A modern melodrama is a dramatic work in which the plot, typically
sensationalized
In journalism and mass media, sensationalism is a type of editorial tactic. Events and topics in news stories are selected and worded to excite the greatest number of readers and viewers. This style of news reporting encourages biased or emotion ...
and for a strong emotional appeal, takes precedence over detailed characterization. Melodramas typically concentrate on dialogue that is often bombastic or excessively
sentimental, rather than action. Characters are often
flat
Flat or flats may refer to:
Architecture
* Flat (housing), an apartment in the United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia and other Commonwealth countries
Arts and entertainment
* Flat (music), a symbol () which denotes a lower pitch
* Flat (soldier), ...
, and written to fulfill
stereotype
In social psychology, a stereotype is a generalized belief about a particular category of people. It is an expectation that people might have about every person of a particular group. The type of expectation can vary; it can be, for example ...
s. Melodramas are typically set in the private sphere of the home, focusing on morality and family issues, love, and marriage, often with challenges from an outside source, such as a "temptress", a scoundrel, or an aristocratic villain. A melodrama on stage, filmed, or on television is usually accompanied by dramatic and suggestive music that offers cues to the audience of the drama being presented.
In scholarly and historical musical contexts, ''melodramas'' are Victorian dramas in which orchestral music or song was used to accompany the action. The term is now also applied to stage performances without incidental music, novels, films, television, and radio broadcasts. In modern contexts, the term "melodrama" is generally pejorative,
as it suggests that the work in question lacks subtlety, character development, or both. By extension, language or behavior which resembles melodrama is often called ''melodramatic''; this use is nearly always pejorative.
Etymology
The term originated from the early 19th-century French word ''mélodrame''. It is derived from
Greek
Greek may refer to:
Greece
Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe:
*Greeks, an ethnic group.
*Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family.
**Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...
μέλος ''mélos'', "song, strain" (compare "melody", from ''μελωδία melōdia'', "singing, song"), and French ''drame'', drama (from
Late Latin
Late Latin ( la, Latinitas serior) is the scholarly name for the form of Literary Latin of late antiquity.Roberts (1996), p. 537. English dictionary definitions of Late Latin date this period from the , and continuing into the 7th century in t ...
''drāma'', eventually deriving from
classical Greek
Ancient Greek includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Dark Ages (), the Archaic peri ...
δράμα ''dráma'', "theatrical plot", usually of a Greek tragedy).
Characteristics
The relationship of melodrama compared to
realism
Realism, Realistic, or Realists may refer to:
In the arts
*Realism (arts), the general attempt to depict subjects truthfully in different forms of the arts
Arts movements related to realism include:
*Classical Realism
*Literary realism, a move ...
is complex. The protagonists of melodramatic works may be ordinary (and hence realistically drawn) people who are caught up in extraordinary events or highly exaggerated and unrealistic characters. With regard to its high emotions and dramatic rhetoric, melodrama represents a "victory over repression". Late Victorian and Edwardian melodrama combined a conscious focus on realism in stage sets and props with "anti-realism" in character and plot. Melodrama in this period strove for "credible accuracy in the depiction of incredible, extraordinary" scenes.
Novelist
Wilkie Collins
William Wilkie Collins (8 January 1824 – 23 September 1889) was an English novelist and playwright known especially for ''The Woman in White (novel), The Woman in White'' (1859), a mystery novel and early "sensation novel", and for ''The Moons ...
is noted for his attention to accuracy in detail (e.g. of legal matters) in his works, no matter how sensational the plot. Melodramas were typically 10,000 to 20,000 words in length.
Melodramas put most of their attention on the victim. A struggle between
good and evil
In religion, ethics, philosophy, and psychology "good and evil" is a very common dichotomy. In cultures with Manichaean and Abrahamic religious influence, evil is perceived as the dualistic antagonistic opposite of good, in which good shoul ...
choices, such as a man being encouraged to leave his family by an "evil temptress".
[Hayward, Susan. "Melodrama and Women's Films" in ''Cinema Studies: The Key Concepts'' (Third Edition). Routledge, 2006. p.236-242] Other stock characters are the "fallen woman", the single mother, the orphan, and the male who is struggling with the impacts of the modern world.
The melodrama examines family and social issues in the context of a private home, with its intended audience being the female spectator; secondarily, the male viewer can enjoy the onscreen tensions in the home being resolved.
Melodrama generally looks back at ideal, nostalgic eras, emphasizing "forbidden longings".
Types
Origins
The melodrama approach was revived in the 18th- and 19th-century French romantic drama and the sentimental novels that were popular in both England and France.
These dramas and novels focused on moral codes in regards to family life, love, and marriage, and they can be seen as a reflection of the issues brought up by the
French Revolution
The French Revolution ( ) was a period of radical political and societal change in France that began with the Estates General of 1789 and ended with the formation of the French Consulate in November 1799. Many of its ideas are considere ...
, the
industrial revolution
The Industrial Revolution was the transition to new manufacturing processes in Great Britain, continental Europe, and the United States, that occurred during the period from around 1760 to about 1820–1840. This transition included going f ...
and the shift to modernization.
Many melodramas were about a middle-class young woman who experienced unwanted sexual advances from an aristocratic miscreant, with the
sexual assault
Sexual assault is an act in which one intentionally sexually touches another person without that person's consent, or coerces or physically forces a person to engage in a sexual act against their will. It is a form of sexual violence, which ...
being a metaphor for class conflict.
The melodrama reflected post-industrial revolution anxieties of the middle class, who were afraid of both aristocratic power brokers and the impoverished working class "mob".
In the 18th century, melodrama was a technique of combining spoken recitation with short pieces of accompanying music. Music and spoken dialogue typically alternated in such works, although the music was sometimes also used to accompany
pantomime
Pantomime (; informally panto) is a type of musical comedy stage production designed for family entertainment. It was developed in England and is performed throughout the United Kingdom, Ireland and (to a lesser extent) in other English-speaking ...
.
The earliest known examples are scenes in J. E. Eberlin's Latin school play ''Sigismundus'' (1753). The first full melodrama was
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Jean-Jacques Rousseau (, ; 28 June 1712 – 2 July 1778) was a Genevan philosopher, writer, and composer. His political philosophy influenced the progress of the Age of Enlightenment throughout Europe, as well as aspects of the French Revolu ...
's ''
Pygmalion
Pygmalion or Pigmalion may refer to:
Mythology
* Pygmalion (mythology), a sculptor who fell in love with his statue
Stage
* ''Pigmalion'' (opera), a 1745 opera by Jean-Philippe Rameau
* ''Pygmalion'' (Rousseau), a 1762 melodrama by Jean-Jacques ...
'', the text of which was written in 1762 but was first staged in
Lyon
Lyon,, ; Occitan: ''Lion'', hist. ''Lionés'' also spelled in English as Lyons, is the third-largest city and second-largest metropolitan area of France. It is located at the confluence of the rivers Rhône and Saône, to the northwest of t ...
in 1770. Rousseau composed the overture and an Andante, but the bulk of the music was composed by
Horace Coignet Horace Coignet (13 May 1736 – 29 August 1821) was a French amateur violinist, singer and composer. He was active in Lyons as a pattern-designer and dealer in embroidered goods, as an official clerk and as musical director of the city from 1794. He ...
