Melodrama (film)

The melodrama refers to a film genre that deals and content focus with emotional and mental inner conflicts. As a genre-specific further development of melodrama in theater or literary melodrama , dramatic meanings are expressed less in action than in excessive, complex symbolizations. Well -known directors are Douglas Sirk or Rainer Werner Fassbinder , well-known film melodramas are Gone with the Wind , Written in the Wind or Beyond Eden .

definition

“Melodrama” describes an “act with music”. It is made up of the Greek words melos : 'song' / 'sound' and drama : 'action'. While other genres such as westerns , gangster films or science fiction films endeavor to resolve contradictions in life, film melodrama deals with the inevitability of life's contradictions. The focus is on family, love and the suppression of sexuality, which are perceived as problematic. Often the melodrama is disparagingly characterized as soulful and emotionally manipulative; an assessment that often applies to today's soap operas , but does not do justice to the original core idea of melodrama. Melodramas are a specific form of drama with a specific story, style awareness and narrative style.

genealogy

Two historical strands are significant for the development: on the one hand, the late medieval, popular morality , at the center of which is a moral / moralistic pattern that can be both supported and parodied or thwarted in the elaboration (see ballad or bench song ). In a second, more literary-oriented strand, the melodrama stands in a row with the (initially French) drama of Romanticism (which follows the French Revolution ), and crucially in line with the sentimental novel of the 18th century Century. The dramatic conflicts revolve around extremely extreme ideals that meet equally great external restrictions (from family, society, norms). This enters an emancipatory field, which is described in pre-revolutionary emotional novels (such as Samuel Richardson's Clarissa ) as well as in bourgeois tragedy ( Emilia Galotti , Kabale und Liebe ). In their banal offshoots, the v. a. populate the stage after the French Revolution, the melodramatic conflicts function as purely dramaturgical tricks to build up tension and to create sentimental emotionalism.

The literary, melodramatic form allows artists to tell social grievances within a popular genre. Equipped with exaggerations, heroic deeds, unbelievable coincidences and grand gestures, melodramas often contradict all realism. But these are stylistic devices that are used to address deeper problems (insecurities, social determinations, social needs, etc.). In France, it is above all Victor Hugo and Honoré de Balzac who in their novels bring existential conflicts to a large audience with strong personalization. ( In this context, Hugos Les misérables is regarded as the ultimate literary melodrama.) In England, Charles Dickens sets standards with Oliver Twist and A Tale of Two Cities between Freudian depth psychology and the representation of extreme social contrasts. The melodrama is thus characterized by its ambivalence: it enables both a critical examination that puts the emancipatory, the fragile, the "Odyssey of Suffering" ( Thomas Elsaesser ) in the foreground, as well as a reactionary, effects-conscious narrative style that inevitably towards a happy ending.

"Cinema of feelings"

Expressivity and film

Melodramatic elements, understood as “action with music”, can already be found in the first films of the silent film era . Because the works did not have spoken language, other visual means had to be used to maintain the ability to express themselves: décor, light, camera movement, acting, close-up, gestures / facial expressions. Influenced by German Expressionism , many directors from Europe came to Hollywood in the 1930s , who placed value on visual expressiveness in their formal language (including Max Ophüls , Douglas Sirk , Ernst Lubitsch , Otto Preminger ).

In addition, the cinema operators were aware that musical accompaniment was necessary at the latest during the screening in order to be able to tell dramatic situations in a more gripping manner. The films were silent, but live piano accompaniment or - in the case of large works, orchestrated film music - ensured the appropriate atmosphere (s) during the performance.

Thomas Elsaesser describes in his groundbreaking essay on melodrama in 1974:

"Considered as a code of expression, melodrama could thus be described as a specific form of dramatic mise en scène that is characterized by the dynamic use of spatial and musical categories - as opposed to intellectual or literary."

The film melodrama thus emphasizes material aspects of the film presentation: music, lighting, decor, image composition; and assigns them not only a meaning related to their effect, but also a meaning in terms of content.

Motifs

The content-related discussion takes place “inside” in the melodrama, as director Douglas Sirk noted. In relation to the dramaturgy and the narrated content, this means: Narrations can primarily be built up from an external action or, secondly, from the inner workings of a person (or person constellation). The medium film tends due to its basic nature as a visual medium to give more space to the outer, action-driven and thus visible presentable motifs. Internal processes that affect the psychology and mental constitution of a person tend to be easier to implement in a descriptive medium (such as the novel).

