Film & Theater studies

Material: The movie “Arsenic and Old Lace (Capra, 1944)” also I will be uploading you some readings. Here’s what I need is for you to answer these questions in three paragraphs NUMBERED with each paragraph containing at least 90 words in each. (Questions for #1 Paragraph): Cavell presents a variety of interpretations of the still photos at the conclusion of The Philadelphia Story, including that the images might be included in Spy magazine or from a photo album, that the inlcusion of the photos reflects a change in Tracy’s perspective on marriage and the public/private spheres, and asking “what does it mean to say that these final two shots are pictures or photographs? How is the rest of what we have seen different?” (160). Why are these photographs significant? Which of these interpretations – or an alternative interpretation of your own – do you agree with and why?  (Questions for #2 paragraph): Cavell argues of The Philadelphia Story that “its conversation more narrowly focuses such questions on the question of America, on whether America has achieved its new human being, its more perfect union and its domestic tranquility, its new birth of freedom, whether it has been successful in securing the pursuit of happiness, whether it is earning the conversation it demands” (152-3). Do you agree or disagree? Why? Make sure to include example(s) from the film to support your argument.  (Questions for #3 paragraph):  Cavell points out that “The Philadelphia Story is the only film among the members of our genre in which the pair’s happiness is refound, apparently, in the larger world in which they divroced, literally in the place they grew up together, not in removing themselves to a world apart from the public work, a world of their own making, of adventure” (146). How is this different from the reconciliation of Jerry and Lucy Wariner in The Awful Truth, who have to escape to a farm house far from their home, where most of their conflict occured, in order to reconcile with one another? Why is the space of Tracy Lord and C.K. Dexterhaven’s reconciliation significant? Do you think it might have any impact on the potential for their “happily ever after”?        Due 4/1/10