywood conventions that we have to put up with here: for example, when Fonda and Demarest come aboard the cruise ship, how come Stanwyck has an apple handy to hit him over the head with? Or this: the little boat they’ve been in the Amazon with can simply connect with the ocean liner in the middle of the sea? Of course, I understand that Cavell’s concerns lie in different areas: he says he doesn’t pretend to be writing film reviews, but sometimes, as I read his essays, I wonder if he isn’t giving the cinematic aspects of film a bit of attention. . .