Following yesterday's rewatch, I'd like to expand on this melodrama categorisation.
Whether it is "a mode, a genre or sub-genre" of #AlitaBattleAngel, what makes up melodrama gathers a broad spectrum of definitions.
Scratching the surface with...
filmsite.org/melodramafilms…
Whether it is "a mode, a genre or sub-genre" of #AlitaBattleAngel, what makes up melodrama gathers a broad spectrum of definitions.
Scratching the surface with...
filmsite.org/melodramafilms…
Pointing out those elements that apply, now let's consider the setting.
Per Hayward in Cinema Studies: The Key Concepts (p 242), A:BA takes place in "claustrophobic" Iron City, with very little left to visit except through travelling back in time.
The heroine is stranded...
Per Hayward in Cinema Studies: The Key Concepts (p 242), A:BA takes place in "claustrophobic" Iron City, with very little left to visit except through travelling back in time.
The heroine is stranded...
...longing for the one who is longing for the unobtainable Zalem while parading as a foster daughter to a broken father & raising envy in a broken mother. All, to a degree, estranged. Interwoven in these substitute-acts are other minor characters that propel their inner turmoil.
What's more, the film doesn't waste time on portraying who exactly these characters are. No inner monologues or contemplative dialogues. They are thrust into conflicts where their psyche bares itself to a viewer & these conflicts sell the spectacle.
screencraft.org/2020/03/10/the…
screencraft.org/2020/03/10/the…
Other important features problematised are pathos, action, moral legibility & victimhood.
Melodramatic narrative doesn't follow classical structure, thus often considered realistically inferior rather than 1st of its kind.
»Stewart's Melodrama in Contemporary Film & Television
Melodramatic narrative doesn't follow classical structure, thus often considered realistically inferior rather than 1st of its kind.
»Stewart's Melodrama in Contemporary Film & Television
Characters' moral value emerges through suffering. Pathos & action are means of achieving moral legibility for your film's heroes.
Strained between guilt & innocence, characters are abiding victims to something unobtainable.
"The hope rises only to be dashed."
Strained between guilt & innocence, characters are abiding victims to something unobtainable.
"The hope rises only to be dashed."
"Forbidden longings, symptomatic illness and renunciation... Melodrama is ultimately masochistic."
"The melodramatic format allows the character(s) to work through their difficulties or surmount the problems with resolute endurance, sacrificial acts and steadfast bravery."
"The melodramatic format allows the character(s) to work through their difficulties or surmount the problems with resolute endurance, sacrificial acts and steadfast bravery."
"If a film manifests two or more of these features – pathos, overwrought emotion, moral polarization, non-classical narrative structure & sensationalism, it may legitimately be considered melodrama." - Singer (2001), Melodrama & Modernity
Five out of five for A:BA.
Five out of five for A:BA.
Back to Hayward & feminist take on melodrama (this is relevant, for melodrama came to be lumped with woman's film & as such, misconcieved), one of the four thematic types in melodrama - by M.A. Doane (1987) - covers 'the female patient'.
Largely, this is our amnesiac heroine.
Largely, this is our amnesiac heroine.
Ultimately, as seen below, these came to be the most modern definitions of melodrama. In pop culture, one could claim it is an umbrella term for commonly perceived sappy, exaggerated 'women' films "typically looked down upon by critics & elitists".
But don't be discouraged, seems Interstellar makes for one too. 👀😆 And it isn't even majestically paying homage to everything from before in the existing Gunnmverse.
[heads up: it's my last grain of salt]
[heads up: it's my last grain of salt]
