Melodrama and Singer - john hunting PDF

Preview

Summary

john hunting...

Description

1 Melodrama and Singer’s Main Concepts 1 Melodrama, like surrealism and romanticism, are forms of expressionism. Indeed historically melodrama precedes and gives rise to romantic art in the 19 th century. Melodrama has been traditionally defined then as a form of story telling (be it literary, theatrical, cinematic or televisual) that privileges cultivations of feeling, not to the exclusion of but certainly at the expense of greater realism, be it social realism (that is, a detailed and truthful representation of the historical, political and economic conditions of social life) or psychological realism (that is, a detailed and accurate representation of the complexities of our personalities and inner psychology). 2 Tragedy has often been distinguished from melodrama on these grounds. Thus the melodramatic character is often cast as cartoon-like, lacking psychological depth and inner conflict (often then a kind of stereotype of good and bad, villain and victim), whereas a tragic character (like Hamlet) is often defined as precisely more complex, evidencing inner conflict and a more mature understanding of his or her responsibilities. 3 Films that are more realistic from a social or political point of view still tell stories about individuals of course but the narrative tends to move outward, underlining and focusing on the social context. A film like “Milk” [2008] is an example of a popular Hollywood film that is more realistic from this point of view for even though the film follows the personal story of Harvey Milk, the first openly gay activist to hold public office in the United States the film also focuses the political context in which he lived. 4 Melodramas on the other hand tend to treat social contexts as mere backdrops for individual trials and tribulations - a film like “Green Book” [2018] is to some extent an example of the latter. On the other hand “Green Book” does focus on the inner conflicts that both characters go through in coming to terms with their own prejudice and offers greater realism perhaps from a psychological point of view than other films might. A melodrama however that is set in Iraq during the Gulf War but turns that story into a love story (sentimental melodrama) or gangster film (sensational melodrama) that is about the lives of lovers and villains, might ignore the psychological and social aspects of that conflict altogether. 5 Melodrama then is pulled in two directions at once. On the one hand it cultivates sentiment and sensationalism, and on the other hand it tends to trade in simplistic, easy to understand characters that belong to simplistic and easy to understand representations of the world. But not all melodramas are so simplistic; specific films can be more or less realistic from both social and psychological points of view. 6. And as Singer himself points out sentimental and sensational films can be understood to involve their own kind of realism, apperceptive realism and absorptive realism (see part 8 below). 7. Finally on the topic of realism we should not forget that just as everything we learned about realism might be used to interpret art that is expressionistic - and that everything we learned about expressionism might be used to talk about realistic art - so too the notions of realism and expressionism, that we have learned thus far, can be used to describe a melodramatic film. 8. Essentially what we are doing here is adding more and more tools to our conceptual toolbox so as to be better equipped to understand, interpret and think critically about the art, films, TV shows and other forms of media we consume all the time. The next section on TV will add a few more conceptual tools - especially insofar as TV involves the possibility of being live – but as we will see everything we have learned so far regarding realism, expressionism and melodrama will also apply to the televisual context.

Singer

2

These introductory remarks in mind, Singer defines melodrama by way of the following ten aspects. Singer notes that for a film to count as a melodrama it need not illustrate all of these aspects but several. 1. Excess 2. Situation 3. Pathos 4. Overwrought Emotion 5. Moral Polarization 6. Non-classical Narrative Structure 7. Sensationalism 8. Realism 9. Sentimental Melodramas 10. Sensational Melodramas Excess 1.Emotional Excess a. Actors cultivate an affective presence through both large physical expressions of feeling (associated with the theatre) and/or through more intimate revelations of self (associated with the cinematic closeup). b. The spectator’s visceral response is sought, ex. sadness, tension as a result of anger, suspense, fear or shock, happiness, longing, pity, sexual arousal etc. 2. Sensational Excess a. All formal aspects of the cinematic image, (ex. colour, lighting, sound and music, camera movement, camera angles, editing etc.) inform the nature of the cinema spectacle. b. Extraordinary costume and mise èn scene (i.e., what is put in the scene by way of décor or setting). c. Virtuoso acting d. sensational scenes, ex. cliff hangers, extreme violence, sustained action, explosions, crashes, fighting, near death thrills, sexual encounters etc. etc. 3. Moral Excess (moral incredulity) a. Principle of Disproportion (evil far out weighs the good or the good - in the end- far out weighs the bad and evil is vanquished) b. Brutality of the Mob: that is the hateful eagerness of the just to exact retribution c. Moral Polarization: the good is very very good and the bad is very very bad. Situation Describes melodrama’s privilege of suspended moments evidenced in: 1.Deadlock or standoff (ex. a shoot out or argument that comes to an impasse) 2. Moments of awakening (ex. a moment when some truth is revealed, love at first sight) 3. Shock (ex. a sudden and unexpected turn of events, unforeseen news, grim sights, deadly peril, overwhelming beauty, sublime revelations etc.) 4. Tableau, a specifically cinematic moment (striking the viewer like a magnificent painting) that is charged with urgency and emotional meaning be it moral, psychological or religious.

