...The Ambiguity of Weeping. Baroque and Mannerist Discourses in Haynes’ Far from Heaven and Sirk’s All That Heaven Allows. Jack Post Abstract Although Douglas Sirk’ All That Heaven Allows (1954) and Todd Haynes’ Far from Heaven (2002) are both characterized as melodramas, they address their spectators differently. The divergent (emotional) reactions towards both films are the effect of different rhetorical strategies: the first can be seen a typical example of baroque discourse and the latter as a specimen of mannerist discourse. The reference to the terms melodrama, mannerism and baroque does not imply that these films are just formal repetitions of historical periods or that they thematically and structurally refer to historical styles, but that they are characterized by opposing discursive strategies which came to the foreground in a specific historical time and constellation. Because these discursive strategies return in other historical periods and socialpolitical circumstances in different guises and with different aims, they can be compared to what Aby Warburg calls Pathosformeln (pathos formula). The expressive forms, gestures and discursive modes of melodrama, baroque and mannerism can thus be understood as transhistorical (gestural) languages of pathos that recur in history. Résumé Bien que All that heaven allows (1954) par Douglas Sirk et Far from heaven (2002) par Todd Haynes se caractérisent nettement comme un mélodrame, les deux films adressent...
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...put an end to creative freedom. The South Korean cinema resurfaced in the 1990s, taking a new step and presenting films that mix a variety of genres and different sensibilities. After the 1997 International Monetary Fund economic crisis, South Korea experienced an unusually rapid growth in the film industry and faced its first “stirrings of what was to develop into a creative and commercial boom” (Paquet 37). In early 1998, in the midst of the industrial transformation, director Hur Jin-Ho released a “muted, tragic-themed melodrama” (Paquet 37) - Christmas in August. The film ranked as one of the highest grossing at the domestic box office in 1998, benefiting greatly from its casting of the two lead roles - actor Han Seok-Kyu and actress Shim Eun-Ha. The two leads carry out a natural performance throughout the film and display a remarkable chemistry with their delightfully low-key and perfect depiction of each of the protagonists. Unlike the traditional melodramas, Christmas in August bypasses the usual onscreen dramatics and focuses on the smaller, intimate moments occurring between companions and members of a family confronting the reality of a slowly approaching, unavoidable loss. Hur Jin-Ho’s Christmas in August takes an unconventional approach, keeping the plot quiet and pleasant throughout - illustrating a romantic and domestic...
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...CHAPTER 5: by Claudia, Chloe & Annabel Overview: Sibyl Vane and her mother discuss the girl's relationship with "Prince Charming." Sibyl is in love. Mrs. Vane's attitude is more realistic and down-to-earth. She wants her daughter to think of her career. Sibyl has all the idealistic enthusiasm of an innocent seven-teen-year-old. Wilde states the metaphor describing that "joy of a caged bird was in her voice." Sibyl does not want to hear about Mr. Isaacs or money. What is money compared to love? James hates the "young dandy" who is courting his sister. He warns his sister that the man wants to enslave her and repeatedly threatens to kill the "gentleman" if he does Sibyl any wrong. Why was it added? The absence of Dorian and Lord Henry from this chapter makes it seem like filler. It is a chance for the reader to catch a breath after the whirlwind engagement announcement that ended the previous chapter. However, this short chapter serves an important function in the novel; it introduces and describes characters and sets up events that will be developed later in the story. After controversy of the first publication, this innocent girl is introduced to cool the situation. It can also be argued that chapter 5 was added in order to humanise Sibyl – before she is a ‘creature’ and this makes her seem more ‘real’. The characters Sibyl is described as "the girl" -> infantile like Dorian -> naivety, innocence -> "pouted" childish again -> her dismissal of the importance...
