FAVh037 Melodrama: Genre, Style, Emotions

Faculty of Arts
Autumn 2021
Extent and Intensity
4/0/0. 5 credit(s). Type of Completion: zk (examination).
Teacher(s)
Mgr. Šárka Jelínek Gmiterková, Ph.D. (lecturer)
Guaranteed by
Mgr. Šárka Jelínek Gmiterková, Ph.D.
Department of Film Studies and Audiovisual Culture – Faculty of Arts
Supplier department: Department of Film Studies and Audiovisual Culture – Faculty of Arts
Timetable
Wed 8:00–11:40 C34
Prerequisites
There are none.
Course Enrolment Limitations
The course is also offered to the students of the fields other than those the course is directly associated with.
fields of study / plans the course is directly associated with
Course objectives
Melodrama is a very slippery term in film studies. It can be applied to a few films dealing with woman’s issues and family crises made in 1930s up to 1950s; it can be viewed as a specific genre and/or stylistic mode; or it can be vaguely applied to any film with a rather inferior topic, but shot in an exquisite cinematic style… Therefore melodrama contains various films - the most noticeable titles are for example All that Heaven Allows by Douglas Sirk, John Waters’ Polyester or All about my Mother by Pedro Almodovar - generating strong reactions from audiences such as empathy, identification, distance up to straightforward mockery. This course will introduce work directors strongly associated with melodrama such as Douglas Sirk, Nicholas Ray, later Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Pedro Almodovar and Todd Haynes (to name a few). Through their work I will demonstrate main characteristics of melodramatic form such as emblematic style, preferred narrative modes and topics with adjacent meanings; we will also focus on eras with strong melodramatic preference (such as Third Reich or Procterate of Bohemia and Moravia).
Learning outcomes
After completing the course, students will be:
- able to define melodrama and therefore identify films, which fall under this label
- introduced to conceptual and theoretical debates surrounding melodrama
- introduced to key titles from melodramatic canon
- able to reflect on the evolution of melodramatic form in time a various geopolitical contexts.
Syllabus
  • 1. Melodrama as a large field - characteristics, definitions and development since the 19th century
  • 2. Silent cinema as a melodramatic form - characters, performance, style, story
  • 3. "Home is where the heart is" - women's film, Hollywood
  • 4. "Home is where the heart is" - women's film, Third Reich, Protectorate Bohemia and Moravia
  • 5. Hollywood baroque - Douglas Sirk, Nicholas Ray, Vincente Minelli
  • 6. Melodrama and Modernism - ornamental style versus analytical minimalism (Pier Paolo Pasolini a Federico Fellini versus Michelangelo Antonioni)
  • 7. Melodrama as a genre - melodrama vis-a-vis genre theory in 1970s and 1980s
  • 8. Melodrama as a mode - new generation of melodramatic directors, three versions of one story (All that heaven allows, Fear eats the soul, Far from heaven)
  • 9. Melodrama in experimental and art cinema in the 1970s and 1980s, focusing on German cinema (guest lecturer: Jiří Anger)
  • 10. Queer and camp - queer sensibility and melodrama, camp reading of melodramatic excess
  • 11. Melo + drama - melodramatic excessive style with a special focus on music
  • 12. Spain and France - Pedro Almodovar and Francois Ozon
Literature
  • Nazi film melodrama. Edited by Laura Heins. 1 online r. ISBN 9780252095023. info
  • Melodrama. Genre, style and sensibility. Johm Mercer and Martin Shingler, New York: Wallflower Press, 2004.
  • Afekt, výraz, performance. Proměny melodramatického excesu v kinematografii těla. Praha: Univerzita Karlova, 2018.
  • Home is where the heart is : studies in melodrama and the woman's film. Edited by Christine Gledhill. 1st pub. London: British film institute, 2002, 362 s. ISBN 0851702007. info
  • Melodrama and modernity : early sensational cinema and its contexts. Edited by Ben Singer. New York: Columbia University Press, 2001, xiv, 363. ISBN 0231113293. info
  • BYARS, Jackie. All that Hollywood allows : re-reading gender in 1950s melodrama. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1991, x, 326 s. ISBN 0-8078-1953-0. info
Teaching methods
Twelve lectures (cca 70 minutes) with a topical screening.
Assessment methods
For completing the course students have to write a final essay. The paper will focus on a single film of student's choice. The film has to fit in the category of melodrama as defined throughout the course. The final paper has to: - be at minimum 6 pages long (cca 1500 words minimum) - employ any scholarly conception of melodrama - follow bibliographical guidelines
Language of instruction
Czech
Further Comments
Study Materials
  • Enrolment Statistics (recent)
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