Comedies of Remarriage and the Transfiguration of the Commonplace

Author(s):  
Dan Shaw
Keyword(s):  

Romantic comedies have a difficult task before them, restoring our faith in a love that lasts. The sub-genre of the comedies of remarriage do this best of all rom-coms, by showing a divorced or alienated couple coming back together despite their difficulties. This furthers the myth that love conquers all, and that some couples were made for each other, with the distinct help of scintillating and hilarious conversation. This chapter analyses Cavell’s paradigm in his reading of The Philadelphia Story and demonstrates its contemporary relevance by applying it to one of the more philosophical of films of this century, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.

Author(s):  
Chiara Faggella

Between the years 1922 and 1943, Italian Fascism revealed quite an ambivalent attitude towards lifestyle.[1] While the regime tried to impose standards of nationalistic moderation, popular entertainment of the time reveals that different aspects of culture never surrendered completely to the diktats of the regime. This article discusses the ways in which two films, Il Signor Max (Astra Film, 1937) and I Grandi Magazzini (Amato-Era Film, 1939) can provide a perspective into the consumer culture of Fascist Italy and its ambivalences. By presenting recurrent references to lifestyle commodities and fashion, the experiences of consumption in the two films take center stage in spite of the regime’s campaigns for modesty.   [1] The use of the capital ‘f’ is employed to specifically indicate the totalitarian regime led by Benito Mussolini, which occurred in Italy between the years 1922 and 1943, and to distinguish it from additional national variations (e.g. Spanish Falangism).


1981 ◽  
Vol 46 (1) ◽  
pp. 105
Author(s):  
Norman Sanders ◽  
R. Chris Hassell
Keyword(s):  

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 295-313
Author(s):  
Connor Ryan

Abstract In this article, I am concerned principally with Taxi Driver (Oriahi, 2015), Gbomo Gbomo Express (Taylaur, 2015), Just Not Married (Patrick, 2016), Ojukokoro (Greed) (Olaitan, 2016) as well as Catch.er (Taylaur, 2017). These films are characterized as much by the depiction of clever criminals as the cultivation of a cynical disposition from which transgressions of this sort appear stylish and violence is rendered 'cool'. Almost all of them turn on a scheme to dupe others of a large sum of money, and are punctuated by backstabbing partners in crime, tables turning by chance, edgy armed standoffs and a surprising number of bodies in car trunks. Given the dark portrait of Lagos these films present, one might be inclined to read the genre cycle as a reiteration of the role Lagos has historically played as embodiment of popular anxieties concerning insecurity, material inequality and social breakdown. And yet, in recent years, conditions within the city have markedly improved over those of the deepest point of urban crisis in the 1990s when Lagos was, indeed, paralysed by a generalized condition of insecurity and dysfunction. New Nollywood's repertoire of film styles has expanded to include international film cycles and genres such as romantic comedies, psychological thrillers, police procedurals, among others. This raises important questions about the nature of correspondences between cinema and the city, such as whether New Nollywood genre films tell us anything about social, cultural or historical circumstances in Lagos, or the place the city occupies in the popular imagination, for instance. Recent upmarket film noirs speak, instead, to the evolution of Lagos as a media capital. I examine the different kinds of work genre performs in New and Old Nollywood films and propose a number of ways to critically interpret genre's various registers.


Author(s):  
Wyatt Moss-Wellington

“Limerence” describes the intensity of emotions often felt during the pair-forming stage of a romantic relationship, a period that is also the primary focus of many romantic comedy films. This chapter asks how filmmakers have used depictions of limerence to highlight spaces in which its potential for both disruption and loving care could be brought to political spheres. I look at a series of millennial romantic comedies that express emotional upheaval, vulnerability, and openness to change as qualities of relevance to both a romantic and a political selfhood. These “political romcoms” reveal a range of dynamic relations between notions of character competence, moral fiber, personality, and deservedness, and invite investigation of complex emotions that modify a more generalized positive affect associated with romantic comedy cinema: humiliation as a comic device and the existential fear of rejection.


Multilingua ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 38 (5) ◽  
pp. 601-618 ◽  
Author(s):  
Louisa Desilla

Abstract This article examines the construal, cross-cultural relay and comprehension of misunderstandings by filmmakers, translators and audiences respectively of Bridget Jones’s Diary (2001) and Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason (2004). It reports on findings of a case-study on implicatures in these two romantic comedies (Desilla 2009/2012/2014). Both genuine and feigned misunderstandings are found in the two films. Inter alia, the analysis will show that misunderstandings can serve comedic and/or narrative functions, the latter pertaining to both characterisation and, more crucially, plot advancement. It is also demonstrated how misunderstandings can permeate only a single layer or both layers of film communication.


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