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...Type of Drama : MELOW DRAMA Mellow Drama - It is also a form of acting. The word "melodrama" comes from the Greek word for song "melody", combined with "drama". Music is used to increase the emotional response or to suggest characters. * The term originated from the early 19th-century French word mélodrame, which is derived from Greek melos, music, and French drame, drama * A melodrama is a dramatic work that exaggerates plot and characters in order to appeal to the emotions, often with strongly stereotyped characters. Language, behaviour, or events which resemble melodramas are also called melodramatic. In scholarly and historical musical contexts melodramas are dramas of the 18th and 19th centuries in which orchestral music or song was used to accompany the action. * Typically, these films focused on sensational plots revolving around tragedy, loss, and unrequited love, and featured long-suffering protagonists, almost always female, trying in vain to overcoming impossible odds. Example: Wuthering Heights 1939 Also one of the great literary adaptationsof all time, Wuthering Heights was a sweeping romantic drama about class division and love doomed to tragedy. Directed by William Wyler from Emily Brontë’s classic novel, the film starredLaurence Olivier as Heathcliff, a former orphan who has been taken into a wealthy family and grows to love his foster sister, Cathy (Merle Oberon). Though she feels the same, Cathy doesn’t want to give up her well-to-do lifestyle...
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...PRINCESS Okay, people. I wished upon a star. I guess it does make a difference who I are! Do I have to be some poor nobody wannabe? Do I need some kind of kryptonite like a little pea? Did my prince get turned into a frog and he's now hiding in some creepy bog waiting for me to find him? I don't even know how to swim. What's the use of dreaming anymore. No one is beating down my door. I need to be some kind of damsel in distress to get some attention I guess. Where's my Prince Charming? Is there something about me that's alarming? All I get is Prince Pampered who spends his whole life hampered by being royally stuck up. Or there's Prince Never Grow Up who is way too pretty in his curls. All these boys make me want to hurl. Why can't I find a man sized prince who will sweep me off my feet and take me to far away lands. He will hold me with his strong hands and devote his life to me. Is that what I want? Is that what I dream about? If I don't get it, will I forever pout and cry because I didn't get my way? I just want to feel special. I want to feel like they care. I want them to bravely face any challenge for me. Enter my heart if you dare. Lock me in a tower. Make me your precious flower. I want you to battle your way against dragons to win my love today. Quit playing with your toys and prove your worth to me, boys. I promise I will be the perfect princess for you to please. I will be good to you and I won't be a tease... much. Who am I kidding...
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...On stage, Lorde carries out a sense of “looseness” in her performance and choreography. The way she sings mimics her recorded album. It’s possible to hear every word Lorde sings and to sing along with her. Lorde played various songs, some of her old popular songs, a few covers and the majority from her recent album “Melodrama.” Additionally, she brought out a surprise guest star, Jack Antonoff. Watching the two preform, while sitting crossed leg on the stage- seemed as though, we were watching just two friends sing and perform. Going back to that “looseness,” Lorde made it seems as if she was simply feeling the music and channeling the rhythm with her dancing and dancers. Furthermore, she included the audience throughout the whole concert. The audience was filled with diversity, from young children to adults well into their forties and fifties. I was able to see how everyone, regardless of age and gender, were able to come together and enjoy the music/concert. Additionally, throughout her performance the audience was...
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...In James Peck’s essay, he reexamines the “9.11” event from a different perspective by perceiving it as a tragedy play. Taking advantage of his professional knowledge in theater, Peck introduces his method of understanding this catastrophe and contrasts it with the melodrama Americans are obsessed with. Given that these two notions all come from theater, Peck also implicitly suggests to the audience that theatrical method of reading tragedy and genres alike can also be practiced in analyzing and understanding real life events. At the very beginning of this article, Peck recalls the moment when he just heard of 9.11. The image depicted here is that Peck urgently wants to read an ancient tragedy. Getting to know the death and injury of thousands of people, he takes tragedy play as a relief. However, through this exploration, he finds tragedy a useful tool to comprehend reality. Tragedy, according to the essay, “is above all a genre of suffering and witness” (741). This genre of theater study does show the audience all the torture and pains inflicted on a certain group of subjects. However, the essence of tragedy is not calling for “easy resolution” (741). Rather, by reading a tragedy, Peck suggests that we shall take a difficult path to fathom ourselves and to find the hope beneath the ruin. The aforementioned strategy to fully appreciate a tragedy is also applied to the “9.11” event by Peck. In tragedy, we feel sad for the suffering group. In this catastrophe, Americans should...
