Melodrama Unbound

Melodrama Unbound
Author: Christine Gledhill
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Total Pages: 761
Release: 2018-05-08
Genre: Performing Arts
ISBN: 0231543190

For too long melodrama has been associated with outdated and morally simplistic stereotypes of the Victorian stage; for too long film studies has construed it as a singular domestic genre of familial and emotional crises, either subversively excessive or narrowly focused on the dilemmas of women. Drawing on new scholarship in transnational theatrical, film, and cultural histories, this collection demonstrates that melodrama is a transgeneric mode that has long spoken to fundamental aspects of modern life and feeling. Pointing to melodrama’s roots in the ancient Greek combination of melos and drama, and to medieval Christian iconography focused on the pathos of Christ as suffering human body, the volume highlights the importance to modernity of melodrama as a mode of emotional dramaturgy, the social and aesthetic conditions for which emerged long before the French Revolution. Contributors articulate new ways of thinking about melodrama that underscore its pervasiveness across national cultures and in a variety of genres. They examine how melodrama has traveled to and been transformed in India, China, Japan, and South America, whether through colonial circuits or later, globalization; how melodrama mixes with other modes such as romance, comedy, and realism; and finally how melodrama has modernized the dramatic functions of gender, class, and race by orchestrating vital aesthetic and emotional experiences for diverse audiences.

Lexicon of Global Melodrama

Lexicon of Global Melodrama
Author: Heike Paul
Publisher: transcript Verlag
Total Pages: 401
Release: 2022-05-31
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 3839459737

This new go-to reference book for global melodrama assembles contributions by experts from a wide range of disciplines, including cultural studies, film and media studies, gender and queer studies, political science, and postcolonial studies. The melodramas covered in this volume range from early 20th century silent movies to contemporary films, from independent ›arthouse‹ productions to Hollywood blockbusters. The comprehensive overview of global melodramatic film in the Lexicon constitutes a valuable resource for scholars and practitioners of film, teachers, film critics, and anyone who is interested in the past and present of melodramatic film on a global scale. The Lexicon of Global Melodrama includes essays on All That Heaven Allows, Bombay, Casablanca, Die Büchse der Pandora, In the Mood for Love, Nosotros los Pobres, Terra Sonâmbula, and Tokyo Story.

Time, Tide and History

Time, Tide and History
Author: Brigid Rooney
Publisher: Sydney University Press
Total Pages: 288
Release: 2024-06-01
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1743329679

Time, Tide and History: Eleanor Dark’s Fiction is the first book-length edited collection of scholarly essays to treat the full span of Eleanor Dark’s fiction, advancing a recent revival of critical and scholarly interest in Dark’s writing. This volume not only establishes a new view of Dark’s fiction as a whole, but also reflects on the ways in which her fiction speaks to our present moment, in the context of a globally fraught, post-pandemic, Anthropocene era. Above all, the revisiting of Dark’s fiction is mandated by a desire to recognise the ways in which it anticipates vital debates in Australian literary and national culture today, about settler colonialism and its legacies, and with regard to the histories, condition and status of Australia’s First Nations people. This volume interweaves varied topical themes, from formal debates about modernism, historical realism and melodrama, to questions about modernity’s time and space, about gender and cultural difference, and about the specifics of built and natural environments. Time, Tide and History intentionally loosens the conventions of literary scholarship by including other kinds of work alongside critical and scholarly readings: a written dialogue between two contemporary historians about Dark’s legacy, and a biographical piece on the life and role of Eleanor Dark’s husband, Eric Payten Dark. Bringing together the interwar fiction’s feminist and modernist dimensions with the historical turn of The Timeless Land trilogy, the essays in Time, Tide and History collectively pursue ethical and political questions while teasing out the distinctive thematic, formal and aesthetic features of Dark’s fiction.

Hollywood's Melodramatic Imagination

Hollywood's Melodramatic Imagination
Author: Geoff Mayer
Publisher: McFarland
Total Pages: 350
Release: 2021-12-09
Genre: Performing Arts
ISBN: 1476674779

Melodrama is the foundation of American cinema. It is, however, a poorly understood term. While it is a pervasive and persuasive dramatic mode, it is not tied to any specific moral or ideological system. It is not a singular genre; rather, it operates as a "genre generating machine" capable of determining the aesthetics and structure of the drama within many genres. Melodrama centers the conflict around the clash between good and evil and provides a sense of poetic justice--but the specific values embedded in notions of good and evil are determined by the culture, and they shift from nation to nation, region to region, and period to period. This book explores the "populist" westerns of the 1930s, the propaganda films that followed the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, and the popularity of Sax Rohmer's master villain Fu Manchu. "Melodramas of passion" and film noir also offer a challenge to melodrama with its seemingly alienated protagonists and downbeat endings. Yet, with few exceptions, Hollywood was able to assimilate these genres within its melodramatic imagination.

Trial Stories in Jewish Antiquity

Trial Stories in Jewish Antiquity
Author: Chaya T Halberstam
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 266
Release: 2024-08-02
Genre: Law
ISBN: 0198865147

Trial Stories in Jewish Antiquity is the first book to examine what early Jewish courtroom narratives can tell us about the capacity and limits of human justice. Drawing from affect theory and feminist legal thought, Chaya T. Halberstam offers original readings of some of the most famous trials in the ancient Jewish tradition.

