Melodrama Screening and Discussion, 27th of May, Jarman Studio 6, 4-7pm

Posted by Sarah

All are welcome to attend the third of the Summer Term’s Maternal Melodrama themed Screening and Discussion sessions, which will take place on the 27th of May, in Jarman Studio 6, from 4-7pm.

We are screening Ann-Marie’s choice The Old Maid (Edmund Goulding, 1939, 95 mins)

Old Maid 1

Ann-Marie has very kindly provided the following introduction:

The Old Maid is the last film to be screened in the Melodrama Research Group’s series of maternal melodramas. The screening hopes to spark some interesting debates that will help inform our knowledge of maternal melodrama in preparation for our symposium on the 3rd of June.

Edmund Goulding’s film is loosely adapted from the 1935 play of the same name by Zoe Atkins. The play was also awarded a Pulitzer and is itself adapted from a novella by Edith Wharton. Like many of Bette Davis’ melodramas the film has a defined historical setting, and this time it is set during the American Civil War. The film hurries through events and twenty years before it reaches its finale, but this is a Davis film so there is a guarantee of intense female suffering along the way! Including but not limited to: an illegitimate daughter, lost lovers (yes, plural), and a cruel and yet seemingly caring cousin. Perhaps most heartbreakingly, it is the daughter’s treatment of ‘Aunt Charlotte’ that causes the character such anguish.

Old Maid 2

The film itself was not received well by the critics, most only praised the performance of Bette Davis and her co-star Miriam Hopkins (the only actress she seemed to dislike more than Crawford!). Despite the critics dislike for the static look of the film, The Old Maid was successful amongst audiences[1], which of course could lead to a discussion about the importance of maternal melodramas to the audiences of the 30s and 40s.

Other possible areas for discussion:

  • The role of female sacrifice.
  • The role of class, particularly the importance of the ‘good name’.
  • The good and bad mother figure.
  • Familial relations.
  • A woman’s place in society.
  • Aging and youth.
  • Female companionship.

 


 

[1]Over $1.6 million in ticket receipts and Davis’ biggest commercial success to that date, but would soon be beaten by various other films. See: James Spada (1993) More Than A Woman, London: Sphere. pp.219-222

 

Do join us, if you can, for the last of this term’s screenings.

Melodrama Screening and Discussion, 20th of May, Jarman Studio 6, 4-7pm

Posted by Sarah

All are welcome to attend the second of the Summer Term’s Maternal Melodrama themed Screening and Discussion sessions, which will take place on the 20th of May, in Jarman Studio 6, from 4-7pm.

We are screening Tamar’s choice: Mildred Pierce (Michael Curtiz, 1945, 111 mins)

MP mother and daughter

Tamar has very kindly provided the following introduction:

Mildred Pierce – film noir or melodrama?

Mildred Pierce (Michael Curtiz, 1945) is the next film to be screened in the Melodrama Research Group’s series of maternal melodramas, leading up to our symposium on this topic on 3 June. But if it is a maternal melodrama, why is so much written about it under the film noir label?

The film, adapted loosely from the James M. Cain novel of the same name, tells the story of Mildred Pierce and her journey to business success and personal failure. Much of the film’s moody opening seems as if it is trying to force Mildred into the role of noir’s usual femme fatale, but as the narrative succumbs to its flashbacks, her motherhood, as well as other factors, complicates this.

MP double page ad Variety 1

The movie poster’s tagline is in accord with this noir presentation: “The kind of woman most men want – and shouldn’t have! That’s…..Mildred Pierce”, though an earlier piece of publicity had more simply “Kinda Hard Kinda Soft”. Neither seems to do justice to the narrative exigencies to which Mildred is subjected. Perhaps the significant factor for our Melodrama Research Group to ponder is that the film does not easily fit any generic label, but rather exceeds several; furthermore, as theorists have shown, film noir was not an industrial category at the time and, as Steve Neale suggests, neither perhaps was melodrama. There will be much to consider and much to enjoy, then, as we watch Joan Crawford head a talented cast as Mildred and listen to Max Steiner’s supple and evocative score.

