Sightlines · how to watch
How to watch The Philadelphia Story
1940 · George Cukor · The Philadelphia Story 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 the small model boat named True Love. (setting)
Dexter carries the boat, a memento of Tracy's first marriage, back into the house without a word about what it means, and the film lets you see it before anyone explains it.
Payoff: An object can carry a whole marriage's history without a single line of dialogue explaining it. In the reading: symbol. The reading calls this a symbol: an object that condenses the film's whole central relationship into one small, graspable thing.
Notice the bright, even, flattering light on every face. (light)
Joseph Ruttenberg lights the cast in a clean, glossy black-and-white, holding a controlled gray scale that flatters skin and fabric without ever calling attention to the camera.
Payoff: The polish itself is a kind of good manners, the visual equivalent of the world these characters live in.
Watch who moves toward Tracy and who backs away. (staging)
Cukor blocks each scene so approach and retreat map the balance of power between characters, staging status and intimacy through simple distance in the room.
Payoff: You can read who has the upper hand in a scene just by watching where people stand.
Watch Tracy's composed expression start to crack. (performance)
Hepburn plays Tracy as a smooth, held surface at first, and lets small flickers, embarrassment, uncertainty, real feeling, break through as the night wears on.
Payoff: Her face is learning to move in real time, and that thaw is the actual story. In the reading: reflexive-vs-intensive-face. The reading calls this the shift from a reflexive face, a fixed surface others admire, to an intensive one that visibly feels.
Listen for how fast and overlapping the dialogue gets. (sound)
The film lives in its talk, crisp and rapid exchanges recorded for maximum intelligibility, with Franz Waxman's score staying quietly out of the way underneath.
Payoff: Nothing here needed music to work. The comedy runs entirely on timing and language.
The 3 rewatch keys open on this page when you choose "Seen it?".
Carry this in: Watch the small boat on the table. It's the whole marriage held in two hands.