Page - 24 - in JRFM - Journal Religion Film Media, Volume 04/02

Marriage and Its Representations | 23www.jrfm.eu 2018, 4/2, 23–37 Toufic El-Khoury Marriage and Its Representations in Classical Hollywood Comedy, 1934–1945 Stanley Cavell, the Concept of Skepticism, and Kierkegaard’s Legacy ABSTRACT This article explores the questions of marriage and divorce as discussed by Stanley Cavell in his study of classical Hollywood comedies, in which he considered a popular subgenre of the American comedy of the thirties and forties that he dubbed the “com- edy of remarriage”. It focuses on Cavell’s analysis of a series of films and the way these comedies belong to a specific American school of thought with a case study of The Aw- ful Truth (Leo McCarey, US 1937). It then seeks to identify traces of Kierkegaard’s mor- al legacy, by way of Wittgenstein’s influence on the American thinker, in Cavell’s original approach to marriage and divorce in light of his discussion of philosophical skepticism. KEYWORDS Classical Hollywood comedy, Stanley Cavell, cinema, skepticism, cinematic represen- tations of marriage, Søren Kierkegaard BIOGRAPHY Toufic El-Khoury is Assistant Professor (Maître de conférences) at the Université Saint- Joseph de Beyrouth (USJ, Beirut, Lebanon) and Lecturer at the Académie Libanaise des Beaux-Arts (ALBA, University of Balamand, Lebanon). He is the author of La Co­ médie hollywoodienne classique (1929–1945), structure triadique et médiations du désir («Champs visuels», 2016) and the co-editor, with Alain Brenas, of La ville méditerrané- enne au cinéma (Orizons, 2015). He is the editor of the Film Studies series «Cinémato- graphies» (Orizons, Paris, France). MARRIAGE AND ITS REPRESENTATIONS IN COMEDY Representations of marriage in theater and film, more specifically in comedy, are logically correlated to the mores, habits, and customs of the countries that produce them. We can identify two ways those dramatic representations have DOI: 10.25364/05.4:2018.2.2