.
A different musical setting of Rousseau's ''Pygmalion'' by
Anton Schweitzer
Anton Schweitzer (6 June 1735 in Coburg – 23 November 1787 in Gotha) was a German composer of operas, who was affiliated with Abel Seyler's theatrical company.
He was a child prodigy who obtained the patronage of the duke of Saxe-Hildburghause ...
was performed in Weimar in 1772, and Goethe wrote of it approvingly in ''
Dichtung und Wahrheit
''Aus meinem Leben: Dichtung und Wahrheit'' (''From my Life: Poetry and Truth''; 1811–1833) is an autobiography by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe that comprises the time from the poet's childhood to the days in 1775, when he was about to leave for ...
''. ''Pygmalion'' is a
monodrama
A monodrama is a theatrical or operatic piece played by a single actor or singer, usually portraying one character.
In opera
In opera, a monodrama was originally a melodrama with one role such as Jean-Jacques Rousseau's ''Pygmalion'', which wa ...
, written for one actor.
Some 30 other monodramas were produced in Germany in the fourth quarter of the 18th century. When two actors were involved, the term
duodrama A duodrama is a theatrical melodrama for two actors or singers, in which the spoken voice is used with a musical accompaniment for heightened dramatic effect. It was popular at the end of the 18th century and the beginning of the 19th.
Closely rela ...
could be used.
Georg Benda
Georg Anton Benda ( cz, Jiří Antonín Benda, italic=no, link=no; 30 June 17226 November 1795) was a composer, violinist and Kapellmeister of the classical period from the Kingdom of Bohemia.
Biography
Born into a family of notable musicians ...
was particularly successful with his duodramas ''
Ariadne Auf Naxos
(''Ariadne on Naxos''), Op. 60, is a 1912 opera by Richard Strauss with a German libretto by Hugo von Hofmannsthal. The opera's unusual combination of elements of low commedia dell'arte with those of high opera seria points up one of the work' ...
'' (1775) and ''
Medea
In Greek mythology, Medea (; grc, Μήδεια, ''Mēdeia'', perhaps implying "planner / schemer") is the daughter of King Aeëtes of Colchis, a niece of Circe and the granddaughter of the sun god Helios. Medea figures in the myth of Jason an ...
'' (1778). The sensational success of Benda's melodramas led Mozart to use two long melodramatic monologues in his opera ''
Zaide
''Zaide'' (originally, ''Das Serail'') is an unfinished German-language opera, K. 344, written by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart in 1780. Emperor Joseph II, in 1778, was in the process of setting up an opera company for the purpose of performing ...
'' (1780).
Other later and better-known examples of the melodramatic style in operas are the grave-digging scene in Beethoven's ''
Fidelio
''Fidelio'' (; ), originally titled ' (''Leonore, or The Triumph of Marital Love''), Op. 72, is Ludwig van Beethoven's only opera. The German libretto was originally prepared by Joseph Sonnleithner from the French of Jean-Nicolas Bouilly, with ...
'' (1805) and the incantation scene in Weber's ''
Der Freischütz
' ( J. 277, Op. 77 ''The Marksman'' or ''The Freeshooter'') is a German opera with spoken dialogue in three acts by Carl Maria von Weber with a libretto by Friedrich Kind, based on a story by Johann August Apel and Friedrich Laun from their 181 ...
'' (1821).
[Apel, Willi, ed. (1969). ''Harvard Dictionary of Music'', Second Edition, Revised and Enlarged. The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts. . .]
After the
English Restoration
The Restoration of the Stuart monarchy in the kingdoms of England, Scotland and Ireland took place in 1660 when King Charles II returned from exile in continental Europe. The preceding period of the Protectorate and the civil wars came to be ...
of
Charles II in 1660, most British theatres were prohibited from performing "serious" drama but were permitted to show
comedy
Comedy is a genre of fiction that consists of discourses or works intended to be humorous or amusing by inducing laughter, especially in theatre, film, stand-up comedy, television, radio, books, or any other entertainment medium. The term o ...
or plays with music. Charles II issued
letters patent
Letters patent ( la, litterae patentes) ( always in the plural) are a type of legal instrument in the form of a published written order issued by a monarch, president or other head of state, generally granting an office, right, monopoly, titl ...
to permit only two London theatre companies to perform "serious" drama. These were the
Theatre Royal, Drury Lane
The Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, commonly known as Drury Lane, is a West End theatre and Grade I listed building in Covent Garden, London, England. The building faces Catherine Street (earlier named Bridges or Brydges Street) and backs onto Dr ...
and
Lisle's Tennis Court
Lisle's Tennis Court was a building off Portugal Street in Lincoln's Inn Fields in London. Originally built as a real tennis court, it was used as a playhouse during two periods, 1661–1674 and 1695–1705. During the early period, ...
in
Lincoln's Inn Fields
Lincoln's Inn Fields is the largest public square in London. It was laid out in the 1630s under the initiative of the speculative builder and contractor William Newton, "the first in a long series of entrepreneurs who took a hand in develo ...
, the latter of which moved to the
Theatre Royal, Covent Garden
The Royal Opera House (ROH) is an opera house and major performing arts venue in Covent Garden, central London. The large building is often referred to as simply Covent Garden, after a previous use of the site. It is the home of The Royal Ope ...
in 1720 (now the
Royal Opera House
The Royal Opera House (ROH) is an opera house and major performing arts venue in Covent Garden, central London. The large building is often referred to as simply Covent Garden, after a previous use of the site. It is the home of The Royal Op ...
). The two patent theatres closed in the summer months. To fill the gap, the
Theatre Royal, Haymarket
The Theatre Royal Haymarket (also known as Haymarket Theatre or the Little Theatre) is a West End theatre on Haymarket in the City of Westminster which dates back to 1720, making it the third-oldest London playhouse still in use. Samuel Foote ...
became a third patent theatre in London in 1766.
Further letters patent were eventually granted to one theatre in each of several other English towns and cities. Other theatres presented dramas that were underscored with music and, borrowing the French term, called it melodrama to get around the restriction. The
Theatres Act 1843
The Theatres Act 1843 (6 & 7 Vict., c. 68) (also known as the Theatre Regulation Act) is a defunct Act of Parliament in the United Kingdom. It amended the regime established under the Licensing Act 1737 for the licensing of the theatre in Great B ...
finally allowed all the theatres to play drama.
