Stanley Cavell and the magic of Hollywood films

Edinburgh University Press

2019

166 pages

Includes bibliographical references and index

9781474455701

Introduction: defining the magic: why Stanley Cavell? Projecting reality Stanley Cavell: Emersonian individualist Cavell on Nietzsche: the ascetic ideal, eternal recurrence, and "higher self" Comedies of remarriage and the transfiguration of the commonplace How the unknown woman finds her voice in Contesting Tears Cavell and Wittgenstein and skepticism: redeeming the law Heidegger, Cavell, and Woody Allen: Another Woman Halls of Montezuma and the utility of war Thoreau, civil disobedience, and Selma Lockean liberalism and Mr. Smith Goes to Washington Cavell's notions of acknowledgement and Boys don't cry

"One of America's most important contemporary thinkers, Stanley Cavell's remarkable film philosophy proposed that the greatest Hollywood films reflect the struggle to become who we really are - a struggle that is foregrounded in the characteristically American theory of Emersonian perfectionism. Focusing on his account of what makes Hollywood movies so magical, Dan Shaw draws on Cavell's theories to interpret a range of classic and contemporary dramas, including Mr Smith Goes to Washington (1939), Boys Don't Cry (1999) and The Hurt Locker (2008). Pairing of these analyses with discussions of Cavell's precursors, including Emerson, Nietzsche and Mill, the book explores a distinctively American philosophical foundation for the study of Hollywood film."-- Provided by publisher

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