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Genre Films: OLLI Spring 2021: week 5: Melodrama: General Information
melodrama: definition: Merriam-Webster: a work (as a movie or play) characterized by extravagant theatricality and by the predominance of plot and physical action over characterization
Thomas Schatz: term "melodrama" as a genre: "applied to popular romances that depict a virtuous individual (usually a woman) or couple (usually lovers) victimized by repressive and inequitable social circumstances, particularly those involving marriage, occupation, and the nuclear family" characters at mercy of social conventions: conversely in romantic comedy: characters scoff at propriety resignation of principals to constriction of social & familial tradition: conversely in romantic comedy: lovers integrated into self-sufficient unit distinct from social world
basic characteristics of melodrama: 1. legibility: everyone can read it 2. expressiveness: given to exaggeration: everything brought into the open 3. simplification of roles: good and evil clearly delineated 4. strong identification: emotions alive with high suffering 5. devaluation of language: language less important than mise-en-scene
melodrama: contains many sub-genres: for example: the woman's film: CAMILLE / DARK VICTORY / I'LL CRY TOMORROW / LETTER FROM AN UNKNOWN WOMAN / NOW, VOYAGER / STELLA DALLAS romance / doomed love: ANNA KARENINA / DUEL IN THE SUN / GONE WITH THE WIND / WATERLOO BRIDGE / WUTHERING HEIGHTS family melodramas: CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF / GIANT / HOME FROM THE HILL / KINGS ROW / PICNIC / WHO'S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF? the male melodrama: the male weepie: BIGGER THAN LIFE / EAST OF EDEN / SOME CAME RUNNING / REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE the maternal melodramas: STELLA DALLAS / MADAME X / THE OLD MAID / ONLY YESTERDAY / TO EACH HIS OWN musical melodramas: CAROUSEL / THE KING AND I / MEET ME IN ST. LOUIS / THE SOUND OF MUSIC / A STAR IS BORN / WEST SIDE STORY silent melodrama: THE BIG PARADE / BROKEN BLOSSOMS / GREED / ORPHANS OF THE STORM / SUNRISE / WAY DOWN EAST / THE WIND war films: THE BIG PARADE / IN WHICH WE SERVE / MRS. MINIVER / SINCE YOU WENT AWAY / WATCH ON THE RHINE / SCHINDLER'S LIST historical costume melodramas: ALL THIS, AND HEAVEN TOO / JANE EYRE / JEZEBEL / MADAME BOVARY / THE COLOR PURPLE film noir: CAUGHT / DOUBLE INDEMNITY / GILDA / HUMORESQUE / LAURA / MILDRED PIERCE / POSTMAN Always RINGS TWICE / MILDRED PIERCE psychological melodramas: BABY DOLL / BLACK NARCISSUS / MARNIE / PSYCHO / SPELLBOUND / SUDDENLY LAST SUMMER / VERTIGO 2
1950s melodrama: the genre comes of age: family: narrative focus: clear representation of America's patriarchal & bourgeois order: by mid-1950s: men returned from wars to alienating bureaucratic jobs women caught between labor market & need to return home to raise families families uprooted: greater mobility, educational opportunities: beginning of disintegration of nuclear family these cultural factors coalesced: family melodrama began to take shape family unit: provided locus for genre's chars & social world because: 1. family: central unit with individual roles (father, mother, son, daughter, etc.): that carry large social significance 2. family: bound to its community by social class (income, type of home, etc.): ideally, family unit is self-contained society: but this is undercut by family's status within highly structured socio-economic world: family roles that seem autonomous: really determined by larger social community American small town: acute class consciousness, gossip, judgment by appearances, reactionary commitment to fading values represents extended but perverted family: human elements have either: solidified into repressive social conventions or disappeared upheaval & change present: but people acting like everything okay emergence of family melodrama in 1950s: films no longer just use familial conflicts to enhance external complication (war, crime, etc.): instead, focus on family itself as basis for conflict paradox emerged from this shift: family crisis is dominant narrative conflict: but resolution has to be found in dominant social structure (family) melodrama can function in 2 ways: 1. for patriarchal ends: by bringing about narrative resolution of its contradictions 2. for women: by offering satisfaction of recognition of these contradictions: which are usually suppressed melodramas: successful: capacity to connect emotionally: also: socially self-conscious, covertly "anti-American": more than anything else produced by Hollywood possible for melodrama to give access to truths about human existence denied to more culturally respectable forms: but at same time possible for melodrama: to be ideologically subversive: "weepies": contain critique of ideology hidden by escapist fare popularity of melodramas plus surface-level simplicity discouraged looking deeper: but certain directors: Minnelli, Ray, Sirk: give genre ironic, ambiguous aspect: both celebrating & questioning basic values/attitudes of mass audience 1950s melodramas: elicit wide range of emotional/intellectual responses: contemporary reviews: misunderstood films as confusion of fantasy/reality there is confusion, but with certain directors: Sirk, Ray, etc.: characters confused: director not confused: "Sirk's popularity seems closely related to his capacity to flesh out the unnatural aspects of America's social reality, to articulate cinematically how that reality is itself a collective cultural fantasy."