19th century: operetta, incidental music, and salon entertainment
In the early 19th century, opera's influence led to musical overtures and
incidental music
Incidental music is music in a play, television program, radio program, video game, or some other presentation form that is not primarily musical. The term is less frequently applied to film music, with such music being referred to instead as t ...
for many plays. In 1820,
Franz Schubert
Franz Peter Schubert (; 31 January 179719 November 1828) was an Austrian composer of the late Classical and early Romantic eras. Despite his short lifetime, Schubert left behind a vast ''oeuvre'', including more than 600 secular vocal wor ...
wrote a melodrama, ''Die Zauberharfe'' ("The Magic Harp"), setting music behind the play written by G. von Hofmann. It was unsuccessful, like all Schubert's theatre ventures, but the melodrama
genre
Genre () is any form or type of communication in any mode (written, spoken, digital, artistic, etc.) with socially-agreed-upon conventions developed over time. In popular usage, it normally describes a category of literature, music, or other for ...
was at the time a popular one. In an age of underpaid musicians, many 19th-century plays in London had an orchestra in the pit. In 1826,
Felix Mendelssohn
Jakob Ludwig Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy (3 February 18094 November 1847), born and widely known as Felix Mendelssohn, was a German composer, pianist, organist and conductor of the early Romantic period. Mendelssohn's compositions include sy ...
wrote his well-known
overture
Overture (from French ''ouverture'', "opening") in music was originally the instrumental introduction to a ballet, opera, or oratorio in the 17th century. During the early Romantic era, composers such as Beethoven and Mendelssohn composed overt ...
to
Shakespeare's
William Shakespeare ( 26 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's nation ...
''
A Midsummer Night's Dream
''A Midsummer Night's Dream'' is a comedy written by William Shakespeare 1595 or 1596. The play is set in Athens, and consists of several subplots that revolve around the marriage of Theseus and Hippolyta. One subplot involves a conflict amon ...
'', and later supplied the play with incidental music.
In
Verdi
Giuseppe Fortunino Francesco Verdi (; 9 or 10 October 1813 – 27 January 1901) was an Italian composer best known for his operas. He was born near Busseto to a provincial family of moderate means, receiving a musical education with the h ...
's ''
La Traviata
''La traviata'' (; ''The Fallen Woman'') is an opera in three acts by Giuseppe Verdi set to an Italian libretto by Francesco Maria Piave. It is based on ''La Dame aux camélias'' (1852), a play by Alexandre Dumas ''fils'' adapted from his own 18 ...
'', Violetta receives a letter from Alfredo's father where he writes that Alfredo now knows why she parted from him and that he forgives her ("Teneste la promessa..."). In her speaking voice, she intones the words of what is written, while the orchestra recapitulates the music of their first love from Act I: this is technically melodrama. In a few moments, Violetta bursts into a passionate despairing aria ("Addio, del passato"): this is opera again.
In a similar manner, Victorians often added "incidental music" under the dialogue to a pre-existing play, although this style of composition was already practiced in the days of
Ludwig van Beethoven
Ludwig van Beethoven (baptised 17 December 177026 March 1827) was a German composer and pianist. Beethoven remains one of the most admired composers in the history of Western music; his works rank amongst the most performed of the classical ...
(''
Egmont Egmont may refer to:
* Egmont Group, a media corporation founded and rooted in Copenhagen, Denmark
* Egmond family (often spelled "Egmont"), an influential Dutch family, lords of the town of Egmond
** Lamoral, Count of Egmont (1522–1568), the bes ...
'') and
Franz Schubert
Franz Peter Schubert (; 31 January 179719 November 1828) was an Austrian composer of the late Classical and early Romantic eras. Despite his short lifetime, Schubert left behind a vast ''oeuvre'', including more than 600 secular vocal wor ...
(''
Rosamunde
''Rosamunde, Fürstin von Zypern'' (''Rosamunde, Princess of Cyprus'') is a play by Helmina von Chézy, which is primarily remembered for the incidental music which Franz Schubert composed for it. Music and play premiered in Vienna's Theater an de ...
''). (This type of often-lavish production is now mostly limited to film (see
film score
A film score is original music written specifically to accompany a film. The score comprises a number of orchestral, instrumental, or choral pieces called cues, which are timed to begin and end at specific points during the film in order to ...
) due to the cost of hiring an orchestra. Modern recording technology is producing a certain revival of the practice in theatre, but not on the former scale.) A particularly complete version of this form,
Sullivan's incidental music to
Tennyson's ''
The Foresters
''The Foresters or, Robin Hood and Maid Marian'' is a play written by Alfred Tennyson and first produced with success in New York in 1892. A set of incidental music in nine movements was composed for the play by Arthur Sullivan.
The success of ...
'', is available online, complete with several melodramas, for instance, No. 12 found here. A few
operetta
Operetta is a form of theatre and a genre of light opera. It includes spoken dialogue, songs, and dances. It is lighter than opera in terms of its music, orchestral size, length of the work, and at face value, subject matter. Apart from its s ...
s exhibit melodrama in the sense of music played under spoken dialogue, for instance,
Gilbert and Sullivan
Gilbert and Sullivan was a Victorian era, Victorian-era theatrical partnership of the dramatist W. S. Gilbert (1836–1911) and the composer Arthur Sullivan (1842–1900), who jointly created fourteen comic operas between 1871 and 1896, of which ...
's ''
Ruddigore
''Ruddigore; or, The Witch's Curse'', originally called ''Ruddygore'', is a comic opera in two acts, with music by Arthur Sullivan and libretto by W. S. Gilbert. It is one of the Savoy Operas and the tenth of fourteen comic operas written tog ...
'' (itself a parody of melodramas in the modern sense) has a short "melodrame" (reduced to dialogue alone in many productions) in the second act;
Jacques Offenbach
Jacques Offenbach (, also , , ; 20 June 18195 October 1880) was a German-born French composer, cellist and impresario of the Romantic period. He is remembered for his nearly 100 operettas of the 1850s to the 1870s, and his uncompleted opera '' ...
's ''
Orpheus in the Underworld
''Orpheus in the Underworld'' and ''Orpheus in Hell'' are English names for (), a comic opera with music by Jacques Offenbach and words by Hector Crémieux and Ludovic Halévy. It was first performed as a two-act " opéra bouffon" at the Thé ...
'' opens with a melodrama delivered by the character of "Public Opinion"; and other pieces from operetta and musicals may be considered melodramas, such as the "Recit and Minuet" in Gilbert and Sullivan's ''
The Sorcerer
''The Sorcerer'' is a two-act comic opera, with a libretto by W. S. Gilbert and music by Arthur Sullivan. It was the British duo's third operatic collaboration. The plot of ''The Sorcerer'' is based on a Christmas story, ''An Elixir of Lo ...
''. As an example from the American musical, several long speeches in
Lerner Lerner is a German and Jewish family name. Its literal meaning can be either "student" or "scholar". It may refer to:
Organizations
* Lerner Enterprises, a real estate company
* Lerner Newspapers
* Lerner Publishing Group, a publisher of childr ...
and
Loewe's ''
Brigadoon
''Brigadoon'' is a musical with a book and lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner, and music by Frederick Loewe. The song " Almost Like Being in Love", from the musical, has become a standard. It features two American tourists who stumble upon Brigadoon, a ...
