silent melodrama background for redskin and other films
TRANSCRIPT
Melodrama
• Works primarily on a nonverbal and emotional level, a “common base of feeling that crosses over all linguistic barriers” (Belton 127).
• Primarily concerned with establishing mood or emotion
Two Senses of the Word
• As a genre, melodrama has specific kinds of characters, plots, and so on.
• Melodrama is a “modal” genre: a “melodramatic” style is a means of heightened emotional expression that crosses into genres such as comedies and westerns.
Melodrama, continued
• Tries to make visible and bring to the surface (through images and music) that which is invisible or felt but not recognized
• Often relies on stylistic excess (color, set, costume design, methods of filming)
Melodrama, continued
• Is about the family, connections among individuals, and “the loss and recovery of feelings” (130)
• Children and animals are often touchstones, since they perceive feelings and are less constrained about expressing them.
Classical Tragedy and Melodrama
• Tragedy– Subject matter is the
aristocracy– The restoration of
order, not the questioning of that order, is a primary goal
– The protagonist is identified with the state and the public sphere.
• Melodrama– Subject matter is
middle or lower class– Questioning of the
social order and even rooting for the underdog is the norm.
– The protagonist is identified with the private sphere of home and community.
Tragedy and Melodrama, continued
• Static relationship between individual and social order
• Virtue and wisdom the property of the aristocracy
• Dynamic relationship between individual and social order; individuals can prosper, move up (or down) in class, etc.
• Virtue and wisdom are attainable by anyone
Tragedy and Melodrama, continued
• Classical tragedy relies on inevitability; all is determined and nothing is contingent or variable.
• Melodrama lacks a sense of inevitability; all events are contingent and not inevitable or predetermined
• Its politics are often reformist, populist, and even revolutionary.
Spatialized Representation of Values in Melodrama
• City: associated with modernity, anonymity, isolation, technology, industrialism, corruption
• Country: associated with innocence, nature, abundance, preindustrialism, family—the “Garden of Eden” or a place of respite from modernity.
• Since melodrama often centers on home, a common plot is the threat to the home or family (Fatal Attraction)
Temporalized Representation of Values
• The past: site of values and a place of order before the disruptions of modernity
• The present: fragmented, chaotic, corrupt; the values of the past are often invoked to restore order.