Further Reading

Pam Cook, “Duplicity in Mildred Pierce”, Women In Film Noir, London: BFI 1978.

Claudia Gorbman, “The Drama’s Melos: Max Steiner and Mildred Pierce”, The Velvet Light Trap, No. 19, 1982.

Steve Neale, “Melo Talk: On the Meaning and Use of the Term ‘Melodrama’ in the American Trade Press”, The Velvet Light Trap, No. 32, 1993.

 Do join us, if you can, for this Hollywood Classic.

Melodrama Screening and Discussion, 13th of May, Jarman Studio 6, 4-7pm

Posted by Sarah

All are welcome to attend the first of the Summer Term’s Screening and Discussion sessions, which will take place on the 13th of May, in Jarman Studio 6, from 4-7pm.

Stella Dallas

In preparation for the Melodrama Research Group’s one-day Symposium on Maternal Melodrama we are screening several related films. The first of these is Stella Dallas (1937, King Vidor). Lies has very kindly provided the following introduction:

Stella Dallas stars Barbara Stanwyck as Stella, the working class daughter of a mill worker who, in an attempt to better herself, seduces and marries mill executive Stephen Dallas (John Boles). The couple have a child, Laurel, but soon discover their marriage is not a success, as their differences in class and taste prove insurmountable. The two divorce and Stella retains custody of Laurel. Years later, however, as Laurel grows into young adulthood, it becomes increasingly obvious that her kind-hearted, but rather tasteless, mother is an obstacle to her introduction into her father’s upper class circles, and Stella is forced to choose between her own wishes and what she believes to be best for her daughter.

Originally published as a novel in 1920 and made into a silent film in 1925 (starring Belle Bennett as Stella and Ronald Colman as Stephen), this film is a maternal melodrama par excellence and should provide ample topics for discussion, such as:
– The ways in which this film can be defined as a melodrama
– The role of female self-sacrifice in (maternal) melodrama
– The role and function of class in this film, or What Happened After Cinderella Married The Prince
– The relationship between mother and daughter
– The relationship between both of Laurel’s mother figures (Stella and the second Mrs Dallas)
Do join us, if you can, for a classic Hollywood melodrama which showcases the talents of one of the most compelling female stars of the 1930s and 1940s.

Maternal Melodrama Titles and Abstracts

Posted by Sarah

The titles and abstracts for our upcoming Maternal Melodrama on the 3rd of June:

Pam Cook, University of Southampton, Film Studies

“Paratext and Subtext: Reading Mildred Pierce as Maternal Melodrama”

Maternal melodrama has MP TV seriesgenerated an influential body of critical writing that examines the implications of its representations of motherhood for women. Ambivalence towards and desire for mothers continue to inspire stories of maternal suffering, self-sacrifice, guilt and blame that have a powerful emotional appeal. I’ll focus on Mildred Pierce to try to get to the heart of why this genre (cycle?) is so significant and how a diverse collection of films comes to be viewed as maternal melodrama. Using my videographic work, I’ll look at the role of paratexts (Genette) in producing the subtexts that point to the genre’s transgressive potential.

 

 Catherine Grant, University of Sussex, Film Studies

 “Studying Old and New Maternal Melodramas Videographically”

Joan Fontaine Rebecca

In my talk, I will screen a number of my short audiovisual essays on film melodramas which centrally feature mother-daughter relationships (including two cinematic adaptations of Olive Higgins Prouty’s 1922 novel Stella Dallas [1925 and 1937], The Railway Children [1970], and Andrea Arnold’s 2009 film Fish Tank).

I will also explore what “creative critical” videographic methods can bring to the study of old and new maternal melodramas. I will argue not only for the greater potential of audiovisual expression for richer and more precise engagements with the motifs and textures of film melodrama, but also for the benefits of methods which more evidently express, and at times productively foreground, the subjective and affective investments of the individual researcher.