'' are delivered over an accompaniment of evocative music. The technique is also frequently used in Spanish
zarzuela
() is a Spanish lyric-dramatic genre that alternates between spoken and sung scenes, the latter incorporating operatic and popular songs, as well as dance. The etymology of the name is uncertain, but some propose it may derive from the name of ...
, both in the 19th and 20th centuries, and continued also to be used as a "special effect" in opera, for instance
Richard Strauss
Richard Georg Strauss (; 11 June 1864 – 8 September 1949) was a German composer, conductor, pianist, and violinist. Considered a leading composer of the late Romantic and early modern eras, he has been described as a successor of Richard Wag ...
's ''
Die Frau ohne Schatten
' (''The Woman without a Shadow''), Op. 65, is an opera in three acts by Richard Strauss with a libretto by his long-time collaborator, the poet Hugo von Hofmannsthal. It was written between 1911 and either 1915 or 1917. When it premiered at the ...
''.
In Paris, the 19th century saw a flourishing of melodrama in the many theatres that were located on the popular
Boulevard du Crime
The Boulevard du Crime was the nickname given in the 19th century to the Boulevard du Temple in Paris because of the many crime melodramas that were shown every night in its many theaters. It is notorious in French history for having lost so many ...
, especially in the
Gaîté. All this came to an end, however, when most of these theatres were demolished during the
rebuilding of Paris by Baron Haussmann in 1862.
By the end of the 19th century, the term melodrama had nearly exclusively narrowed down to a specific genre of salon entertainment: more or less rhythmically spoken words (often poetry) – not sung, sometimes more or less enacted, at least with some
dramatic structure
Dramatic structure (also known as dramaturgical structure) is the structure of a dramatic work such as a book, play, or film. There are different kinds of dramatic structures worldwide which have been hypothesized by critics, writers and scholar ...
or plot – synchronized to the accompaniment of music (usually piano). It was looked down on as a genre for authors and composers of lesser stature (probably also why virtually no realizations of the genre are still remembered). Probably also the time when the connotation of cheap overacting first became associated with the term. As a cross-over genre-mixing narration and chamber music, it was eclipsed nearly overnight by a single composition:
Schoenberg's ''
Pierrot Lunaire
''Dreimal sieben Gedichte aus Albert Girauds "Pierrot lunaire"'' ("Three times Seven Poems from Albert Giraud's 'Pierrot lunaire), commonly known simply as ''Pierrot lunaire'', Op. 21 ("Moonstruck Pierrot" or "Pierrot in the Moonlight"), is a me ...
'' (1912), where
Sprechgesang
(, "spoken singing") and (, "spoken voice") are expressionist vocal techniques between singing and speaking. Though sometimes used interchangeably, ''Sprechgesang'' is directly related to the operatic ''recitative'' manner of singing (in which p ...
was used instead of rhythmically spoken words, and which took a freer and more imaginative course regarding the
plot
Plot or Plotting may refer to:
Art, media and entertainment
* Plot (narrative), the story of a piece of fiction
Music
* ''The Plot'' (album), a 1976 album by jazz trumpeter Enrico Rava
* The Plot (band), a band formed in 2003
Other
* ''Plot' ...
prerogative.
Opera
The great majority of operas are melodramas. The emotional tensions are both communicated and amplified by the appropriate music. The majority of plots involve characters overcoming or succumbing to larger than life events of war, betrayal, monumental love, murder, revenge, filial discord, or similar grandiose occurrences. Most characters are simplistically drawn with clear distinctions between virtuous and evil ones, and character development and subtlety of situations is sacrificed. Events are arranged to fit the character's traits best to demonstrate their emotional effects on the character and others.
The predominance of melodrama in Donizetti's bel canto works, Bellini, and virtually all Verdi and Puccini is clear with examples too numerous to list. The great multitude of heroines needing to deal with and overcome situations of love impossible in the face of grandiose circumstances is amply exemplified by Lucia, Norma, Leonora, Tosca, Turandot, Mimi, Cio-Cio-San, Violetta, Gilda, and many others.
Czech
Within the context of the
Czech National Revival
The Czech National Revival was a cultural movement which took place in the Czech lands during the 18th and 19th centuries. The purpose of this movement was to revive the Czech language, culture and national identity. The most prominent figures o ...
, the melodrama took on a specifically nationalist meaning for Czech artists, beginning roughly in the 1870s and continuing through the
First Czechoslovak Republic
The First Czechoslovak Republic ( cs, První československá republika, sk, Prvá česko-slovenská republika), often colloquially referred to as the First Republic ( cs, První republika, Slovak: ''Prvá republika''), was the first Czechoslov ...
of the interwar period. This new understanding of the melodrama stemmed primarily from such nineteenth-century scholars and critics as
Otakar Hostinský
Otakar Hostinský (2 January 1847, Martiněves (near Litoměřice) – 19 January 1910, Prague) was a Czech historian, musicologist, and professor of musical aesthetics. He is known primarily for his support of composer Bedřich Smetana and ...
, who considered the genre to be a uniquely "Czech" contribution to music history (based on the national origins of
Georg Benda
Georg Anton Benda ( cz, Jiří Antonín Benda, italic=no, link=no; 30 June 17226 November 1795) was a composer, violinist and Kapellmeister of the classical period from the Kingdom of Bohemia.
Biography
Born into a family of notable musicians ...
, whose melodramas had nevertheless been in German). Such sentiments provoked a large number of Czech composers to produce melodramas based on Czech romantic poetry, such as the ''
Kytice
''Kytice z pověstí národních'' (''A Bouquet of Folk Legends''), also known by the short title ''Kytice'' (Czech for '' bouquet''), is a collection of ballads by the Czech author Karel Jaromír Erben. The collection was first published in 1853 ...
'' of
Karel Jaromír Erben
Karel Jaromír Erben (; 7 November 1811 – 21 November 1870) was a Czech folklorist
Folklore studies, less often known as folkloristics, and occasionally tradition studies or folk life studies in the United Kingdom, is the branch of anthropol ...
.
The romantic composer
Zdeněk Fibich
Zdeněk Fibich (, 21 December 1850 in Loket (Benešov District), Všebořice – 15 October 1900 in Prague) was a List of Czech composers, Czech composer of european classical music, classical music. Among his compositions are chamber works (incl ...
in particular championed the genre as a means of setting Czech declamation correctly: his melodramas ''Štědrý den'' (1874) and ''Vodník'' (1883) use rhythmic durations to specify the alignment of spoken word and accompaniment. Fibich's main achievement was ''Hippodamie'' (1888–1891), a trilogy of full-evening staged melodramas on the texts of
Jaroslav Vrchlický
Jaroslav Vrchlický (; 17 February 1853 – 9 September 1912) was a Czech lyrical poet. He was nominated for the Nobel prize in literature eight times.
Life
He was born Emilius Jakob Frida in Louny.
He lived ten years with his uncle, a p ...
with multiple actors and orchestra, composed in an advanced Wagnerian musical style.
