Melodrama (film genre)

[9][10] Much of what has come to be called "gay cinema" shows a great affinity with the expressive modes of melodrama, and several of its main exponents have acknowledged its influence, such as John Waters, Pedro Almodóvar, Rainer Werner Fassbinder and Todd Haynes.

[5] In fact, the term melodrama was used by American film companies with a very different meaning than the one it has since the 1970s, as it was used to refer to "action thrillers with fast-paced narratives, episodic story-lines featuring violence, suspense and death-defying stunts.

[13] The "melodrama debate" that began in the 1970s has become one of the most complex within film studies, as it "engages with almost all of the key theoretical ideas within the discipline, from questions of genre and authorship, to issues surrounding representation, aesthetics and the ideological function of cinema.

[21] The term "melodrama" has been used to describe a vast and diverse array of films spanning multiple decades, continents, and cultural contexts, prompting debate about the utility of such an expansive classification.

[6] David Morse pointed out these issues in 1972: "In general, melodrama is a term of little critical value; it has been so corrupted in common usage that to give it a more specific field of reference is a task which almost verges on the impossible.

[6] Additionally, Schatz observed consistent patterns within these films, including victimized protagonists, generational conflicts, simplistic storylines, and subtle social critiques that were often concealed beneath the surface.

"[23] These stories frequently feature protagonists, generally women, who are victimized by societal norms, leading to dramatic climaxes where resolution might involve either domestic integration or tragic outcomes like isolation or death.

[25] Another central aspect of melodrama is the concept of "situation", which introduces moments of narrative stasis or dramatic tension where characters confront life-altering events or dilemmas, like moral or emotional impasses, creating suspense and engaging the audience through the anticipation of resolution or escape from peril.

"[27] It was also the period in which Freudian psychology gained prominence in American society and so these films incorporated themes of repression, hysteria, and the unconscious into their narratives, reflecting and influencing public discourse on these issues.

[25] Thus, Hollywood melodramas of the 1950s can be thought of as cultural artifacts rather than just escapist entertainment, as they engaged with the societal shifts of the time, depicting the nuclear family under stress, exploring the redefinition of masculinity and femininity, and critiquing or reinforcing the norms of the period.

[27] The genre's emphasis on emotion over logic, its portrayal of characters as victims of larger social forces, and its use of excess have been analyzed as methods to critique and navigate the complexities of power, identity, and morality.

[7] A characteristic of melodrama's style is the notion of "excess", where every element of the film's construction—be it visual, auditory, or narrative—strives to exceed the bounds of realism to express the inexpressible; this can manifest through exaggerated gestures, heightened speech patterns, or dramatic musical scores, which aim to provoke visceral reactions from the audience, such as tears or physical agitation.

[26] For these reasons, melodrama's unique positioning between realism and theatricality has been a subject of extensive academic scrutiny, as it is often critiqued for its "anti-realistic" style, which seems to consciously draw attention to its own artifice and thus challenges the viewer's passive consumption of cinema.

[29] He put forward a flexible, multifaceted definition of melodrama as a "cluster concept", suggesting that it encompasses five key features—pathos, overwrought emotion, moral polarization, nonclassical narrative structure, and sensationalism—which can combine in different ways across various works.

[35][36] One of the most relevant subgenres in studies on the genre is the so-called "maternal melodrama",[3] with examples including John Stahl's Only Yesterday (1933), King Vidor's Stella Dallas (1937), Edmund Goulding's The Old Maid (1939) and Mitchell Leisen's To Each His Own (1946).

[38][39] By the 1940s, the maternal melodrama reached its peak, reflecting the era's heightened focus on women during World War II, where cinematic femininity was polarized between the glamorous pin-up and the devoted mother.

[38] The "woman's film" category has also been regarded as a subgenre of melodrama, retrospectively formulated in response to feminist scholars' interest in the genre and its long-standing relegation as a cultural domain associated with women.

[42] According to Elsaesser: "The characteristic features for our present purposes in this tradition are not so much the emotional shock-tactics and the blatant playing on the audience's known sympathies and antipathies, but rather the non-psychological conception of the dramatis personae, who figure less as autonomous individuals than to transmit the action and link the various locales within a total constellation.

[43] To compensate for the "expressiveness, range of inflection and tonality, rhythmic emphasis and tension normally present in the spoken word", silent film directors had to develop an "extremely subtle and yet precise formal language" that involved cinematography, staging, acting and editing.

"[44] Griffith employed various cinematic techniques to highlight the characters' "virtuous suffering": extended camera shots, a measured storytelling pace, repeated close-ups of the distressed heroine (often with eyes turned upwards), and a solemn musical accompaniment.

[9][10] In addition to Sirk's, several works by Minnelli, Nicholas Ray, George Cukor, Billy Wilder and Joseph Losey acquired cult status in gay male culture because of the "very excessiveness, extreme emotionality, mannered performances, style and very direct sentimental form of address that these films demonstrate.

[45] The beginning of the Golden Age of South Korean Cinema was signaled by two very popular films, Lee Gyu-hwan's 1955 adaptation of The Tale of Chunhyang and Han Hyung-mo's Madame Freedom (1956), and the period would last until 1972.

[45] In North Korean cinema, the melodrama genre or mode has been used as a propaganda tool to legitimise the Kim family's totalitarian regime among the mass populace, promoting a kind of ideal citizen who puts aside their individual temptations in pursuit of the collective work of nation-building.

"[47] Two examples include Kang Hong-sik's My Home Village (1949), the first feature film of North Korea, and Choe Ik-gyu's Sea of Blood (1969), based on the opera of the same name, which both depict themes of resistance against Japanese oppression and the embrace of revolutionary ideology.

[47] On the other hand, films such as Jo Kyong Sun's A Broad Bellflower (1986) and Kang Jung-mo's Forever In Our Memory (1999) exemplify melodrama's typical idealization of the rural world as the hometown and the place of maternal care and unity.

[48] This dual focus allows Latin American melodramas to maintain a closer connection to the genre's roots in 19th-century theater, where intimate emotional struggles were often entwined with societal upheavals.

[48] Themes such as the sacred bond between mother and child, the redemptive power of motherhood, and the plight of abandoned children recur frequently, underscoring the moral and emotional stakes at the heart of these narratives.

[53][55] This style had its antecedents in the silent films of the 1920s, especially in the work of José A. Ferreyra, focused on portraying the world and characters associated with tango, a genre linked to the lower-class neighborhoods of Buenos Aires.

[48] Beyond these dominant film industries, melodramas were also produced in countries with less developed cinematic infrastructures, such as Venezuela, Bolivia, Peru, and Puerto Rico, demonstrating the genre's widespread appeal across the region.

[48] The transnational nature of Latin American melodrama is further underscored by the movement of directors, actors, and technical personnel across borders, as well as the shared musical traditions that frequently feature in these films.