Governor Eliot Spitzer's extracurricular activities beg the question of how the movies handle the adultery narrative. In the case of Citizen Kane (pictured are candidate Kane, Orson Welles, and his wife, Ruth Warrick), the pol is outed, his campaign crashes and he leaves wife for mistress. In An Unmarried Woman -- in which cheating Michael Murphy and his wife, Jill Clayburgh, physically resemble Spitzer and spouse Silda -- first the straying husband leaves, then wants back, then wife finds happiness with abstract painter Alan Bates. In sex, lies and videotape Peter Gallagher enjoys nooners with Laura San Giacamo, sister of his wife, Andie McDowell, who leaves him for James Spader. Besides Double Indemnity and The Postman Always Rings Twice, where brittle blondes Barbara Stanwyck and Lana Turner play around on their husbands I'm having trouble thinking of erring wives. For the most part the movies say that marriages don't survive adultery. Can you think of films that suggest otherwise?
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Sex, lies and audiotape
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Carrie Rickey has been The Philadelphia Inquirer’s film critic for 21 years. She has reviewed films as diverse as “Water” and “The Waterboy,” profiled celebrities from Lillian Gish to Will Smith, and reported on technological beakthroughs from the video revolution to the rise of movies on demand. Her reviews are syndicated nationwide and she is a regular contributor to Entertainment Weekly, MSNBC and NPR. Rickey’s essays appear in numerous anthologies, including “The Rolling Stone History of Rock & Roll,” “The American Century,” and the Library of America’s “American Movie Critics.”
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Comments (30)
Three mo'cheating wives: The Last Seduction, Body Heat, To Die For. On the question: Divorce Italian Style, Vanity Fair, All The Kings Men. Hays Code era posturing and "family values" lick spittling doesn't allow for much in the way of film marriages that accomodate adultery, especially by wives. I almost forgot "Vixen," which does, simultaneously affirming just such distaff conduct AND the glories of the Vietnam war. Good old Russ Meyer, a sage for those troubled times as well as these? LOL. I like "Bandits," though. with Cate Blanchett's Kate Wheeler leaving her oafish and all but explicitly Republican husband for a succesful and happy triunion with Billy Bob Thorhton and Bruce Willis. Rounding it out, although there's no mention of marriage until the end, are Marcia Gay Harden, Gabriel Byrne and Albert Finney in "Miller's Crossing," Verna, Tom and Leo, not so happy together. Not dignifying Peckinpaugh's rape movies with more than a bare mention, but he seems to have offered "Straw Dogs" and "The Getaway" as involving at least the complicit assent of complaisant wives. Mentioned for completeness only - don't like his movies.
Posted by JDM | March 14, 2008 4:03 PM
Posted on March 14, 2008 16:03
I think Eliot's got problems - Silda's quite hot.
www.OmniSwami.com Thanks
Posted by Dale | March 14, 2008 9:09 PM
Posted on March 14, 2008 21:09
Most of the marriages I know about that dissolved due to cheating involved cases of the wife cheating, which came as a shock to me.
Posted by joe | March 14, 2008 9:31 PM
Posted on March 14, 2008 21:31
How could you forget Unfaithful with Richard Gere and Diane Lane?
Perhaps it's a stretch to assume a marriage can survive both adultery AND a murder, but hey, you asked for examples, there's at least one.
And another - perhaps, Demi, Woody and Redford in Indecent Proposal? Okay, it wasn't necessarily adultery as it was "agreed to" adultery, but it did have a positive ending.
Posted by DB | March 15, 2008 9:25 AM
Posted on March 15, 2008 09:25
Deliverance
Posted by ET | March 15, 2008 9:45 AM
Posted on March 15, 2008 09:45
Primary Colors: husband's adultery goes unpunished.
Fatal Attraction: husband's adultery, wife forgives.
Posted by Adam B. | March 15, 2008 3:06 PM
Posted on March 15, 2008 15:06
"Dodsworth." Ruth Chatterton cheats, quite openly, with her European swain. Walter Huston takes her back, but then sees the light and leaves her for Mary Astor.
"Crimes and Misdemeanors." Martin Landau cheats on Claire Bloom, then has brother Jerry Orbach murder mistress Angelica Huston. Landau's marriage to Bloom survives, due to the latter's ignorance of both the affair and the murder.
"Dinner at Eight." It's clear that Karen Morley knows that her husband, Edmund Lowe, has philandered, and that it's not the first time. But it appears at the movie's conclusion she will stay with him.
Posted by wwolfe | March 15, 2008 3:45 PM
Posted on March 15, 2008 15:45
"Blume in Love" is wonderfully complex and, though divorced, the couple has a happy ending. At least I think it's supposed to be a happy ending, and the rape scene is controversial to say the least.
I'll bet there are foreign films that are better examples. American films are very uptight about all this.
Posted by David | March 17, 2008 5:32 PM
Posted on March 17, 2008 17:32
it finally hit me: The World According to Garp! Both spouses have their flings, and suffer, but eventually reconcile.
Then there's Eyes Wide Shut, where there's at least the temptation of adultery. Nicole Kidman's character admits to Jimmy Carter-style adultery (lusting in her heart).
American Beauty shows the wife committing royal adultery with "The King." I don't think their marriage would have survived that, though -- if Kevin Spacey had survived, that is.