Josef Suk's main contributions at the turn of the century include melodramas for two-stage plays by
Julius Zeyer
Julius Zeyer (26 April 1841 – 29 January 1901) was a Czech prose writer, poet, and playwright.
Personal life
Zeyer was born on 26 April 1841 in Prague. His mother, Elisabeth Eleonora (née Weisseles), came from a German Jewish-turned-Catholic ...
: ''Radúz a Mahulena'' (1898) and ''Pod Jabloní'' (1901), both of which had a long performance history.
Following the examples of Fibich and Suk, many other Czech composers set melodramas as stand-alone works based on the poetry of the National Revival, among them
Karel Kovařovic
Karel Kovařovic (Prague, 9 December 1862 Prague, 6 December 1920) was a Czech composer and conductor.
Life
From 1873 to 1879 he studied clarinet, harp and piano at the Prague Conservatory.''Dopisy o životě hudebním i lidském, p. 484'' He ...
,
Otakar Ostrčil
Otakar Ostrčil (25 February 1879 in Prague – 20 August 1935 in Prague) was a Czech composer and conductor. He is noted for symphonic works ''Impromptu'', ''Suite in C Minor'', and ''Symfonietta'', and in his opera compositions '' Poupě'' an ...
,
Ladislav Vycpálek
Ladislav Vycpálek (Vršovice, Prague, 23 February 1882 – Prague, 9 January 1969) was a Czech Republic, Czech composer and Viola, violist.
Vycpálek studied composition under Vítězslav Novák. However, he very soon found his own expressive st ...
,
Otakar Jeremiáš
Otakar Jeremiáš (17 October 1892 – 5 March 1962) was a Czech people, Czech composer, conductor and teacher. He was the son of composer Bohuslav Jeremiáš and the brother of composer Jaroslav Jeremiáš.
Life
Jeremiáš was born in Píse ...
, Emil Axman, and Jan Zelinka.
Vítězslav Novák
Vítězslav Augustín Rudolf Novák (5 December 1870 – 18 July 1949) was a Czech composer and academic teacher at the Prague Conservatory. Stylistically, he was part of the neo-romantic tradition, and his music is considered an important e ...
included portions of melodrama in his 1923 opera ''Lucerna'', and
Jaroslav Ježek composed key scenes for the stage plays of the
Osvobozené divadlo
Osvobozené divadlo (1926–1938) (''Liberated Theatre'' or ''Prague Free Theatre'') was a Prague avant-garde theatre scene founded as the theatre section of an association of Czech avant-garde artists Devětsil (''Butterbur'') in 1926. The theatr ...
as melodrama (most notably the opening prologue of the anti-Fascist farce ''Osel a stín'' (1933), delivered by the character of
Dionysus
In ancient Greek religion and myth, Dionysus (; grc, Διόνυσος ) is the god of the grape-harvest, winemaking, orchards and fruit, vegetation, fertility, insanity, ritual madness, religious ecstasy, festivity, and theatre. The Romans ...
in
bolero
Bolero is a genre of song which originated in eastern Cuba in the late 19th century as part of the trova tradition. Unrelated to the older Spanish dance of the same name, bolero is characterized by sophisticated lyrics dealing with love. It has ...
rhythm). Czech melodramas' practice tapered off after the
Nazi Protectorate.
Victorian
The
Victorian stage melodrama featured six
stock character
A stock character, also known as a character archetype, is a fictional character in a work of art such as a novel, play, or a film whom audiences recognize from frequent recurrences in a particular literary tradition. There is a wide range of st ...
s: the hero, the villain, the heroine, an aged parent, a sidekick, and a servant of the aged parent engaged in a sensational plot featuring themes of love and murder. Often the good but not very clever hero is duped by a scheming villain, who has eyes on the
damsel in distress
The damsel in distress is a recurring narrative device in which one or more men must rescue a woman who has either been kidnapped or placed in general peril. Kinship, love, or lust (or a combination of those) gives the male protagonist the motiv ...
until fate intervenes at the end to ensure the triumph of good over evil.
[Williams, Carolyn. "Melodrama", in ''The New Cambridge History of English Literature: The Victorian Period'', ed. Kate Flint, Cambridge University Press (2012), pp. 193–219 ] Two central features were the coup de théàtre, or reversal of fortune, and the claptrap: a back-to-the-wall oration by the hero which ''forces'' the audience to applaud.
English melodrama evolved from the tradition of populist drama established during the Middle Ages by
mystery
Mystery, The Mystery, Mysteries or The Mysteries may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media Fictional characters
*Mystery, a cat character in ''Emily the Strange''
Films
* ''Mystery'' (2012 film), a 2012 Chinese drama film
* ''Mystery'' ( ...
and
morality play
The morality play is a genre of medieval and early Tudor drama. The term is used by scholars of literary and dramatic history to refer to a genre of play texts from the fourteenth through sixteenth centuries that feature personified concepts ( ...
s, under influences from Italian
commedia dell'arte
(; ; ) was an early form of professional theatre, originating from Italian theatre, that was popular throughout Europe between the 16th and 18th centuries. It was formerly called Italian comedy in English and is also known as , , and . Charact ...
as well as German ''
Sturm und Drang
''Sturm und Drang'' (, ; usually translated as "storm and stress") was a proto- Romantic movement in German literature and music that occurred between the late 1760s and early 1780s. Within the movement, individual subjectivity and, in particul ...
'' drama and Parisian melodrama of the post-Revolutionary period. A notable French melodramatist was
Pixérécourt whose ''La Femme à deux maris'' was very popular.
The first English play to be called a melodrama or 'melodrame' was ''A Tale of Mystery'' (1802) by
Thomas Holcroft
Thomas Holcroft (10 December 174523 March 1809) was an English dramatist, miscellanist, poet and translator. He was sympathetic to the early ideas of the French Revolution and helped Thomas Paine to publish the first part of ''The Rights of Man ...
. This was an example of the
Gothic
Gothic or Gothics may refer to:
People and languages
*Goths or Gothic people, the ethnonym of a group of East Germanic tribes
**Gothic language, an extinct East Germanic language spoken by the Goths
**Crimean Gothic, the Gothic language spoken b ...
genre, a previous theatrical example of which was ''
The Castle Spectre
''The Castle Spectre'' is a 1797 dramatic romance in five acts by Matthew "Monk" Lewis. It is a Gothic drama set in medieval Conwy, Wales.
''The Castle Spectre'' was first performed at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, on 14 December 1797. The ori ...
'' (1797) by
Matthew Gregory Lewis
Matthew Gregory Lewis (9 July 1775 – 14 or 16 May 1818) was an English novelist and dramatist, whose writings are often classified as "Gothic horror". He was frequently referred to as "Monk" Lewis, because of the success of his 1796 Gothic no ...
. Other Gothic melodramas include ''The Miller and his Men'' (1813) by
Isaac Pocock
Isaac Pocock (2 March 1782 – 23 August 1835) was an English dramatist and painter of portraits and historical subjects. He wrote melodramas, farces and Light Opera, light operatic comedies, many being stage adaptations of existing novels. Of hi ...
