![\"coquette](\"http:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/melodramaresearchgroup\/files\/2013\/11\/coquette-poster.png\")
<\/p>\nPosted by Sarah<\/p>\n
The discussion prompted by Coquette<\/i> focused on several areas: the definition of melodrama, especially in relation to content vs form; the film\u2019s old-fashioned feel; comparison of Norma\u2019s punishment to other female characters at the time and earlier; Mary Pickford\u2019s star entrance; Pickford\u2019s star image \u2013 from the Girl with the Curls to the Woman Without Them; Hollywood\u2019s focus on youth; modern actresses and image changes; Pickford\u2019s performance.<\/p>\n
We began by relating the film to our previous experience of, and assumptions about, melodrama. The basic story has many melodramatic elements.\u00a0 The central character is a young woman named Norma (played by Mary Pickford) whose reputation is at stake.\u00a0 A misunderstanding leads to Norma\u2019s lover Michael (played by Johnny Mack Brown) being shot by her father and a death-bed scene. This results in a murder trial where Norma attempts to save her father\u2019s life by perjuring herself. She tries to convince the court that Michael raped her, therefore providing her father with a reason for his action.<\/p>\n
The difference between the film\u2019s content and its form (primarily its plotting\u2013both overall and within scenes) is therefore important. Since the story has melodramatic elements but the plotting does not highlight this, might we consider the film to be intended as melodrama, but simply not very effective? Or does the lack of suspense in terms of concealment and revelation preclude us from considering it to be melodrama at all? Of course this assessment of \u2018quality\u2019 rests on our judgment today, and views at the time might well have been different.<\/p>\n Coquette<\/i> was based on relatively recent (1927) play of the same name by George Abbot and Ann Preston Bridgers. The film\u2019s contemporaneous (to its release) setting is foregrounded by long-held close-ups of invitations to dances in 1928. However, we thought the film seemed old-fashioned for its time. The \u2018feel\u2019 was compared to that of Pleasantville<\/i> (1998) in which the two main characters from the 1990s find themselves inhabiting a chirpy 1950s America.<\/p>\n The film\u2019s old-fashioned nature was especially seen in the treatment of the main We connected this strongly to Mary Pickford\u2019s star image. The film was presenting a \u2018new\u2019 Mary one who way \u2018bobbed, audible and coquettish\u2019 according to Photoplay<\/i> in May 1929. We spoke at some length about Pickford\u2019s star entrance. Norma is referred to, but \u00a0The way youth was used to \u2018sell\u2019 stars and films was seen in the Photoplay<\/i> piece and has been the subject of academic work. (See Heather Addison. “” Must the Players Gaylyn Studlar has written that Pickford appealed to the, in some ways already vanished, Victorian notion of childhood\u00a0and its excessive sentimentality. (See Gaylyn\u00a0 Studlar, “Oh,” Doll Divine”: Mary Pickford, Masquerade, and the Pedophilic Gaze.” Camera Obscura<\/i> 16.3 (2001): 196-227.) As Studlar pondered the audience for Pickford\u2019s silent films we were also curious as to the intended and actual audience for Coquette<\/i>. The appeal to the modern seen in Photoplay\u2019s<\/i> focus on consumption was severely compromised by the film itself. Although Pickford was indeed \u2018bobbed, audible and coquettish\u2019 she did not seem young: Norma\/Pickford was not seen engaging in the frantic dancing of the other youths in the film. The moralistic tone of the play \u2013 there is no happy ending which is unusual for other melodramas of this, and an earlier, period \u2013 seemed unlikely to sit well with those who had seen It<\/i> and Flaming Youth<\/i>.<\/p>\n Some modern actresses who have noticeably had a \u2018statement\u2019 haircut in order to break free from their earlier star images were also mentioned: Harry Potter\u2019s<\/i> Emma Watson and Miley \u2018Hannah Montana\u2019 Cyrus.\u00a0 We also cited several actresses who, like the 37 year-old Pickford in Coquette,<\/i> have played, or continue to play, younger than their actual age. These included Alyson Hannigan, Charisma Carpenter and Natalie Portman.<\/p>\n Instances of the overtly dramatic sat uncomfortably with some of the film\u2019s, few, lighter moments. One of these seems to in itself be mocking, or at the very least drawing attention to, melodramatic performance.\u00a0 Michael reacts to one situation with a moody and long-held stare. Norma\/Pickford waits a little while, and then looks to the audience. The gaze then turns back to Michael with Norma\/Pickford seeming to wonder at how Michael has managed to keep the pose for so long. Pickford\u2019s performance within a performance is referenced throughout by one of her repeated gestures. After saying the word \u2018adorable\u2019 (whether to her admirer Stanley or her lover Michael) she places Many thanks to Tamar for suggesting a film which provoked so much discussion.<\/p>\n Do, as ever, log in to comment, or email me on sp458@kent.ac.uk<\/a> to add your thoughts.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Posted by Sarah The discussion prompted by Coquette focused on several areas: the definition of melodrama, especially in relation to content vs form; the film\u2019s old-fashioned feel; comparison of Norma\u2019s punishment to other female characters at the time and earlier; … Continue reading ![\"Coquette](\"http:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/melodramaresearchgroup\/files\/2013\/11\/Coquette-general.jpg\")