For an example of Katie’s videographic essays on Melodrama please visit her fantastic Film Studies For Free blog, especially the post ‘Voluptuous Masochism: Gothic Melodrama Studies in Memory of Joan Fontaine’:

http://filmstudiesforfree.blogspot.co.uk/2013/12/voluptuous-masochism-gothic-melodrama.html

 

Keeley Saunders, University of Kent, Film Studies (ks424@kent.ac.uk)

“Transitioning and the Maternal Melodrama: Parental Roles in Transamerica”

In the process of transitioning, many transgender individuals have to learn how to manage their new identity in society: dealing with other people’s perceptions of them, moving jobs or location, or significantly, ‘coming out’ to their family. Trans memoirs, such as Stuck in the Middle with You by Jennifer Finney Boylan, detail the complex process of transitioning as a parent: for Boylan, moving from ‘father’ to ‘mother,’ with a period in between where the subject occupied neither – or both – positions. Documenting this issue draws attention to the traditional roles of gender and the social structures policing gendered parenting responsibilities or behaviours. Elsewhere this can be depicted through a parent’s response to their child coming out and their reaction (and the relationship developed) following such an announcement.

Family dynamics and the role of the parent is a recurring narrative trope within the fictional mode of ‘trans-cinema.’ Transamerica (Duncan Tucker, 2005) Maternal Melodrama Transamerica untitledpresents both of sides of the parental dynamic outlined above, following Bree, a pre-operative trans woman who is in the process of transitioning. This presentation will explore how Transamerica – and trans-cinema more broadly – adopts various melodramatic structures to portray its narratives. With particular reference to the characterisation and role of the mother, I will address how the film utilises the convention of parental roles, situating Bree as both the estranged parent and the estranged child attempting to (reluctantly) reconnect with her family before she undergoes her surgery.

 

 Lavinia Brydon, University of Kent, Film Studies

“The Suffering and Sacrifices of a Mother (Country): Examining the Scarred Irish Landscape in The Last September (1999)”

This paper seeks to investigate maternal Melodrama The Last Septemberand interpret the melodramatic tendencies of The Last September (Deborah Warner, 1999), an Anglo-Irish heritage film set just one year prior to the Ireland’s partition in 1921-1922. Taking John Hill’s comments on the melodramatic excess of the similarly concerned Fools of Fortune (Pat O’Connor, 1990) as a starting point, this paper will consider how the violence of the period complicates the restraint that typically marks the heritage film. Indeed, it will argue that the turbulent time frame permits the ‘astonishing twists and turns of fate, suspense, disaster and tragedy’ (Mercer and Shingler 2004: 7) for which early theatrical melodramas were famed. However, given the familiar nationalist allegory of Ireland as a poor old woman (otherwise known as Cathleen ni Houlihan), this paper will move on to consider how the violence inscribed on the Irish landscape allows the film to be framed specifically as a maternal melodrama. It will thus consider how the film depicts the suffering of and sacrifices made by Ireland as a mother (country).

 

Tamar Jeffers McDonald, University of Kent, Film Studies

“All That Costume Allows: Does Dress Tell the Mother’s Story?”

As its title suggests, this short paper seeks to link two famous Film Studies texts: Douglas Sirk’s 1955 melodrama, All That Heaven Allows, and Jane Gaines’ 1991 article, “Costume and Narrative: How dress tells the woman’s story”. Gaines’ piece insists that, because of the gendered division of narrative agency inevitably operating in Classical Hollywood Cinema, character is conveyed in different ways; men, who are active in the narrative, making things happen, are summed up by those happenings, but women, who are passive and acted upon, cannot thus be known. Their characters need to be made apparent to the viewer through other means: Hollywood has traditionally used costume. As Gaines remarks, “a woman’s dress and demeanour, much more than a man’s, indexes psychology: if costume represents interiority, it is she who is turned inside out on screen.” (Gaines, 1991: 181)

Maternal Melodrama ATHA 3On first consideration, Sirk’s scenario – about a widow’s romance with a younger man seen, by her children and snobbish community, as her social inferior – appears ripe to contest Gaines’s assertions. The film is all about Cary Scott, the central female character, her feelings, motives, decisions. Her status as a mother surely endows her with agency, as she cares for her children and, true to the maternal melodrama formula, sacrifices her own happiness to ensure theirs? Does the film need to employ the ‘storytelling wardrobe’ for a character so at the heart of the story, even when she is female?  This presentation examines Cary’s costumes in detail to find out.