A Companion to the Biopic

A Companion to the Biopic
Author: Deborah Cartmell
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Total Pages: 466
Release: 2020-01-15
Genre: Performing Arts
ISBN: 1119554810

The most comprehensive reference text of theoretical and historical discourse on the biopic film The biopic, often viewed as the most reviled of all film genres, traces its origins to the early silent era over a century ago. Receiving little critical attention, biopics are regularly dismissed as superficial, formulaic, and disrespectful of history. Film critics, literary scholars and historians tend to believe that biopics should be artistic, yet accurate, true-to-life representations of their subjects. Moviegoing audiences, however, do not seem to hold similar views; biopics continue to be popular, commercially viable films. Even the genre’s most ardent detractors will admit that these films are often very watchable, particularly due to the performance of the lead actor. It is increasingly common for stars of biographical films to garner critical praise and awards, driving a growing interest in scholarship in the genre. A Companion to the Biopic is the first global and authoritative reference on the subject. Offering theoretical, historical, thematic, and performance-based approaches, this unique volume brings together the work of top scholars to discuss the coverage of the lives of authors, politicians, royalty, criminals, and pop stars through the biopic film. Chapters explore evolving attitudes and divergent perspectives on the genre with topics such as the connections between biopics and literary melodramas, the influence financial concerns have on aesthetic, social, or moral principles, the merger of historical narratives with Hollywood biographies, stereotypes and criticisms of the biopic genre, and more. This volume: Provides a systematic, in-depth analysis of the biopic and considers how the choice of historical subject reflects contemporary issues Places emphasis on films that portray race and gender issues Explores the uneven boundaries of the genre by addressing what is and is not a biopic as well as the ways in which films simultaneously embrace and defy historical authenticity Examines the distinction between reality and ‘the real’ in biographical films Offers a chronological survey of biopics from the beginning of the 20th century A Companion to the Biopic is a valuable resource for researchers, scholars, and students of history, film studies, and English literature, as well as those in disciplines that examine interpretations of historical figures

Combat Death in Contemporary American Culture

Combat Death in Contemporary American Culture
Author: Agnieszka Soltysik Monnet
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Total Pages: 307
Release: 2020-12-16
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1793634963

Combat Death in Contemporary American Culture: Popular Cultural Conceptions of War since World War II explores how war has been portrayed in the United States since World War II, with a particular focus on an emotionally charged but rarely scrutinized topic: combat death. Agnieszka Soltysik Monnet argues that most stories about war use three main building blocks: melodrama, adventure, and horror. Monnet examines how melodrama and adventure have helped make war seem acceptable to the American public by portraying combat death as a meaningful sacrifice and by making military killing look necessary and often even pleasurable. Horror no longer serves its traditional purpose of making the bloody realities of war repulsive, but has instead been repurposed in recent years to intensify the positivity of melodrama and adventure. Thus this book offers a fascinating diagnosis of how war stories perform ideological and emotional work and why they have such a powerful grip on the American imagination.

Theorizing Colonial Cinema

Theorizing Colonial Cinema
Author: Nadine Chan
Publisher: Indiana University Press
Total Pages: 304
Release: 2022-02
Genre: History
ISBN: 0253059763

Theorizing Colonial Cinema is a millennial retrospective on the entangled intimacy between film and colonialism from film's global inception to contemporary legacies in and of Asia. The volume engages new perspectives by asking how prior discussions on film form, theory, history, and ideology may be challenged by centering the colonial question rather than relegating it to the periphery. To that end, contributors begin by excavating little-known archives and perspectives from the colonies as a departure from a prevailing focus on Europe's imperial histories and archives about the colonies. The collection pinpoints various forms of devaluation and misrecognition both in and beyond the region that continue to relegate local voices to the margins. This pathbreaking study on global film history advances prior scholarship by bringing together an array of established and new interdisciplinary voices from film studies, Asian studies, and postcolonial studies to consider how the present is continually haunted by the colonial past.

The Cambridge Companion to English Melodrama

The Cambridge Companion to English Melodrama
Author: Carolyn Williams
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 353
Release: 2018-10-04
Genre: Drama
ISBN: 110709593X

A lively and accessible account of the most popular form of nineteenth-century English theatre, and its continuing influence today.

Chinese Film

Chinese Film
Author: Jason McGrath
Publisher: U of Minnesota Press
Total Pages: 398
Release: 2023-01-31
Genre: Performing Arts
ISBN: 1452968586

A tour de force chronicling the development of realism in Chinese cinema The history of Chinese cinema is as long and complicated as the tumultuous history of China itself. Be it the silent, the Communist, or the contemporary, each Chinese cinematic era has necessitated its own form in conversation with broader trends in politics and culture. In Chinese Film, Jason McGrath tells this fascinating story by tracing the varied claims to cinematic realism made by Chinese filmmakers, officials, critics, and scholars. Understanding realism as a historical dynamic that is both enabled and mitigated by aesthetic conventions of the day, he analyzes it across six different types of claims: ontological, perceptual, fictional, social, prescriptive, and apophatic. Through this method, McGrath makes major claims not just about Chinese cinema but also about realism as an aesthetic form that negotiates between cultural conventions and the ever-evolving real. He comes to envision it as more than just a cinematic question, showing how the struggle for realism is central to the Chinese struggle for modernity itself.