Typically, the second path is chosen when one or both partners decide to work on the relationship and perhaps to alter some major part of it. There is always a risk in doing so, for the alteration will inevitably force the two partners to change the accustomed ways in which they relate to one another. These changes may destroy the relationship. It is often even more frightening when we realize in the midst of this process that the change in our relationship with our partner may also force each of us to change some part of ourselves!
What is our model for such a dramatic change in an intimate relationship? This type of change certainly doesn’t fit with the myth of “living happily ever after,” nor does it fit with most of our other images of the perfect relationship. We looked around for help—and found it in several movies of the 1930s! Stanley Cavell writes about a process that he calls “remarriage” in his analysis of the romantic, “screwball” movies of the 1930s (for example, “Bringing Up Baby” and “The Philadelphia Story”). Cavell suggests that all of these movies emerged not from the depression (as “escapist” movies to distract people from their personal misfortunes) , but from an emerging women’s consciousness (that became dormant again after the Second World War). Cavell believes that the early thirties represents a time when women in many modern societies sought consolidation of their gains in the public arena by translating these gains into the private arena.
The general construction of the remarriage in film narrative (which always occurred among rich people who have the “luxury” of reflection and dialogue) was first, a running quarrel which is forcing apart two people who in some sense view themselves as people representing a much larger and eternal struggle between men and women. In the midst of this ongoing (in some sense ever-lasting) quarrel, these two people confront the challenge and risk of examining their relationship in some depth and experimenting with an alternative mode of relationship. This examination requires that the two people leave one another for a period of time. There is often a divorce or at least a physical separation. This reexamination in the movie implies the risk that these two people may never get back together once they have begun the re-examination.
