FTV10006 Lecture Notes - Lecture 4: Mise-En-Scène, Spaghetti Western, Melodrama
Week 4: Melodrama
Stability of genre
• Genres may be defined by location and narrative concerns
• Comedy or horror films are considered as ‘body’ genres as they inspire a
physical response through emotional impact
• Genre changes as society changes
• Western films in the 1930s are considered to be optimistic, whilst those in the
1950s are racially complex and elegiac in the 1960s
Sub-genre
• Western films consist of sub-genres such as western parody or spaghetti
western
• Sub-genres target one aesthetic, narrative focus or ideological/culture
concern that distinguishes it from the rest
Melodrama popular cinema
• Melodrama addresses a popular audience, often a popular female audience
• Melodrama means drama with music (melos)
• Music works as specific mood cues for emotional responses
• In the early writings, melodrama contained elements of ‘blood and thunder’
• Melodramas focus on emotional intensity and act as a ‘romantic tearjerker’
Hyperbolic mode
• Melodrama is hyperbolic and overly expressive
• Gesture, emotional cues and mise en scene move toward the hyperbolic
• Melodrama is an almost brittle perspective on life (superficial, plastic world)
• Melodramas involve hidden secrets concealed behind a brittle exterior
• Melodramas on the surface may present a hyperbolic expression of love
Melodrama – mise en scene
• Emotional/claustrophobic
• Objects become symbolic (extremes of emotion)
• Staircases (symbols of mobility)
• Lighting/colour schemes/music
Manichaean
• Melodrama operates with the Manichaean – the battle between good and evil
• Focus on specific social consensus – often the society is the villain
• Manichaean structure demands recognition of goodness – a desire to protect
the innocence
• Characters deepest feelings are expressed, fears are communicated and
announce their motives
• Concepts of light and darkness
• Reveals of fortune
Document Summary
1950s are racially complex and elegiac in the 1960s. Sub-genre: western films consist of sub-genres such as western parody or spaghetti western, sub-genres target one aesthetic, narrative focus or ideological/culture concern that distinguishes it from the rest. Melodrama popular cinema: melodrama addresses a popular audience, often a popular female audience, melodrama means drama with music (melos, music works as specific mood cues for emotional responses. In the early writings, melodrama contained elements of blood and thunder": melodramas focus on emotional intensity and act as a romantic tearjerker". Melodrama mise en scene: emotional/claustrophobic, objects become symbolic (extremes of emotion, staircases (symbols of mobility, lighting/colour schemes/music. Modes of muteness: melodrama is overt, expressive and also compelled to silence, muteness may be physicalised by the way of the blind canine character in the melodrama. It targets the extreme moral and emotional conditions under question and is the source of social/cultural judgement.
