Page - 29 - in JRFM - Journal Religion Film Media, Volume 04/02

28 | Toufic El-Khoury www.jrfm.eu 2018, 4/2, 23–37 Philosophical skepticism is a reservation or doubt about the legitimacy of a whole segment of knowledge claims. … Philosophical skepticism involves a doubt about the legitimacy of any knowledge claim whatsoever. … [This doubt] concerns the legitimacy of this segment of claims, or the legitimacy of every claim, to knowledge.11 Hence, in Cavell’s mind the protagonists of remarriage comedy are confronted not only with the quips and pros of marriage, but also with their own under- standing of the nature of the conjugal bond in which they are involved. In other words, the couple is tested: how can two beings communicate and exist in each other’s space while different and at the same time equal?12 On that issue we can turn to the final conversation between the soon-to-be-reunited ex-married couple, discussed by Cavell, which goes as follows: JERRY: In a half an hour, we’ll no longer be Mr. and Mrs. Funny, isn’t it? LUCY: Yes, it’s funny that everything’s the way it is on account of the way you feel. JERRY: Huh? LUCY: Well, I mean, if you didn’t feel that way you do, things wouldn’t be the way they are, would they? I mean, things could be the same if things were different. JERRY: But things are the way you made them. LUCY: Oh, no. No, things are the way you think I made them. I didn’t make them that way at all. Things are just the same as they always were, only you’re the same as you were too, so I guess things will never be the same again. […] You’re all con- fused, aren’t you? JERRY: Aren’t you? LUCY: No. JERRY: Well you should be, because you’re wrong about things being different be- cause they’re not the same. Things are different except in a different way. You’re still the same, only I’ve been a fool … but I’m not now. LUCY: Oh. JERRY: So long as I’m different don’t you think that … well maybe things could be the same again … only a little different, huh?13 In discussing the terms “different” and “same”, the protagonists realize that the equation of these terms gives improbable results. The second scene of the movie (the couple’s first fight) and the last one (the couple in the middle of their reconciliation) are inverses: the second scene uses a frontal, almost static cam- era, with a predominance of “American shots” and an almost absence of close- ups; the last one uses a diagonal representation of the couple, multiple shots with significant depth of field, and medium shots that underline the dialectical 11 Hall 1994, 149–150. 12 See Garcia 2012, 177. 13 This scene starts at the 82nd minute and ends at the 85th (last but one) minute of the movie.