Easy Living (M. Leisen, 1937) ou l’anti-Capra : l’idéal démocratique à l’épreuve

Abstract

The Great Depression significantly influenced the Hollywood movie production of the 1930s. As with Social Dramas, Hollywood Comedies, and more specifically the Romantic Comedies of Frank Capra or Preston Sturges, called into question the status of democracy and capitalism as fundamental components of the American Dream. But while Capra, in Mr. Deeds Goes to Town, presents a messianic figure favoring what appears to be a gift of self and reaffirming the strength of the US system’s foundations, Sturges suggests, in his screenplay of Easy Living (a feature he wrote), and through his own satirical style, a lucid reading of the country’s economic weaknesses through the protagonists’ romantic behaviors, juggling between romantic idealism and mimetic desire. Indeed, mimetic desire, perceptible in the love exchanges between the main characters, becomes an essential fact in the understanding of the workings of a capitalist economy.

Keywords

• Frank Capra
• Preston Sturges
• Easy Living
• Hollywood in the 1930s
• Hollywood comedy
• great depression