Reference

Gaines, Jane. 1991. “Costume and Narrative: How dress tells the woman’s story” in Gaines, Jane and Herzog, Charlotte, eds, Fabrications: Costume and the Female Body. New York and London: Routledge.

Lies Lanckman, University of Kent, Film Studies

“All the melodramatics of my life are past!”: The Fan Magazine as a Melodramatic Medium

Although the topic of maternal melodrama inMaternal Melodrama Norma Shearer 3 film has received attention by a number of scholars, the focus appears to lie primarily on the study of particular emblematic films or, more broadly, on maternal melodrama on screen. This paper, however, will explore another connection between (Hollywood) film and melodrama; the way in which not just many films, but also the fan magazine and the star narratives contained within its pages can be seen to include a number of melodramatic elements.

By exploring fan magazine rhetoric produced between 1920 and 1940, I highlight a number of key themes and the way their treatment might be called melodramatic, ranging from the characterisation of particular stars, to the treatment of key life experiences, such as love, marriage and death. In this paper, however, I will particularly highlight the treatment of motherhood in the pages of publications suchMaternal Melodrama Stanwyck as Photoplay, focusing on two separate case studies. One is the treatment of Norma Shearer’s role as a tragic widow and single mother after the premature death of husband Irving Thalberg in September 1936. The other will focus on the rhetoric surrounding the divorce of Barbara Stanwyck and Frank Fay in December 1935, which cast Stanwyck as an excessive/monstrous mother who essentially emasculated her (less successful) husband. Using these two case studies, I will attempt to draw comparisons between Hollywoodian (maternal) melodrama on and off screen.

 

Ann-Marie Fleming, University of Kent, Film Studies

“It’s very difficult to keep the line between the past and the present”:  Exploring the melodramatic depictions of the women from Grey Gardens (1975 and 2009).

This paper seeks to explore how we understand mother-daughter tensions and acceptance through the use of the past in both Grey Gardens (1975) and the docudrama of the same name from 2009. Life at Maternal Melodrama Grey Gardens doc and filmGrey Gardens does not progress; instead the past is the present. Melodramatic moments, particularly the interactions between Edith and Edie, are caused by and centred on past grievances that are as much alive in 1976 as they were in 1952. In contrast, the docudrama’s past is shown as a tool to heighten the pain of the present, whilst stylistically appearing more significant.

Primarily the paper will focus on the films’ depiction of:

  • The unsaid, said and shown – An examination of the melodrama caused by the discussion of the past in contrast to the performance style of the docudrama.
  • Female urgency – The importance of the female body and its dominance of the frame at the peak of the melodramatic performance/reaction.
  • The rise and fall of tension – How each form manipulates time and remembrance to create melodramatic sympathy.
  • The melodrama of life itself – The re-creation of the past self and the character of the present.

Despite the differences in film form the paper hopes to expose one important factor: familial melodrama arises from the past’s collision with the present.

 

We hope you’ll be able to join us on the 3rd of June to hear the papers in full!

Update: the event is free, but booking is essential. Please email me on sp458@kent.ac.uk to secure your place.

 

Schedule for Maternal Melodrama Symposium on 3rd of June

Posted by Sarah

Exciting news! We now have a schedule for the Maternal Melodrama Symposium which will take place on the 3rd of June in GLT3 (Grimond Lecture Theatre 3) and GS6 (Grimond Seminar Room 6). The day includes talks by our special guests –  Professor Pam Cook of Southampton University and Dr Catherine Grant of the University of Sussex – as well as from members of the Melodrama Research Group.