, ''The Woodsman's Hut'' (1814) by
Samuel Arnold Samuel Arnold may refer to:
*Samuel Arnold (composer) (1740–1802), English composer and organist
* Samuel Arnold (Connecticut politician) (1806–1869), U.S. Representative from Connecticut
* Samuel Arnold (conspirator) (1834–1906), co-conspira ...
and ''The Broken Sword'' (1816) by
William Dimond
William Fisher Peach Dimond (11 December 1781 – c1837) was a playwright of the early 19th-century who wrote about thirty works for the theatre, including plays, operas, musical entertainments and melodramas.
Life
He was born in Bath in Som ...
.
Supplanting the Gothic, the next popular subgenre was the nautical melodrama, pioneered by
Douglas Jerrold
Douglas William Jerrold (London 3 January 18038 June 1857 London) was an English dramatist and writer.
Biography
Jerrold's father, Samuel Jerrold, was an actor and lessee of the little theatre of Wilsby near Cranbrook in Kent. In 1807 Dougla ...
in his ''
Black-Eyed Susan
''Black-Eyed Susan; or, All in the Downs'' is a comic play in three acts by Douglas Jerrold. The story concerns a heroic sailor, William, who has been away from England for three years fighting in the Napoleonic Wars. Meanwhile, his wife, Susa ...
'' (1829). Other nautical melodramas included Jerrold's ''The Mutiny at the Nore'' (1830) and ''
The Red Rover
''The Red Rover'' is a novel by American writer James Fenimore Cooper. It was originally published in Paris on November 27, 1827, before being published in London three days later on November 30. It was not published in the United States until Ja ...
'' (1829) by
Edward Fitzball
Edward Fitzball (20 March 179327 October 1873) was a popular English playwright, who specialised in melodrama. His real surname was Ball, and he was born at Burwell, Cambridgeshire.
Fitzball was educated in Newmarket, was apprenticed to a Nor ...
(Rowell 1953).
Melodramas based on urban situations became popular in the mid-nineteenth century, including ''The Streets of London'' (1864) by
Dion Boucicault
Dionysius Lardner "Dion" Boucicault (né Boursiquot; 26 December 1820 – 18 September 1890) was an Irish actor and playwright famed for his melodramas. By the later part of the 19th century, Boucicault had become known on both sides of the ...
; and ''Lost in London'' (1867) by Watts Phillips, while prison melodrama, temperance melodrama, and imperialist melodrama also appeared – the latter typically featuring the three categories of the 'good' native, the brave but wicked native, and the treacherous native.
The
sensation novel
The sensation novel, also sensation fiction, was a literary genre of fiction that achieved peak popularity in Great Britain in the 1860s and 1870s.I. Ousby ed., ''The Cambridge Guide to Literature in English'' (1995) p. 844 Its literary forebears i ...
s of the 1860s, and 1870s not only provided fertile material for melodramatic adaptations but are melodramatic in their own right. A notable example of this genre is ''
Lady Audley's Secret
''Lady Audley's Secret'' is a sensation novel by Mary Elizabeth Braddon published in 1862. John Sutherland. "Lady Audley's Secret" in ''The Stanford Companion to Victorian Fiction'', 1989. It was Braddon's most successful and well-known novel. C ...
'' by
Elizabeth Braddon
Mary Elizabeth Braddon (4 October 1835 – 4 February 1915) was an English popular novelist of the Victorian era. She is best known for her 1862 sensation novel ''Lady Audley's Secret'', which has also been dramatised and filmed several times.
...
adapted, in two different versions, by George Roberts and C.H. Hazlewood. The novels of Wilkie Collins have the characteristics of melodrama, his best-known work ''
The Woman in White'' being regarded by some modern critics as "the most brilliant melodrama of the period".
The villain is often the central character in melodrama, and crime was a favorite theme. This included dramatizations of the murderous careers of
Burke and Hare
The Burke and Hare murders were a series of sixteen killings committed over a period of about ten months in 1828 in Edinburgh, Scotland. They were undertaken by William Burke and William Hare, who sold the corpses to Robert Knox for dissection ...
,
Sweeney Todd
Sweeney Todd is a fictional character who first appeared as the villain of the penny dreadful serial ''The String of Pearls'' (1846–47). The original tale became a feature of 19th-century melodrama and London urban legend, legend. A barber fr ...
(first featured in ''The String of Pearls'' (1847) by
George Dibdin Pitt
George Dibdin Pitt (born George Pitt , 30 March 1795 – 16 February 1855) was an English actor, stage manager and prolific playwright, specializing in melodrama. He was the first playwright to dramatize the fictional character Sweeney Todd, in hi ...
), the murder of
Maria Marten in the Red Barn and the bizarre exploits of
Spring Heeled Jack
Spring-heeled Jack is an entity in English folklore of the Victorian era. The first claimed sighting of Spring-heeled Jack was in 1837. Later sightings were reported all over the United Kingdom and were especially prevalent in suburban Lo ...
. The misfortunes of a discharged prisoner are the theme of the sensational ''
The Ticket-of-Leave Man'' (1863) by
Tom Taylor
Tom Taylor (19 October 1817 – 12 July 1880) was an English dramatist, critic, biographer, public servant, and editor of ''Punch'' magazine. Taylor had a brief academic career, holding the professorship of English literature and language a ...
.
Early silent films, such as ''
The Perils of Pauline'' had similar themes. Later, after silent films were superseded by the 'talkies', stage actor
Tod Slaughter
Norman Carter Slaughter (19 March 1885 – 19 February 1956), also known as Tod Slaughter, was an English actor, best known for playing over-the-top maniacs in macabre film adaptations of Victorian melodramas.
Early life
Slaughter was born o ...
, at the age of 50, transferred to the screen the Victorian melodramas in which he had played a villain in his earlier theatrical career. These films, which include ''
Maria Marten or Murder in the Red Barn'' (1935), ''
Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street'' (1936) and ''
The Ticket of Leave Man'' (1937) are a unique record of a bygone art-form.
Generic offshoots
*
Northrop Frye
Herman Northrop Frye (July 14, 1912 – January 23, 1991) was a Canadian literary critic and literary theorist, considered one of the most influential of the 20th century.
Frye gained international fame with his first book, '' Fearful Symmet ...
saw both advertising and propaganda as melodramatic forms which the cultivated cannot take seriously.
* Politics at the time calls on melodrama to articulate a world-view. Thus
Richard Overy
Richard James Overy (born 23 December 1947) is a British historian who has published on the history of World War II and Nazi Germany. In 2007, as ''The Times'' editor of ''Complete History of the World'', he chose the 50 key dates of world his ...
argues that 1930s Britain saw civilization as melodramatically under threat - "In this great melodrama Hitler's Germany was the villain; democratic civilization the menaced heroine"; - while Winston Churchill provided the necessary larger-than-life melodramatic hero to articulate back-to-the-wall resistance during
The Blitz
The Blitz was a German bombing campaign against the United Kingdom in 1940 and 1941, during the Second World War. The term was first used by the British press and originated from the term , the German word meaning 'lightning war'.
