Sightlines · how to watch
How to watch What a Way to Go!
1964 · J. Lee Thompson · What a Way to Go! on Sightlines
5 things to watch and listen for on a first viewing, without spoilers, and 3 more once you have seen it. Each names something you can see or hear, the pattern it belongs to, and what noticing it gives you. How these keys work.
On a first viewing
Notice each marriage is shot in a totally different movie style. (structure)
One husband's story plays like silent slapstick, another like grainy European art film, another like glossy studio romance, another like an MGM musical number.
Payoff: The film is less about four husbands than about four ways Hollywood tells a love story.
Watch how much more lavish the sets and gowns get. (setting)
Edith Head's costumes and the surrounding décor grow more absurdly opulent as Louisa's fortune rises, visualizing the runaway logic of wealth itself.
Payoff: The clothes are keeping score of the money as clearly as any dialogue would.
Notice the picture's look change completely with each new husband. (camera)
Cinematographer Leon Shamroy switches between the flat iris look of silent comedy, grainy subtitled austerity, glazed romantic color, and bright musical sheen.
Payoff: One cinematographer is doing the work of four different movies inside a single film.
Watch MacLaine's acting style change with each marriage's genre. (performance)
MacLaine adjusts from silent-comedy broadness to art-film affect to romantic gloss to musical brightness, staying the grounded center through all four registers.
Payoff: You are watching one actress prove she can do four different jobs inside the same picture.
Listen for the music change style with each marriage segment. (sound)
Nelson Riddle's score adjusts idiom to match each pastiche, from silent-movie gag scoring to foreign-film restraint to full musical performance, while staying tonally consistent.
Payoff: The score is doing the same genre switching as the picture and the costumes.
The 3 rewatch keys open on this page when you choose "Seen it?".
Carry this in: Watch which moments in each marriage are plain, before the style turns lavish. That is where the film places its real affection.