Schedule

10.00 – 10.30 Greetings and refreshments GS6

10.30 – 12.30 Videographic essays and the Maternal Melodrama GLT3

                Pam Cook: “Paratext and Subtext: Reading Mildred Pierce as Maternal

                Melodrama”

                Catherine Grant: “Studying Old and New Maternal Melodramas

                Videographically”

12.30 – 1.30 Lunch GS6

1.30 – 3.30 Afternoon papers GLT3

10 minute papers

                 Keeley Saunders: “Transitioning and the Maternal Melodrama:

                 Parental Roles in Transamerica”

                 Lavinia Brydon: The Suffering and Sacrifices of a Mother (Country):

                 Examining the Scarred Irish Landscape in The Last September (1999)”

                Questions

20 minute papers

                Tamar Jeffers McDonald: “All That Costume Allows: Does Dress Tell the 

                Mother’s Story?”

                 Lies Lanckman: “”All the melodramatics of my life are past!”: The  

                  Fan  Magazine as a Melodramatic Medium”

                 Ann- Marie Fleming: “”It’s very difficult to keep the line between the past and

                 the present”:  Exploring the melodramatic depictions of the women from Grey

                 Gardens (1975 and 2009)”

                 Questions

3.30 – 4.00 Afternoon tea GS6

4.00 – 5.00 Roundup of thoughts, responses and future plans GS6

Please see the next post for contributors’ abstracts.

Update: the event is free, but booking is essential. Please email me on sp458@kent.ac.uk to secure your place.

 

Reflections on the Last Academic Year

Posted by Sarah

It would be useful to draw together some of our group’s activities and discussion on melodrama over the last 9 months. I’ve added my own thoughts below which ended up being far more fulsome than originally intended!), but do log in to comment or email me on sp458@kent.ac.uk to include your ideas. It would be great if people provided their own overviews, or a detailed focus on an element (such as the definition of melodrama or a specific film) which especially interested them.

8 Events Magnificent ObsessionWe were very fortunate to begin the academic year with a Research Seminar at which Birmingham School of Media’s Dr John Mercer (co-author, with Martin Shingler, of Melodrama: Genre, Style, Sensibility, 2004) presented. John’s talk ‘Acting and Behaving Like a Man: Rock Hudson’s Performance Style’ focused on Hudson’s ‘behaving’ in several Douglas Sirk melodramas:  Magnificent Obsession (1954), All That Heaven Allows (1955) and Written on the Wind (1956). This provided us with some great insights into probably the most referenced Hollywood director of film melodramas as well as underlining the close relationship between melodrama and performance.

11 Events Tea & Sympathy Beach

 

Nottingham Trent University’s Dr Gary Needham also presented at a fascinating Research Seminar. In ‘Revisiting Tea and Sympathy (1956): Minnelli, Hollywood, Homosexuality’. Gary, like John, explored the work of specific Hollywood director associated with melodrama: in this case Vincente Minnelli. Gary’s work interestingly opened up debate on gender relations and sexuality with a sensitive re-reading of Minnelli’s Tea and Sympathy.

In our fortnightly meetings since January we have broadened out from this focus on 1950s Hollywood melodrama. We have screened a surprisingly wide variety of films with connections to melodrama, which hailed from France, Britain, the US, and Hong Kong and stretched from the silent cinema of the 1900s to contemporary film of the 2000s. We have also organised a very enjoyable and useful read through of a play.

We started with debate on the male melodrama by referencing Steve Neale’s reconsideration of melodrama in ‘Melo Talk’.  Neale argued that unlike the 1970s The Narrow Marginfeminists who wrote on melodrama in relation to the ‘women’s film’, trade press from Hollywood’s Studio Era was more likely to attach the term ‘melodrama’ to films with male-focused themes, such as film noir. Viewing Richard Fleischer’s The Narrow Margin (1952) which was hailed at its time of release as a ‘Suspense Melodrama’ allowed us to engage with Neale’s argument in a practical as well as theoretical way.

son of the SheikBut melodrama is more usually thought of as being related to suffering.  The American Film Institute defines melodramas as ‘fictional films that revolve around suffering protagonists victimized by situations or events related to social distinctions, family and/or sexuality, emphasizing emotion’. (http://afi.chadwyck.com/about/genre.htm). In keeping with this, we screened George Melford’s The Sheik (1921). The Sheik and the next film, Robert Z. Leonard’s The The DivorceeDivorcee (1930), were more closely related to traditional notions of melodrama focused on by feminists in the 1970s. Both of these centred on melodramatic plots and had suffering women at their hearts. Though the earlier film presented events in a more melodramatic way, partly due to the type of acting which is thought to predominate in the silent era.

