The Origins of Melodrama After reading this section, you should be able to:
define "melodrama," and explain the origin of the term "melodrama."
discuss the history of theatrical melodrama, with attention to the significance of non-verbal communication.
describe the relationship between emotion and melodrama, both in general and specifically in reference to the melodramatic films of Steven Spielberg.
discuss the ways in which silent film was especially well suited to melodrama.
Types of Melodrama After reading this section, you should be able to:
distinguish melodrama as a mode from melodrama as a genre, and discuss the difference between genres and modes in film.
describe the generic category of film melodrama.
examine the emotional mode of address in film melodrama, and discuss the emotional mode's implications for both overly intellectual characters and overly emotional ones (children, animals, et cetera) in melodramas.
discuss melodrama as "domestic tragedy," and contrast the sphere of melodrama's concerns to that of traditional tragedy.
discuss the class status of melodrama characters in contrast to characters of traditional tragedy, and describe the ideological stance of the genre as a whole.
A Social Vision After reading this section, you should be able to:
discuss the social and moral principles of the genre of melodrama, especially in relation to the forces of modernization and industrialization.
suggest ways in which melodrama, as a genre, expresses the "American Dream."
discuss the politics of the genre of melodrama, with attention to the political content of melodramas by D. W. Griffith and Sergei Eisenstein.
define "populism," and discuss the relationship between populism and American melodrama.
Two Film Melodramatists: Griffith and Vidor After reading this section, you should be able to:
discuss the melodramas of D. W. Griffith, and describe their relationship to nineteenth-century agrarianism.
analyze the film The Birth of a Nation both as a melodrama and as an expression of Griffith's backward-looking populist agrarianism.
discuss the way in which The Birth of a Nation reveals the negative sides of populism, perhaps unintentionally, with attention to the issue of race.
contrast The Birth of a Nation to King Vidor's The Crowd, with attention to the issues of agency and individualism.
analyze The Crowd both as a melodrama and as an expression of Vidor's complex relationship with urban industrialism and mass society.
Escape and Transcendence After reading this section, you should be able to:
examine the relationship between melodrama and both domestic space and threats to domestic space, with reference to specific films.
discuss the relationship between female sexuality, urban modernism, and destructive force both in F. W. Murnau's Sunrise and in the melodrama generally.
Sound and Melodrama After reading this section, you should be able to:
discuss the ways in which the coming of sound changed melodrama, and examine both the similarities and the differences between silent melodramas and more recent sound melodramas.