As a consequence, it is easier for action-controlled genres to attract attention, since external - showable - actions dominate in them. The film melodrama, on the other hand, takes care of the inner worlds of people. What is accessory in "male genres" becomes the main thing in melodrama: love and the sufferings and passions associated with it. Conceived by the film industry for a specifically female audience, the film melodrama can also become a socially critical work of art: all too often, precisely those achievements, fetishes and rituals are called into question that traditionally characterize a male society: success, power, money, war, class barriers , Politics etc. Georg Seeßlen writes:

“Melodrama criticizes society in the name of individual happiness that wants nothing but itself. It takes sides with the smaller system in the social structure: for the community against society, for the family against the community, for the individual against the family. "

If the inside - that is, feelings, sensitivities, emotional needs and ideas instead of real events - wins the upper hand, then Sigmund Freud's reception in the United States, which was strengthened in the 1950s, is also expressed here . Because melodrama is primarily concerned with the perception of basic psychological sensitivities. But directors like Alfred Hitchcock are also increasingly processing the inner worlds of their (often female) protagonists in other genres (e.g. the film Marnie ).

The focus is often on middle-class women who (given enough time and money) are no longer satisfied with the narrow limits of their lives. From self-employment the critical examination of the system grows: the family, society, the structures that lead to one's own dissatisfaction. Attempts to break out characterize the efforts to change something in these structures on various levels; usually these attempts fail because the society, the family are stronger than the individual (see All That Heaven Allows (All that heaven Allows) or Written on the Wind (Written on the wind) of Sirk).

Oedipal relationships , repressed past, patriarchal hierarchies, a chain of substitute actions : this is the motif mixture from which the film melodrama draws. This is associated with enormous fears: of closeness, love, impotence , frigidity . Everything that brings about emotional alienation must of course be used dramaturgically by the melodrama. Retreat into private life is inevitable.

Rooms of melodrama

The premises are therefore of decisive importance in film melodrama. If in genres in which the plot needs space to unfold, the spaces are correspondingly open (as in westerns ), in melodrama - the genre that deals with the family - the immediate private environment becomes the main action space . More than in any other genre, space is the mirror of the soul.
Just as the inner workings of the figure constantly reach their limits, the physical space of the melodrama is limited by walls: a lot is set in private houses, in hotels, in small towns with many fences, in mansions and hunters' huts. In melodrama, the pressure does not come from a problem from outside (a city has to defend itself against intruders, as the western tells it, or a murder has to be solved, as the crime novel deals with disorder from outside), but the pressure from within the events in motion.

The interior clutter and fragility is expressed in the furnishings and decor. At Douglas Sirk, the rooms are full of glass, highly artificial and fragile. On the one hand, he uses it to characterize his characters, on the other hand, by deliberately exaggerating it, he is commenting on the Hollywood studio system that (in many productions from the 1940s to 1960s) put actors in backdrops in order to function as a projection surface for certain longings.

Drama of excess

With the rooms, which are deliberately set in an exaggerated manner, there is a conscious exaggeration of the emotional state. Expressions of emotion in melodrama vary from cheering up to death sadly, often in one and the same scene. The protagonists define themselves through their emotional fluctuations and passionately give in to their emotional excesses - also because they can no longer hold onto anything else. The outside world is neither used as a space for action nor as a reference, consequently all actions - if they do not end in helpless gestures - must take place inside the characters. The inner conflicts are then expressed in outbursts of emotion.

The melodrama shifts the struggle between the individual and society into the characters. Seeßlen:

“To get to know the feelings of a hero in the male genre, you have to understand his conflicts. In order to get to know conflicts of melodrama heroes, one must understand their feelings. [...] The hero of the male genre suppresses his feelings by incessantly dealing with conflicts. The hero of the melodrama does not understand his conflicts because he threatens to suffocate his feelings on theirs. "

The protagonists of the melodrama place such high demands on themselves, on life and on their fellow human beings, that they inevitably fail. The inappropriateness of their claims is reflected in the inappropriateness of their responses. This pathos gives the characters an often tragic tone.

Serial queen melodrama

The serial queen melodrama is a form of melodrama that developed and performed in the 1910s. Like the Woman's Film, it is aimed specifically at a female audience, through 1. forms of vanity and display with feminine connotations and 2. through the portrayal of women as the assertive, intrepid main character. The core elements of the plot are often moral polarization, persecuted innocence and breathtaking twists and turns. Everything happens "on the outside". This applies to both the choice of locations and freedom from sentimentality. The female heroine does not fight, as in the "classic" genre reform melodrama, mental struggles for good and against bad, but she tries hard with her life. The conflict between the classes does not matter here more for it but the viewing advances in gender roles ( gender ) at the center. The new mobility of women in public is celebrated, but at the same time the danger of breaking out of the home is clearly demonstrated.

