Pursuits of Happiness

The Hollywood Comedy of Remarriage

Stanley Cavell

    No book about the art of Hollywood I have ever read can make its readers stop and think more effectively than this one.
       --S. S. Prawer, Times Literary Supplement

    This is a voice like no other in philosophy, today or ever.
       --Arthur C. Danto, October

    The great achievement of...Pursuits of Happiness is that it finally provides a solid framework for the serious discussion of the great dialogue comedies of the thirties and forties, perhaps the most revived and loved movies of Hollywood's golden period.
       --Al LaValley, American Film

    This just must be, in its close readings and its stunning associations, one of the most compelling accounts of its kind. The fact is, it just is its kind.
       --Geoffrey Hawthorn, London Review of Books

    Stanley Cavell's book succeeds brilliantly...The individual 'readings' of the films and the general conceptual plan in which they are embedded are both so rich and rewarding that...'brilliant'...seems an understatement.
       --Gerald Mast, Journal of Aesthetic Education

  • Cover: Pursuits of Happiness
  • A photo of the author

Stanley Cavell is Walter M. Cabot Professor, Emeritus, of Aesthetics and the General Theory of Value, Harvard University.