Pathos

3 1.Deep compassion for an undeserving victim. 2.Often characterized by an identification with the victim, pathos is often self-pity, Singer says, ex. I fear as much for myself (were I to be in that situation) as I fear for the fate of the character. 3.The link to Moral Polarization: if there is an undeserving victim there is an evil doer or unjust villain. Overwrought Emotion Overwrought emotion has to do with the heightened levels of intensity melodrama seeks. For example, the following eight emotions evidence the following heightened states: Sadness manifests as despair Anger manifests as overpowering rage and fury Fear manifests as terror Happiness turns in to utter joy or elation Embarrassment becomes crippling shame and humiliation Boredom dives into depression Anxiety manifests as unbridled hysteria Jealousy is painfully raw and vindictive Moral Polarization 1.Also referred to as moral absolutism (the white hat/ black hat phenomenon), in melodrama typically the good is very very good (ex. evidencing pure or perhaps holy embodiments of honesty, self-sacrifice, compassion, sweetness, and innocence as well as courage, creativity and intelligence) and the bad is very very bad (ex. evidencing pure or perhaps evil embodiments of dishonesty, selfishness, greed, maleficence and hate as well as cowardice, unimaginativeness and stupidity). 2. Moral Polarization is linked to Pathos for wherever there is a bad villain there is an innocent and thus good-hearted victim. 3. Innocence and naiveté is championed: Directly linked to a Romantic investment in the wisdom of the child, the good melodramatic character understands that pure love (untarnished by society and individual greed) will always trump the misguided adventures of conceit, selfishness and greed. Non-classical Narrative Structure 1.If as David Bordwell argued scenes in a classical Hollywood film follow each other in a logically obvious way, starting from a clear beginning (usually some problem or evil is introduced into an otherwise happy situation) and proceeding step by step (like climbing a staircase each step or scene leads logically to the next) to a clearly defined conclusion (usually a happy ending in which peace and harmony is restored), in a melodrama, much like in a modern day soap opera or ruminative TV narrative, the plot doesn’t proceed in such a linear way but in an elliptical way. 2.Thus in sentimental melodramas typically love sick couples are separated and reunited over and over again, delays producing yet more delays and reunions precipitating additional separations. And typically in sensational melodramas bad guys are caught but then escape, also over and over again. 3.More contemporary melodramas also do not end always on a happy note, endings often suggesting that if the happy couple has been reunited it is provisional or temporary and if evil has been vanquished it is more than likely to return. 4. The link to Freud: as we have seen from Freud’s point of view when something bad is repressed it inevitably returns in our dreams or in our art and popular culture.

4 Sensationalism 1. Spectacle comes in many forms from grim violence and gore, to chase scenes, outlandish dance or musical productions, to natural and human made disasters and catastrophes of all kinds. (The link here in the next section to catastrophic news coverage on TV and media witnessing more generally will be underlined). 2. At all times we must bear in mind that the formal properties of film (and television) are of paramount importance for the cultivation of affect in the viewer, thus for example HOW car chases, crashes and explosions are orchestrated on film have been frequently described as analogous to abstract expressionist painting; in short HOW sensation scenes are created, the use of sound, movement, light and colour, not to mention music, are all as important as WHAT is being represented or staged. Realism Singer argues that although melodrama has been criticized for two centuries for being unrealistic (for example, no person is all good, no person is all bad, there are no simple solutions to complex social problems, extraordinary events are rare etc.), melodrama he claims can be understood to be realistic in two principle ways. (Bear in mind that our discussion of realism has gone well beyond his and thus that the notions of realism as resemblance, as the unadorned, as photographic, as special insight and as romantic are all relevant here when discussing melodrama, film and television). 1. Apperceptive Realism is the plausible representation of extraordinary events. This is basically as we have seen, realism as resemblance, thus no matter how extraordinary an event may be (ex. being on board the Titantic as it sinks) it is possible to depict it in such a way that the representation appears at least to come close to the reality. Here special effects in film have always been crucial but evidently CGI has transformed how filmmakers create the plausible appearance of uncommon events from tidal waves to traveling in outer space, or from being in a car crash to fleeing dragons. 2. Absorptive Realism: the plausible recreation of subjective experience (Romantic Realism or Psychological Realism) thus not how the world appears but how it is experienced from an affective point of view. Here special effects may also be crucial but when lovers break into song (in a musical) as a way of attesting to their love for each other, although this hardly ever happens in fact, the truth of the matter could be that musicals express well what it feels like to fall in love, to kiss someone for the first time. Absorptive realism is called absorptive then because for various reasons the film makes the viewer feel like she is absorbed in the heart of the action. Sentimental Melodramas Sentimental melodramas are all about pathos, longing, heart break, nostalgia and loss, unions, separations and reunions, transformative awakenings, intimate relations, sincere proclamations of love and devotion, revelations of social and personal truth, desperate longings for acceptance and unconditional love, the victory of love over the evils of social alienation, injustice and inequality, ignorance, mere convention, prejudice, illness and hardship of all kinds, war etc. etc. Traditionally the (problematic) link here between sentimental love stories and women’s films was unquestionable, a problematic link however insofar as women’s films frequently cast women as the “weaker sex” who often needed to be saved by male heroes. There is also however a tradition of male bonding and brotherly love in crime and war movies. Some have offered that the undertow of sentimental melodrama is essentially Christian, that is, that the sentimental melodrama offers love (in its various forms) as our only salvation. Sensational Melodramas:

5 Sentimental melodramas are all about endless streams of peril, last minute rescues, threat, capture and escape, feats of strength and endurance, orchestrations of shock, horror and tribulation, men commandeering technology, animals, women and other men, good guys vanquishing evil, awesome sights, intense battles, the glory and honour of victory, the pain and humiliation of defeat etc. but always the triumph of good over bad. The link between sensational melodramas and men’s films has also been unquestioned, although today women action heroes are more and more common...