Our screening of Walt Disney’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1938) opened out our discussion to animation. Once more the melodramatic plot was in place, though we did note that the use of comedy tempered the melodramatic elements.

snow white 1

 

Gaslight UKShowing two versions of Gaslight – the British film directed1 Welcome Gaslight by Thorold Dickinson in 1940 and the Hollywood remake helmed by Gorge Cukor in 1944 – allowed us to compare examples from two major film industries. In terms of melodrama the same, or at least a similar, story being told in different ways was especially illuminating. The plot underpinning both is melodramatic, but the polished approach of Hollywood was strikingly different to the ‘blood and thunder’ uppermost in Dickinson’s film. The Gothic subgenre of these films also provided much discussion.

Love on the Dole 2Weekly activities in the Summer Term provided us with scope to show more, and some longer, films. We began with John Baxter’s Love on the Dole (1941) which fascinatingly combined a melodramatic plot with the aesthetics of social realism. Its unusual, downbeat, approach was highlighted by the films we screened the following week: George Melies’ Barbe-Bleu (1901), D.W. Griffiths’ The Mothering Heart (1913) and Lois Weber’s The Mothering HeartSuspense (1913). Showing some very early short melodramas by French and American film pioneers George enabled us to directly compare films from cinema’s earlier days, afforded us the opportunity of watching the work of a female director which seems apt given melodrama’s usual focus on the female, and provoked thoughts regarding the use of suspense and restraint.

Poltergeist 2The screening of Tobe Hooper’s Poltergeist (1982) turned the group’s attention to horror. This provided us with an opportunity to assess the way melodrama works with, and amongst, other related genres. Wong Kar Wai’s Happy Happy Together tangoTogether (1997) proved to be another surprising, but interesting choice for discussion. The clearly melodramatic plot concerning two young lovers’ trials was presented, at times, in a documentary style. This was thought to be revealing of melodrama’s inherent variety.

A read-through of Frederick and Walter Melville’s 1903 play A Girl’s Cross Roads returned us to more traditional notions of melodrama. The plot and the performances (at least when ‘performed’ by us!) were certainly over the top, with suffering central to the play.

16 Links The Girl who Lost her Character

Our most recent screening of David Lynch’s Mulholland Drive (2001) proved very useful as it was a thoughtful meditation on melodrama especially in its parodying of the genre and Hollywood films of the 1950s.

In addition to our screenings and the read through we have been contacted by the BFI who are staging an event about melodrama in 2015. They intend to screen 50 unmissable melodramas. We compiled our own list of 50 unmissable melodramas (http://blogs.kent.ac.uk/melodramaresearchgroup/2013/03/03/the-bfi-and-50-unmissable-melodramas/) which we had reduced from the longer list of 225 titles (http://blogs.kent.ac.uk/melodramaresearchgroup/2013/03/03/unmissable-melodramas-the-long-list/) We are currently working through (and adding to!) these. We also plan to widen out further from film melodrama by engaging with theatre, television and radio(see the next post on Summer Activities for more information).

The Melodrama Research Group is busy working on several events: a screening of Midnight Lace (1960) in September, a forthcoming Symposium, a Festival, a Trip and is looking into Publishing Opportunities.

Summary of Discussion on the Melodrama Research Group’s Plans

Posted by Sarah

As always, do log in and comment or email me on sp458@kent.ac.uk to leave your thoughts. I’m sure the outline below will take shape and be added to very soon!

Discussion of the Group’s activities mostly centred on our plans for Spring 2014. It was thought that a symposium with invited speakers might be the best way to stage an event. The idea of a festival which did not focus on film screenings, but rather melodrama in other media or indeed archive material relating to film melodrama, was suggested.  This might well focus on several different areas, which is especially apt given the variety and pervasiveness of melodrama.  For both of these it was agreed that the involvement of practitioners in melodrama would be very worthwhile.

A possible trip to the New Amsterdam Film Museum was also mentioned which would be very exciting!