Posted by EricW | March 19, 2008 11:45 AM
Posted on March 19, 2008 11:45
An exception to both of your noted trends:
The fantastic 1999 film, "A Walk on the Moon." Diane Lane cheats on hubby Liev Schreiber--a fling with pre-LOTR Viggo Mortensen--and yet the marriage survives.
It's a wonderful movie produced, I believe, by Dustin Hoffman.
Posted by Kipp Gilmore-Clough | March 19, 2008 12:37 PM
Posted on March 19, 2008 12:37
Wasn't Grace Kelly fooling around with Robert Montgomery in Hitchcock's "Dial M for Murder"?
Posted by chazz | March 19, 2008 1:48 PM
Posted on March 19, 2008 13:48
From the Bollywood contingent, there was 2006's Kabhi Alvia Naa Kehna (Never Say Goodbye), which was largely filmed in the New York City area for 70 days in the autumn of 2005. KANK, as it's known in short, was highly controversial. Many Indian viewers had trouble picturing why a woman would cheat on a perfectly fine husband who was merely a mismatch for her and not as plainly awful as a wife-abuser. Another much-commented-upon issue was its uneven quality, from the serious to the silly. Many vocal critics who enjoyed the serious subject didn't like the comedy, and vice versa. Beyond all this, KANK was a marked departure for a Hindi movie in that the message seemed to be that it's okay if marriages don't survive if they were not meant to be.
Posted by Evelyn | March 19, 2008 6:53 PM
Posted on March 19, 2008 18:53
Oh, sorry for the Hindi typo. The movie's name is Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna. (I left off the "d" in Alvida.)
Posted by Evelyn | March 19, 2008 7:01 PM
Posted on March 19, 2008 19:01
Hey Carrie, just two words: Diane Lane. Besides the aforementioned "Walk on the Moon" and "Unfaithful," there's "Hollywoodland" and maybe others. And "Walk" was unusual in that the couple did reconcile; perhaps the couple in "Unfaithful" did too, but it was unclear.
Then there was Jane Fonda in "Coming Home" and the various versions of "The Postman Always Rings Twice" and the very hot "Body Heat."
Seems that in most of these, not only isn't there a reconciliation, but there's a death, usually a murder.
Posted by PG | March 20, 2008 2:25 PM
Posted on March 20, 2008 14:25
I loved a Walk on the Moon and think of it as a practically perfect movie. The first time I saw it, it seemed too idealistic that the husband might swallow his pride and see things from his wife's perspective. But it's this idealism that made the movie so memorable to me.
This film reminds of me of a second Hindi movie that broaches this topic, called Paheli (The Riddle). In it, a new bride is presented with the option of having an affair with a ghost who represents all of her desires, or waiting for five years for her husband to return from a remote business venture. I can wholeheartedly recommend this movie as a well made and exotic folktale about the hazards of ignoring a wife's desires. It was India's entry to the Oscars about two years ago. I won't say whether the wife was forgiven so as not to spoil it for you.
One more piece of trivia about the previously mentioned KANK: The crew shot for over a week in Philadelphia, as well. They used 30th Street Station as a stand-in for Grand Central, and the wife lived for a spell on Delancey Street in Center City and strolled around behind Independence Hall.
Posted by Evelyn | March 22, 2008 10:46 PM
Posted on March 22, 2008 22:46
I just read the Netflix description for Paheli, and it gets important details regarding this very topic wrong, as it makes it seems like the wife isn't driving the dilemma.
Posted by Evelyn | March 23, 2008 11:00 AM
Posted on March 23, 2008 11:00
if this movie is so great, why isn't anyone going to see it?
btw, the Stop Loss policy is not a loop hole, it is clearly stated in your contract
when you enlist, i know because i have signed that contract and was called back to my unit in the first Gulf War.
americans won't go see this stinking pile of crap, it will pass into oblivion just as all the other anti-military, anti-american mega-bombs that have been put out have done.
Posted by gulfwarsailor | March 31, 2008 11:14 PM
Posted on March 31, 2008 23:14
gulfwarsailor: Why did "Stop-Loss" fail to attrack an audience? P.T. Barnum said it best. "Never underestimate the intelligence of the American public."
Posted by Mike | April 2, 2008 10:15 AM
Posted on April 2, 2008 10:15
Who cares!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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Posted by Katheryn Patras | March 29, 2010 3:48 PM
Posted on March 29, 2010 15:48
I agree with Mike. Who cares.
Posted by Marty Ritchie | November 24, 2010 5:32 AM
Posted on November 24, 2010 05:32
I also have some agreeing points for it. No one can question about the mind of the Americans.
Posted by lgn prosperity | December 19, 2010 12:24 AM
Posted on December 19, 2010 00:24
I think that movie has some reality in it. Because the films are mostly adapted from the real life incidents and it somehow reflect the life of individual or group.
Posted by Merrick Pet | December 19, 2010 1:16 AM
Posted on December 19, 2010 01:16
Sex, lies and audiotape. I've seen this phrase in other places. I wonder where have I seen it?
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Posted on December 26, 2010 03:37
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Posted on March 2, 2011 03:01
The average Hollywood film star's ambition is to be admired by an American, courted by an Italian, married to an Englishman and have a French boyfriend.
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Posted on March 4, 2011 05:37
American Beauty shows the wife committing royal adultery with "The King." I don't think their marriage would have survived that, though -- if Kevin Spacey had survived, that is.
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American Beauty shows the wife committing royal adultery with "The King." I don't think their marriage would have survived that, though -- if Kevin Spacey had survived, that is.
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Posted on April 27, 2011 16:39
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