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Post by topbilled on Feb 11, 2024 5:24:48 GMT
They are tearjerkers, part of an aesthetic from 19th century literature, books that would make you cry.
Most people judge how good a movie of this type is, by how much they have cried watching it.
Movie melodramas are operas without the singing.
Melodramas contain lots of extreme situations, people die...and we see the expression of pain in a very open way.
Viewers are transported into another dimension of excessive feelings and passions.
Melodrama brings the drama beyond reality.
Melodrama has divos and divas.
The divos...are fascinating and handsome...at the same time, caring and supporting. Probably something many women don't find at home...they find it on screen in melodramas.
The divas embody ideas of beauty...they suffer and are redeemed by their pain. Everything in the end goes in the direction it's supposed to have gone.
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Post by I Love Melvin on Feb 13, 2024 14:49:41 GMT
On the idea that melodramas are operas without the singing, they're generally not without the kind of musical score which can give the emotions a real workover, the kind of thing Max Steiner specialized in. The more overwrought the better, generally.
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Post by topbilled on Feb 13, 2024 16:48:43 GMT
On the idea that melodramas are operas without the singing, they're generally not without the kind of musical score which can give the emotions a real workover, the kind of thing Max Steiner specialized in. The more overwrought the better, generally.
Now, when we look at something like WITH A SONG IN MY HEART where the lead character is a singer, then there is definitely synchronous music (as opposed to background asynchronous music). But Hayward's not playing an opera diva, she's playing Jane Froman a popular nightclub crooner.
On the other hand, we have something like INTERRUPTED MELODY (1955), a melodrama in which Eleanor Parker is playing an opera singer.
And we might even say that something like EVITA (1996) comes close to being operatic without it actually being an opera, since Madonna is a pop singer and Andrew Lloyd Webber's tune are not opera pieces, but the story is largely told through music.
A conventional movie melodrama may use a music score, but the story is typically not told through continuous synchronous music.
I hope it doesn't sound like I am nitpicking...I think the original idea is that most conventional film melodrama is like a glorified soap opera, where we have heightened emotion from opera and from classic romance literature. |
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Post by I Love Melvin on Feb 13, 2024 21:53:29 GMT
On the idea that melodramas are operas without the singing, they're generally not without the kind of musical score which can give the emotions a real workover, the kind of thing Max Steiner specialized in. The more overwrought the better, generally.
Now, when we look at something like WITH A SONG IN MY HEART where the lead character is a singer, then there is definitely synchronous music (as opposed to background asynchronous music). But Hayward's not playing an opera diva, she's playing Jane Froman a popular nightclub crooner.
On the other hand, we have something like INTERRUPTED MELODY (1955), a melodrama in which Eleanor Parker is playing an opera singer.
And we might even say that something like EVITA (1996) comes close to being operatic without it actually being an opera, since Madonna is a pop singer and Andrew Lloyd Webber's tune are not opera pieces, but the story is largely told through music.
A conventional movie melodrama may use a music score, but the story is typically not told through continuous synchronous music.
I hope it doesn't sound like I am nitpicking...I think the original idea is that most conventional film melodrama is like a glorified soap opera, where we have heightened emotion from opera and from classic romance literature.Of course. I didn't mean to contradict anything you were saying, only to add to it. I wasn't thinking of continuous synchronous music, only of the kind of music score generally associated with melodrama, which swells and ebbs to compliment the emotions being depicted, sometimes exquisitely and sometimes less so. What prompted the remarks was my remembering Bette Davis telling a story, I think in a TV interview (Dick Cavett?), about her wariness about what Max Steiner would do with her final death scene in the bedroom in Dark Victory (1939). She felt the scene should be low-keyed and dignified and specifically asked (Was it director Edmund Goulding or Jack Warner himself?) that "Max Steiner not follow me up those stairs", which I thought showed Bette's keen awareness of the conventions of the genre. Max ultimately did, but respectfully, maybe having been privy to Bette's wishes. |
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Post by topbilled on Feb 14, 2024 2:03:20 GMT
Yes, the original comment was 'Movie melodramas are operas without the singing' since most cinematic melodramas do have instrumental accompaniment or full-on musical scores.
Now, when we look at something like WITH A SONG IN MY HEART where the lead character is a singer, then there is definitely synchronous music (as opposed to background asynchronous music). But Hayward's not playing an opera diva, she's playing Jane Froman a popular nightclub crooner.
On the other hand, we have something like INTERRUPTED MELODY (1955), a melodrama in which Eleanor Parker is playing an opera singer.
And we might even say that something like EVITA (1996) comes close to being operatic without it actually being an opera, since Madonna is a pop singer and Andrew Lloyd Webber's tune are not opera pieces, but the story is largely told through music.
A conventional movie melodrama may use a music score, but the story is typically not told through continuous synchronous music.
I hope it doesn't sound like I am nitpicking...I think the original idea is that most conventional film melodrama is like a glorified soap opera, where we have heightened emotion from opera and from classic romance literature. Of course. I didn't mean to contradict anything you were saying, only to add to it. I wasn't thinking of continuous synchronous music, only of the kind of music score generally associated with melodrama, which swells and ebbs to compliment the emotions being depicted, sometimes exquisitely and sometimes less so. What prompted the remarks was my remembering Bette Davis telling a story, I think in a TV interview (Dick Cavett?), about her wariness about what Max Steiner would do with her final death scene in the bedroom in Dark Victory (1939). She felt the scene should be low-keyed and dignified and specifically asked (Was it director Edmund Goulding or Jack Warner himself?) that "Max Steiner not follow me up those stairs", which I thought showed Bette's keen awareness of the conventions of the genre. Max ultimately did, but respectfully, maybe having been privy to Bette's wishes.
I almost didn't include the line about opera, but I do think melodramas have to be compared to opera's grandness.
I would say it's a given that most films have background music, and in the case of Steiner, it may seem a bit more obvious.
Re: Bette Davis...my guess is that she was afraid the background music would swell up and upstage her. In a way, this happens at the end of A STAR IS BORN (1937), where Janet Gaynor says she is Mrs. Norman Maine. The music swells up and almost overtakes her (and us) in those final moments. But actresses were probably used to this happening in classic melodramas! |
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Post by I Love Melvin on Feb 14, 2024 13:49:35 GMT
I didn't think you were contradicting. I was afraid my response would seem as if I thought that!
I almost didn't include the line about opera, but I do think melodramas have to be compared to opera's grandness.
I would say it's a given that most films have background music, and in the case of Steiner, it may seem a bit more obvious.
Re: Bette Davis...my guess is that she was afraid the background music would swell up and upstage her. In a way, this happens at the end of A STAR IS BORN (1937), where Janet Gaynor says she is Mrs. Norman Maine. The music swells up and almost overtakes her (and us) in those final moments. But actresses were probably used to this happening in classic melodramas! I absolutely agree with the comparison to opera's grandness, in the sense of heightened drama, sometimes to the Nth degree. My favorite moment in melodrama comes in Lana Turner's Madame X (1966) when she collapses in despair in a snowbank outside a small European town where she's settled after fleeing her past. As snow begins to fall a limousine drives up by chance and a titled gentleman whisks her off to his grand estate where she can recover in style. Stretch of the imagination? For sure, but so perfect for the loosened requirements of realism in melodrama. |
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