Difference between revisions of "Domestic Melodrama Since World War II (Discussion)"

From Screenpedia
Jump to navigationJump to search
(updated groups)
 
(One intermediate revision by one other user not shown)
Line 9: Line 9:
 
#**Does John Steinbeck's ''The Grapes of Wrath'' somehow connect to the film's narrative/themes?
 
#**Does John Steinbeck's ''The Grapes of Wrath'' somehow connect to the film's narrative/themes?
  
{{Gallery
+
<gallery mode="packed" heights=200px>
|title=''Lady Bird''
+
File:LadyBirdqq00 00 27qq00001.jpg|alt=Opening shot.|Opening shot.
|width=356
+
File:LadyBirdqq00 01 20qq00004.jpg|alt=Grapes of Wrath.|Audio book: ''The Grapes of Wrath''.
|height=200
+
File:LadyBirdqq00 06 18qq00005.jpg|alt=Lady Bird and Julie walk through an affluent neighborhood.|Lady Bird and Julie walk through an affluent neighborhood.
|lines=1
+
File:LadyBirdqq00 06 29qq00009.jpg|alt=Their favorite house.|Their favorite house (Danny's grandmother's).
|align=center
+
File:LadyBirdqq00 08 17qq00018.jpg|alt=Marion crosses the tracks.|Marion crosses the tracks while driving home.
|File:LadyBirdqq00 00 27qq00001.jpg|alt1=Opening shot.|Opening shot.
+
File:LadyBirdqq00 08 19qq00019.jpg|alt=The McPherson's neighborhood.|The McPherson's neighborhood.
|File:LadyBirdqq00 01 20qq00004.jpg|alt2=Grapes of Wrath.|Audio book: ''The Grapes of Wrath''.
+
File:LadyBirdqq00 08 24qq00020.jpg|alt=The McPherson's home.|The McPherson's home.
|File:LadyBirdqq00 06 18qq00005.jpg|alt3=Lady Bird and Julie walk through an affluent neighborhood.|Lady Bird and Julie walk through an affluent neighborhood.
+
File:LadyBirdqq01 02 43qq00049.jpg|alt=Lady Bird and Marion visit an open house.|Lady Bird and Marion visit an open house.
|File:LadyBirdqq00 06 29qq00009.jpg|alt4=Their favorite house.|Their favorite house (Danny's grandmother's).
+
File:LadyBirdqq01 27 59qq00040.jpg|alt=Montage: Lady Bird drives through Sacramento.|Montage: Lady Bird drives through Sacramento.
|File:LadyBirdqq00 08 17qq00018.jpg|alt5=Marion crosses the tracks.|Marion crosses the tracks while driving home.
+
File:LadyBirdqq01 27 59qq00041.jpg|alt=Montage: Marion drives through Sacramento.|Montage: Marion drives through Sacramento.
|File:LadyBirdqq00 08 19qq00019.jpg|alt6=The McPherson's neighborhood.|The McPherson's neighborhood.
+
File:LadyBirdqq01 28 10qq00045.jpg|alt=Final shot.|Final shot.
|File:LadyBirdqq00 08 24qq00020.jpg|alt7=The McPherson's home.|The McPherson's home.
+
</gallery>
|File:LadyBirdqq01 02 43qq00049.jpg|alt8=Lady Bird and Marion visit an open house.|Lady Bird and Marion visit an open house.
 
|File:LadyBirdqq01 27 59qq00040.jpg|alt9=Montage: Lady Bird drives through Sacramento.|Montage: Lady Bird drives through Sacramento.
 
|File:LadyBirdqq01 27 59qq00041.jpg|alt10=Montage: Marion drives through Sacramento.|Montage: Marion drives through Sacramento.
 
|File:LadyBirdqq01 28 10qq00045.jpg|alt11=Final shot.|Final shot.
 
}}
 
 
 
  
 
'''Christine Gledhill'''
 
'''Christine Gledhill'''
Line 52: Line 46:
  
 
==External links==
 
==External links==
#[https://tcf.ua.edu/Classes/Jbutler/JCM412/Lady%20Bird/index.html ''Lady Bird'' illustrations.]
+
#[https://tvcrit.org/Classes/Jbutler/JCM412/Lady%20Bird/index.html ''Lady Bird'' illustrations.]
#[http://www.tcf.ua.edu/Classes/Jbutler/T440/JunoPix/index.htm ''Juno'' illustrations.]
+
#[https://tvcrit.org/Classes/Jbutler/T440/JunoPix/index.htm ''Juno'' illustrations.]
  
