Contesting Tears: The Hollywood Melodrama Of The Unknown Woman

The author provides close readings of four melodramas he finds definitive of the genre: Letter From An Unknown Woman; Gaslight; Now, Voyager; and Stella Dallas. The women in these melodramas, like the women in the comedies, demand equality, shared education, and transfiguration, exemplifying for the author a moral perfectionism he identifies as Emersonian.

What is marriage? Can a relationship dedicated to equality, friendship,
and mutual education flower in an atmosphere of romance? What are the
paths between loving another and knowing another? Stanley Cavell
identified a genre of classic American films that engaged these
questions in his study of comedies of remarriage, "Pursuits of "
"Happiness," With "Contesting Tears," Cavell demonstrates that a
contrasting genre, which he calls "the melodrama of the unknown woman,"
shares a surprising number and weave of concerns with those comedies.
Cavell provides close readings of four melodramas he finds definitive of
the genre: "Letter from an Unknown Woman," "Gaslight," "Now "
"Voyager," and "Stella Dallas," The women in these melodramas,
like the women in the comedies, demand equality, shared education, and
transfiguration, exemplifying for Cavell a moral perfectionism he
identifies as Emersonian. But unlike the comedies, which portray a quest
for a shared existence of expressiveness and joy, the melodramas trace
instead the woman's recognition that in this quest she is isolated. Part
of the melodrama concerns the various ways the men in the films (and the
audiences of the films) interpret and desire to force the woman's
consequent inaccessibility.
"Film is an interest of mine," Stanley Cavell has written, "or say a
love, not separate from my interest in, or love of, philosophy." In
"Contesting Tears" Cavell once again brilliantly unites his two
loves, using detailed and perceptive musings on melodrama to reflect on
philosophical problems of skepticism, psychoanalysis, and perfectionism.
As he shows, the fascination and intelligence of such great stars as
Ingrid Bergman, Bette Davis, and Barbara Stanwyck illuminate, as they
are illuminated by, the topics and events of these beloved and enduring
films.