The Germa ...
.
Modern
Classic melodrama is less common than it used to be on television and in movies in the Western world. However, it is still widely popular in other regions, particularly in Asia and in Hispanic countries. Melodrama is one of the main genres (along with romance, comedy and fantasy) used in Latin American television dramas (telenovelas), particularly in
Venezuela
Venezuela (; ), officially the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela ( es, link=no, República Bolivariana de Venezuela), is a country on the northern coast of South America, consisting of a continental landmass and many islands and islets in th ...
,
Mexico
Mexico (Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a country in the southern portion of North America. It is bordered to the north by the United States; to the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; to the southeast by Guatema ...
,
Colombia
Colombia (, ; ), officially the Republic of Colombia, is a country in South America with insular regions in North America—near Nicaragua's Caribbean coast—as well as in the Pacific Ocean. The Colombian mainland is bordered by the Car ...
,
Argentina
Argentina (), officially the Argentine Republic ( es, link=no, República Argentina), is a country in the southern half of South America. Argentina covers an area of , making it the second-largest country in South America after Brazil, th ...
and
Brazil
Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...
, and in Asian television dramas,
South Korea
South Korea, officially the Republic of Korea (ROK), is a country in East Asia, constituting the southern part of the Korea, Korean Peninsula and sharing a Korean Demilitarized Zone, land border with North Korea. Its western border is formed ...
,
Japan
Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...
,
Taiwan
Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the nort ...
,
China
China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...
,
Pakistan
Pakistan ( ur, ), officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan ( ur, , label=none), is a country in South Asia. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by population, fifth-most populous country, with a population of almost 24 ...
,
Thailand
Thailand ( ), historically known as Siam () and officially the Kingdom of Thailand, is a country in Southeast Asia, located at the centre of the Indochinese Peninsula, spanning , with a population of almost 70 million. The country is bo ...
,
India
India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...
,
Turkey
Turkey ( tr, Türkiye ), officially the Republic of Türkiye ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, links=no ), is a list of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country located mainly on the Anatolia, Anatolian Peninsula in Western Asia, with ...
and (in a fusion of the Hispanic and Asian cultures) the
Philippines
The Philippines (; fil, Pilipinas, links=no), officially the Republic of the Philippines ( fil, Republika ng Pilipinas, links=no),
* bik, Republika kan Filipinas
* ceb, Republika sa Pilipinas
* cbk, República de Filipinas
* hil, Republ ...
. Expatriate communities in the diaspora of these countries give viewership a global market.
Film
Melodrama films are a
subgenre
Genre () is any form or type of communication in any mode (written, spoken, digital, artistic, etc.) with socially-agreed-upon conventions developed over time. In popular usage, it normally describes a Category of being, category of literature, ...
of
drama film
In film and television, drama is a category or genre of narrative fiction (or semi-fiction) intended to be more serious than humorous in tone. Drama of this kind is usually qualified with additional terms that specify its particular super-g ...
s characterised by a plot that appeals to the heightened emotions of the
audience
An audience is a group of people who participate in a show or encounter a work of art, literature (in which they are called "readers"), theatre, music (in which they are called "listeners"), video games (in which they are called "players"), or ...
. They generally depend on
stereotyped character development,
interaction
Interaction is action that occurs between two or more objects, with broad use in philosophy and the sciences. It may refer to:
Science
* Interaction hypothesis, a theory of second language acquisition
* Interaction (statistics)
* Interactions o ...
, and highly emotional themes. Melodramatic films tend to use plots that often deal with crises of human emotion, failed
romance
Romance (from Vulgar Latin , "in the Roman language", i.e., "Latin") may refer to:
Common meanings
* Romance (love), emotional attraction towards another person and the courtship behaviors undertaken to express the feelings
* Romance languages, ...
or
friendship
Friendship is a relationship of mutual affection between people. It is a stronger form of interpersonal bond than an "acquaintance" or an "association", such as a classmate, neighbor, coworker, or colleague.
In some cultures, the concept o ...
, strained familial situations,
tragedy
Tragedy (from the grc-gre, τραγῳδία, ''tragōidia'', ''tragōidia'') is a genre of drama based on human suffering and, mainly, the terrible or sorrowful events that befall a main character. Traditionally, the intention of tragedy ...
,
illness
A disease is a particular abnormal condition that negatively affects the structure or function of all or part of an organism, and that is not immediately due to any external injury. Diseases are often known to be medical conditions that ar ...
,
neuroses
Neurosis is a class of functional mental disorders involving chronic distress, but neither delusions nor hallucinations. The term is no longer used by the professional psychiatric community in the United States, having been eliminated from th ...
, or emotional and physical
hardship , meaning difficulty or trouble, may refer to the following:
*hardship clause in contract law
*undue hardship in employment law and other areas
*extreme hardship
Extreme Hardship is a legal term in the United States of America's Immigration Law. ...
. Victims, couples, virtuous and heroic characters or suffering
protagonists
A protagonist () is the main character of a story. The protagonist makes key decisions that affect the plot, primarily influencing the story and propelling it forward, and is often the character who faces the most significant obstacles. If a st ...
(usually
heroines
A hero (feminine: heroine) is a real person or a main fictional character who, in the face of danger, combats adversity through feats of ingenuity, courage, or Physical strength, strength. Like other formerly gender-specific terms (like ...
) in melodramas are presented with tremendous social pressures, threats, repression, fears, improbable events or difficulties with friends,
community
A community is a social unit (a group of living things) with commonality such as place, norms, religion, values, customs, or identity. Communities may share a sense of place situated in a given geographical area (e.g. a country, village, tow ...
,
work
Work may refer to:
* Work (human activity), intentional activity people perform to support themselves, others, or the community
** Manual labour, physical work done by humans
** House work, housework, or homemaking
** Working animal, an animal tr ...
, lovers, or family. The melodramatic format allows the character to work through their difficulties or surmount the problems with resolute
endurance
Endurance (also related to sufferance, resilience, constitution, fortitude, and hardiness) is the ability of an organism to exert itself and remain active for a long period of time, as well as its ability to resist, withstand, recover from a ...
,
sacrificial
Sacrifice is the offering of material possessions or the lives of animals or humans to a deity as an act of propitiation or worship. Evidence of ritual animal sacrifice has been seen at least since ancient Hebrews and Greeks, and possibly exis ...
acts, and steadfast
bravery
Courage (also called bravery or valor) is the choice and willingness to confront agony, pain, danger, uncertainty, or intimidation. Valor is courage or bravery, especially in battle.
Physical courage is bravery in the face of physical pain, h ...
.
Film critics sometimes use the term pejoratively to connote an unrealistic, pathos-filled,
campy
Camp is an aesthetic style and sensibility that regards something as appealing because of its bad taste and ironic value. Camp aesthetics disrupt many of modernism's notions of what art is and what can be classified as high art by inverting aes ...
tale of romance or domestic situations with stereotypical characters (often including a central female character) that would directly appeal to feminine audiences."