<\/a>However the storytelling is not very melodramatic. The film did not follow the theme of concealment and revelation we have noted in other melodramas. A key example of this is the fact that Norma told her brother, and the audience, of her intention to lie on the witness stand. This meant we were not left in suspense as to how she might react. In addition, while Norma and Michael\u2019s separation is presumably meant to be very distressing to both of them, the film does not convey this strongly.\u00a0 We also thought that Norma\u2019s long-standing, and older, admirer Stanley (Matt Moore) might have played a larger part in the film, providing the third point of a melodramatic triangle. This was not the case.<\/p>\n<\/a> character. Norma\u2019s \u2018sins\u2019 are small. She has spent the night, unchaperoned, with the man she loves in a cabin. Nothing happened between them. Yet she is severely punished: her lover is shot dead; she feels compelled to paint a very negative view of his character in order to help her father be acquitted of a murder charge; she witnesses her father\u2019s suicide at his trial.<\/p>\n<\/a>The New Woman was already well established in Hollywood films by this time. Colleen Moore played the definitive flapper in Flaming Youth<\/i> six years earlier, and Clara Bow appeared to have It<\/i> in 1927. Compared to these, and others, and especially given the fact that Norma\u2019s sins are fairly insignificant \u2013 she is a coquette, or a flirt after all, not a \u2018bad\u2019 woman or a prostitute \u2013 the film seems out of its time.<\/p>\n<\/a> not seen, for some time. Immediately before we see her she is being joshed by her brother Jimmy about spending too long in front of the mirror. We only hear her voice to begin with. This is frustrating on two counts \u2013 the quality of Pickford\u2019s voice is less assured than those of the other actors (though there may also be some microphone issues) and our sight of her is delayed. When she does appear though, she is very striking. As well as the new hairstyle, Pickford is wearing a beautiful modern dress. While this is modest in some ways the flimsy material focuses attention on her legs.<\/p>\n<\/a>Keep Young?”: Early Hollywood’s Cult of Youth.” Cinema Journal<\/i> 45.4 (2006): 3-25.) It was thought that this new image was not thoroughly modern as perhaps Pickford could not risk alienating her established fan base. Much of her previous appeal had been predicated upon recognition of her as \u2018Little Mary\u2019 or the \u2018Girl with the Curls\u2019. \u00a0This relies on a very different presentation of youth. \u00a0It is also at odds with the fact Pickford\u2019s capability as a businesswoman (a co-founder of United Artists) and her private life \u2013 her happy marriage to Douglas Fairbanks \u2013 were continually dealt with in the press.<\/p>\n<\/a>We broadened out the discussion to some others of Pickford\u2019s contemporaries. While Moore and Bow symbolised the new, Lillian Gish, like Pickford, was of the past. However Lillian Gish\u2019s appeal, while also based on innocence, was not dependant on her occupying a child\u2019s role. The playing of child roles seemed very particular to Pickford.\u00a0 Gish was far more often a child-woman. As early as 1920 she was playing single mother in Way Down East<\/i>.<\/p>\n<\/a>The change in Pickford\u2019s hairstyle was clearly significant, yet the nod to the modern was not extended to the film\u2019s treatment of her character\u2019s morality and behaviour or indeed Pickford\u2019s acting style. At times Norma seemed very young. She climbed onto the lap of the maid (Louise Beavers)\u00a0to be comforted. Pickford\u2019s acting was occasionally heavy handed. The moment Norma feels an excessive pain in her chest which she takes to correspond to Michael being shot was particularly memorable since Pickford clutches her chest with such violence. Norma was also, unsurprisingly, hysterical on learning of her lover\u2019s death.<\/p>\n<\/a>her finger to her lip in a coquettish way, prompting others to kiss her.\u00a0 It is noticeable that when Norma\/Pickford utters the word \u2018adorable\u2019 for the last time in the film, it is not accompanied by the gesture. The events Norma has been through have perhaps finally broken her meaning that any coquettish behaviour would be out of place.<\/p>\n