Whew. Finally finished this one. Parts of it were interesting and JB is an excellent writer as well as a very smart woman, but the topic here was probably worth only about 150 pages and not 350. Not to mention the fact that it really leaves one with a depressing concept of marriage altogether. ( )

I didn't enjoy this as much as Basinger's other books, but I still have a long list of movies from it that I want to see! ( )

I Do and I Don’t is an examination of the “marriage movie” from the silent era to contemporary films. It’s very readable and the analysis of individual films is good but sometimes the organization is all over the place and - there is A LOT of summarizing the individual movies. I was hoping the author would provide more social context but she mentions that’s not her purpose in the introduction. Also, there is some skipping around timewise (mainly in the first half of the “studio era” section). The author almost always refers to the actors instead of the characters in her summaries - which could get a little confusing and also didn’t make much sense - it’s a summary so it’s about what Mrs. Smith and Frank are doing not Myrna Loy and Spencer Tracey. I guess if it was a particular piece of acting, she should mention it but otherwise it was rather irritating. It was interesting to read how Hollywood sold marriages, the change in emphasis on marriage movies over the years, and Basinger’s analysis of various film messages.

The first section covers the silent era and it’s a quick read, with a description of different films and the two types of marriage movies - entertaining comedy or tragic cautionary tale. Basinger repeatedly stresses the two-faced attitude Hollywood had towards marriage - almost always affirming it, but, as happy marriages are boring, only showing conflicted marriages. Love is much more important than money, but films unabashedly showed the good life - fancy houses, the wife in furs, the couple drinking and partying in nightclubs. Cautionary tales would warn against cheating wives and husbands, all while portraying the excitement of adultery.

This continued into the studio era, the subject of the second section, but this one is considerably less organized. The first part of the second section is rather meandering and movies from the contemporary era - 1960-2000 - wander in. Sometimes there are random digressions about actors or television. The main point in this section is Hollywood showing more realistic depictions of marriage but stopping short of allowing the marriage to end. In some films, the problems seem overwhelming and the couple very unhappy, but then a tacked on happy ending occurs. The divorce film started to appear - even though it would open with a couple planning to get a divorce, the story of their marriage would be replayed and they would decide to reconcile at the end. Then Basinger moves to a listing of the main problems of the marriage movie which does give the book more organization though random digressions still creep in. She lists money, adultery, in-laws/children, incompatibility, class, addiction and murder as the main conflicts found in the marriage movie. Again, the analysis of individual films is fairly interesting. The book takes on a more linear, less wandering structure when looking at the situations of the marriage movie - starting with WWII patriotic films dealing with women whose husbands are away at war, moving to the low-key, cheaper films after the war and then moving on to marriage films incorporating topical issues into the plot. Basinger finds that television could do a more in-depth portrayal of marriage (e.g., I Love Lucy).

The last section also maintains the streamlined organization, and, although the author is pessimistic about the future of the marriage movie, is a good read. In the contemporary era, fewer and fewer films specifically about marriage were made - some would look at the effect of the sexual revolution on marriage, others would take a feminist view, but overall there was not as much interest in the subject. In the few movies that did appear, a more cynical tone was taken towards the institution, with the couples in some cases literally destroying each other (The War of the Roses, Mr. and Mrs. Smith) and the movies ending on an open note in others, leaving audiences pessimistic about the couple’s chances. Basinger still finds good examples on TV - she is especially taken by Friday Night Lights - and notes the increasing trend of movies focused on the wedding instead of the marriage. Overall an interesting book and mainly a fast read - lots of rambling, probably because the author was very into her subject, but it gets better in the last half of the book. ( )