 
== Bibliography ==
 
== Bibliography ==

Latest revision as of 01:16, 8 September 2019

Pre-War vs. Post-War Melodrama

Lady Bird (written and directed by Greta Gerwig, 2017)

  1. Compare/contrast Lady Bird with Imitation of Life. How does Lady Bird use (or not) themes from 1930s melodrama? How does it compare/contrast with Ordinary People?
    • Groups 3 and 4: How is the relationship between parents (especially mothers) and children represented? Since Lady Bird is told from the perspective of a child, compare and contrast its protagonist with the three other teenagers we've seen: Conrad (Ordinary People), Peola (Imitation of Life), and Jesse (Imitation of Life). How do you interpret the film's final montage?
      • How is the theme of maternal sacrifice represented?
    • Groups 5 and 1: There isn't really a conflict between domestic love and romantic love in Lady Bird, but how would you say it represents romantic, adolescent love? Is it contrasted with mature, adult love? Compare/contrast Lady Bird's romances with Conrad's and Jessie's (we don't see Peola in romantic situations; but the 1959 version highlights her counterpart's boyfriend).
    • Groups 6 and 2: Lady Bird is largely a film about social and economic classes. How is the iconography of the upper middle class home represented? What does this iconography mean? Does it illustrate Elsaesser's comment: "Melodrama is iconographically fixed by the claustrophobic atmosphere of the bourgeois [i.e., middle-class] home and/or the smalltown setting..." (p. 62)? Is Sacramento a "small town," do you think, in this regard? And how is New York City represented?
      • Does John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath somehow connect to the film's narrative/themes?

Christine Gledhill

  1. Groups 3 and 4: How did melodrama become "respectable" in academic circles? In particular, what does it mean to "read" a film "against the grain" (p. 6)? What do you think the "grain" of Imitation of Life is? How might one read against that grain?
  2. Groups 5 and 1: What four "points of tension" does Gledhill see in 1970s film criticism about melodrama?
  3. Groups 6 and 2: Gledhill discusses Coma, Witness, and The Color Purple as melodramas descended from silent melodrama such as Way Down East (1920). What key aspects of melodrama (e.g., "scenarios of persecuted innocence") does she see in these newer films? Can you think of recent films or TV programs that also contain these aspects?
  4. All groups: What were "patent theaters"? How did "illegitimate" theaters get around the restrictions of the patent system? When were restrictions lifted in England and France?

Thomas Elsaesser

Pronounced "ell-SASS-sir".

  1. Elsaesser's article has two goals:
    1. Tracing the "melodramatic imagination".
    2. Searching for "some structural and stylistic constants" in the melodrama, 1940-1963.
  2. Considering #2 above: What does Elsaesser mean by melodrama's "expressive code" (p. 51)? In particular, what does he mean when he says that melodrama contains "a sublimation of dramatic conflict into decor, colour, gesture and composition of frame" (p. 52)?
    • The melodramas we've seen so far (Ordinary People, Imitation of Life, and Lady Bird) mostly do not illustrate his point. Can you explain why they do not? We will have to wait until the Sirk version of Imitation of Life to see this sublimation in action in the melodrama, but how might this same point be made about film noir?
  3. Elsaesser uses numerous Freudian concepts in this article, especially in the section titled, "Where Freud left his Marx in the American home" (p. 58-). Can you define any of these and can you explain how Elsasser is applying these concepts to melodrama?
    • Fehlhandlungen, or Freudian slips (from Psychopathology of Everyday Life)
    • Displacement
    • Condensation
    • Manifest dream content
    • Latent dream content

External links

  1. Lady Bird illustrations.
  2. Juno illustrations.

Bibliography

  1. Molly Haskell, "The Woman's Film," in From Reverence to Rape: The Treatment of Women in the Movies (New York: Penguin, 1974; revised edition 1987) 153-188.
  2. Christine Gledhill, "The Melodrama Field: An Investigation," Home is Where the Heart Is: Studies in Melodrama and Woman's Film, ed. Christine Gledhill (London: British Film Institute, 1987) 5-39.
  3. Thomas Elsaesser, "Tales of Sound and Fury: Observations on the Family Melodrama," Home is Where the Heart Is: Studies in Melodrama and Woman's Film, ed. Christine Gledhill (London: British Film Institute, 1987) 43-69.