[Dirks T ]
Melodrama Films
' filmsite.org website opinion Melodramas focus on family issues and the themes of duty and love.
As melodramas emphasize the family unit, women are typically depicted in a subordinate, traditional role. The woman is shown as facing self-sacrifice and repression.
In melodramas, men are shown in the domestic, stereotypically female home environment; as such, to resolve the challenges presented by the story, the male must learn to negotiate this "female" space.
Since men who are learning to operate in the domestic sphere appear "less male...and more feminized", this makes melodramas appealing to female viewers.
Melodramas place their attention on a victim character.
Since melodramas are set in the home and a small town, it can be challenging for the filmmaker to create a sense of action given that it all takes place in one claustrophobic sphere; one way to add in more locations is through
flashbacks to the past.
The sense of being trapped often causes challenges for children, teens, and female characters.
The sense of being trapped leads to obsessions with unobtainable objects or other people, and inner aggressiveness or "aggressiveness by proxy".
Feminists have noted four categories of themes: those with a female patient, a maternal figure, an "impossible love", and the paranoid melodrama.
Most film melodramas from the 1930s and 1940s, known as "weepies" or "tearjerkers", were adaptations of women's fiction, such as romance novels and historical romances.
Melodramas focus on women's subjectivity and perspective and female desire; however, due to the
Hays Code
The Motion Picture Production Code was a set of industry guidelines for the self-censorship of content that was applied to most motion pictures released by major studios in the United States from 1934 to 1968. It is also popularly known as the ...
, this desire could not be explicitly shown on screen from the 1930s to the late 1960s, so female desire is de-eroticized.
During the 1940s, the British
Gainsborough melodramas
The Gainsborough melodramas were a sequence of films produced by the British film studio Gainsborough Pictures between 1943 and 1947 which conformed to a melodramatic style.Brooke, Michael. (2014)Gainsborough Melodrama Screenonline British Film Ins ...
were successful with audiences. A director of 1950s melodrama films was
Douglas Sirk
Douglas Sirk (born Hans Detlef Sierck; 26 April 1897 – 14 January 1987) was a German film director best known for his work in Hollywood melodramas of the 1950s. Sirk started his career in Germany as a stage and screen director, but he left fo ...
who worked with Rock Hudson on ''
Written on the Wind
''Written on the Wind'' is a 1956 American Southern Gothic melodrama film directed by Douglas Sirk and starring Rock Hudson, Lauren Bacall, Robert Stack, and Dorothy Malone. It follows the dysfunctional family members of a Texas oil dynasty, ...
'' and ''
All That Heaven Allows
''All That Heaven Allows'' is a 1955 American drama romance film directed by Douglas Sirk, produced by Ross Hunter, and adapted by Peg Fenwick from a story by Edna L. Lee and Harry Lee. It stars Jane Wyman and Rock Hudson in a tale about the soci ...
'', both staples of the genre. Melodramas like the 1990s TV
''Moment of Truth'' movies targeted audiences of American women by portraying the effects of
alcoholism
Alcoholism is, broadly, any drinking of alcohol (drug), alcohol that results in significant Mental health, mental or physical health problems. Because there is disagreement on the definition of the word ''alcoholism'', it is not a recognize ...
,
domestic violence
Domestic violence (also known as domestic abuse or family violence) is violence or other abuse that occurs in a domestic setting, such as in a marriage or cohabitation. ''Domestic violence'' is often used as a synonym for ''intimate partner ...
,
rape
Rape is a type of sexual assault usually involving sexual intercourse or other forms of sexual penetration carried out against a person without their consent. The act may be carried out by physical force, coercion, abuse of authority, or ag ...
and the like. Typical of the genre is
Anjelica Huston
Anjelica Huston ( ; born July 8, 1951) is an American actress and director. Known for often portraying eccentric and distinctive characters, she has received multiple accolades, including an Academy Award and a Golden Globe Award, as well as no ...
's 1999 film ''
Agnes Browne
''Agnes Browne'' is a 1999 Irish romantic comedy-drama film directed, produced by, and starring Anjelica Huston, based on the book ''The Mammy'' by Brendan O'Carroll.
Plot
In 1967 in Dublin, the unexpected death of Agnes Browne's husband sends ...
''.
[Levy, Emanuel (31 May 1999]
"Agnes Browne (period drama)"
''Variety'' In the 1970s,
Rainer Werner Fassbinder
Rainer Werner Fassbinder (; 31 May 1945 – 10 June 1982), sometimes credited as R. W. Fassbinder, was a German filmmaker. He is widely regarded as one of the major figures and catalysts of the New German Cinema movement.
Fassbinder's main ...
, who was very much influenced by Sirk, contributed to the genre by engaging with class in ''
The Merchant of Four Seasons
''The Merchant of Four Seasons'' (german: Händler der vier Jahreszeiten) is a 1971 West German film written and directed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder, starring and Irm Hermann. The plot follows the life of a fruit-peddler, living in 1950s Munich, ...
'' (1971) and ''
Mother Küsters Goes to Heaven
]
A mother is the female parent of a child. A woman may be considered a mother by virtue of having given birth, by raising a child who may or may not be her biological offspring, or by supplying her ovum for fertilisation in the case of gestati ...
'' (1975), with sexual orientation and
codependency
In sociology, codependency is a theory that attempts to explain imbalanced relationships where one person enables another person's self-destructive behavior such as addiction, poor mental health, immaturity, irresponsibility, or under-achiev ...
in ''
The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant
''The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant'' (german: Die bitteren Tränen der Petra von Kant) is a 1972 West German romantic drama film written and directed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder, based on his own play. Featuring an all-female cast, the plot tak ...
'' (1972) and with racism, xenophobia and
ageism
Ageism, also spelled agism, is discrimination against individuals or groups on the basis of their age. The term was coined in 1969 by Robert Neil Butler to describe discrimination against seniors, and patterned on sexism and racism. Butler defi ...
in ''
Fear Eats the Soul
''Ali: Fear Eats the Soul'' (german: Angst essen Seele auf) is a 1974 West German drama film written and directed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder, starring Brigitte Mira and El Hedi ben Salem. The film won the International Federation of Film Critic ...
'' (1974). More recently,
Todd Haynes
Todd Haynes (; born January 2, 1961) is an American film director, screenwriter, and producer. His films span four decades with themes examining the personalities of well-known musicians, dysfunctional and dystopian societies, and blurred gender ...
has renewed the genre with his 2002 film ''
Far from Heaven''.. Contemporary director
Pedro Almodovar
Pedro is a masculine given name. Pedro is the Spanish, Portuguese
Portuguese may refer to:
* anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Portugal
** Portuguese cuisine, traditional foods
** Portuguese language, a Romance langua ...
has also taken many inspirations from Melodrama, notably the work of Douglas Sirk which is reflected into his films.
See also
References
External links
{{Authority control
19th-century theatre
Drama genres
Film genres
Opera terminology
Theatrical genres
Tragedies (dramas)