Ben Singer also draws attention to the fact that melodrama is not always dealt with precisely. For one thing, he notes that in the early days of the film industry, melodrama meant action, overwhelming sensationalism, and violence. On the other hand, he sets out five basic factors that do not all have to occur and can appear in every possible combination.

extreme moral polarization.
violent pathos.
feeling overwrought and increased states of emotional distress.
non-classical narrative techniques and deus ex machina (unexpectedly occurring person or incident, originally GODNESS, who helps in an emergency situation or brings the solution.)
Sensationalism (violent action, thrills, spectacles)

However, all of these phenomena are not unknown from earlier forms of melodrama. What is new here is the zeitgeist component of reacting to the engineered environment. In the literary and stage melodramas, spiritual and moral themes were almost exclusively predominant, but now the subject of the rapidly developing industrialization and mechanization of the environment is developing into a threat to the "good" individual. In the second half of the 19th century Singer therefore also identified a spectacularization of melodrama in response to modernity and its sensationalization in newspapers, dime novels, amusement parks, but also to the horror of modern traffic and the changed human perception. (Singer, 2001)

"Succession": Soap Opera

The term soap opera refers to an unlimited serial television format broadcast daily or weekly. Originally, this was a radio format sponsored by soap makers, hence the name. The Soap Opera has its program place primarily in the advertising-intensive afternoon or evening programs. Each episode is made up of up to three plots. A-plot, which carries the central story of the episode, as well as B- and C-plot (subplots), which either continue an old story thread or start a new one. By shifting the plots within the series, maximum audience loyalty is achieved. The acting characters are stereotypical and rarely show learning behavior. The function of the characters is more important than their individuality, which means that actors can be exchanged on the production side. The typical action patterns of melodrama can also be found in the soap opera, but here as a serial format. The soap and melodrama also have a predominantly female target audience in common. (Marschall, 2002) See also soap opera .

literature

Thomas Elsaesser : Tales of Sound and Fury. Notes on the family melodrama , in: Cargnelli, Christian / Palm, Michael (ed.): And the sun rises again and again. Texts on the melodramatic in the film. Vienna, 1994
Brooks, Peter: The Melodramatic Imagination. In: Cargnelli, Christian / Palm, Michael (ed.): And the sun rises again and again. Texts on the melodramatic in the film. Vienna, 1994. pp. 35-63. ISBN 3-901196-03-X
Cargnelli, Christian: Sirk, Freud, Marx and the women. Considerations on melodrama. An overview. In: Cargnelli, Christian / Palm, Michael (ed.): And the sun rises again and again. Texts on the melodramatic in the film. Vienna, 1994. pp. 11-33. ISBN 3-901196-03-X
Marschall, Susanne: Soap Opera . In: Koebner, Thomas (Ed.): Reclams Sachlexikon des Films. Stuttgart, 2002. p. 561. ISBN 3-15-010495-5
Schweinitz, Jörg : Genre . In: Koebner, Thomas (Ed.): Reclams Sachlexikon des Films. Stuttgart, 2002. pp. 244-246. ISBN 3-15-010495-5
Seeßlen, Georg : Cinema of feelings. History and Mythology of the Film Melodrama. Appeared in the series Foundations of Popular Film ed. v. Roloff, Bernhard and Seeßlen, Georg. Reinbek near Hamburg, 1980. ISBN 3-499-17366-2
Singer, Ben: Melodrama and Modernity. Early Sensational Cinema and its Contexts. New York, 2001.
Vossen, Ursula: melodrama. In: Koebner, Thomas (Ed.): Reclams Sachlexikon des Films. Stuttgart, 2002. pp. 377-381. ISBN 3-15-010495-5
Wodtke, Friedrich Wilhelm: Lyrical drama. Merker, Paul / Stammler, Wolfgang (Hrsg.): Reallexikon der Deutschen Literaturgeschichte. Second volume L – O. Second edition ed. v. Kohlschmidt, Werner and Mohr, Wolfgang. Berlin, 1965. pp. 252-258.
Kappelhoff, Hermann: Matrix of feelings. The cinema, the melodrama and the theater of sensitivity , Berlin, 2004. ISBN 3-930916-61-4