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...rHow Does US Popular Culture Present the Communist Threat? United States pop culture instigated identification with the anti-Communist cause through presenting Communism as an affront to the American dream, the Catholic church, and the patriarchal order. This conservative bent exemplifies how the dominant values represent a return to the conservative values of the past. By advocating conservative values, pop culture retreated from the more anarchistic dominant genres of the 1940s, the film noir and the family melodrama: two genres that explored the breakdown of the patriarchal order. In lieu of the noir and melodrama, pop culture, especially television, “offered a bland menu of quiz shows and westerns during the late 1950s, [in which] McCarthy-era anxieties clearly played a role” (84). Not only was the Communist threat presented as a threat to the American dream, but the way in which it was presented represents the antithesis of the stability of the American dream: Communists are framed as dangerous because they are passable as ordinary people and moreover, because they control the systems of technology: science, mass transportation, and mass media. Thus, in order to overthrow the Communist threat, films such as Red Planet Mars (1952) and television shows such as “I Led 3 Lives” filter the American anti-Communist effort through the defeat of Communist-controlled technology and the restoration of the conservative American Dream. Both Red Planet Mars and “I Led 3 Lives” portray...
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...Classical Hollywood and Soviet Montage have laid the framework for directing and editing in the past and created a big effect on the movies being made today. The documentary film “Cutting Edge” provides a great in depth view on how these two styles have influenced movie making. Directors and editors from the film offer great insight on what style and why they use it in a particular movie. For Classical Hollywood was the first style of direction used to fully put editing into effect. Classical Hollywood first came into effect in the 1920’s by D.W. Griffith. In Hollywood Griffith was the first director to fully have an understanding of editing. In classical Hollywood continuity editing was a new technique used for editing. For example, a person...
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...The peer-reviewed article Affective historiography: Schindler's List, melodrama and historical representation was written by Jeremy Maron and published on Shofar by Carleton University on 2009. This article includes several scholars' thoughts on discussing the effectiveness of using melodrama as a specific genre to present history. It started with Hayden White's idea of “content of the form” which mainly focus on “the relationship between narrative discourse and historical representation.” On this aspect, the article closely analyses the representation of various narrative characters from several films to provide evidence of the changes on how audiences receive the historical information more objectively or subjectively due to different narratives that have been produced in the melodrama....
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...Famous Thinkers: Steven Spielberg & Grace Hopper Famous thinkers can come from all walks of life and can be from our generation and others. Reaching goals can be done in many ways. The similarity famous thinkers is that they are all share creative minds and are all creative thinkers. Creative ideas are the foundation of creative process (Goodman & Fritchie, 2011). Famous thinkers base their ideas on searching for solutions to problem, need, or the way others think or view specific issues. When I think of famous thinkers a vast number of people come to mind. Two thinkers that genuinely stand out to me are Steven Spielberg & Grace Hopper. My article will provide more details on the influence and accomplishments of these great thinkers. Steven Spielberg Steven Spielberg had an early start on his career, even as a child he was an amateur filmmaker. Spielberg became an Academy Award-winning director and one of the youngest television directors. His opportunities became endless after the television film, Duel in 1972, which landed him a chance to direct for the cinema. Steven Spielberg has brought unique contributions to society. Ten ways he has done this is 1. Helping to create the idea of the movie “blockbuster.” 2. Bringing back our sense of wonder 3. Helping to make robot uprising the new zombie apocalypse 4. Bringing back the Saturday morning serial 5. Co-founding a successful new studio, and helping bring back animated films 6. Preserving and shaping...
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...and the tearful gossip columnist Hedda Hopper, the organ playing the finishing score in the background as the larger than life image of Norma Desmond dramatically dissolves into white. A scene so aptly melodramatic as the silent era empress slowly descends into reality of cameras, sets and popularity once again for some kind of finality as Max, her faithful butler prepares her onslaught , reminding the scene definition once again for her (as the presence of room full of audience in her deserted mansion for twenty years has quite overwhelmed her). The 1950 Billy Wilder film, “Sunset Boulevard” starring William Holden as Joe Gillis and Gloria Swanson as the silent film actress Norma Desmond is a classic amalgam of Gothic Melodrama and Film Noir. The film starts off with jolt, initially a track shot of the sunset boulevard road as the police rush towards the crime scene followed by the fishing out of a bullet ridden body from the swimming pool. The pilot scene leads the audience as to expect a murder mystery Film Noir number but ultimately emerges as a melodramatic form. The over expressive, tragicomic Norma Desmond against a mere composed, realistic Joe Gillis fills up the mis-en-scene for one of the Hollywood Insight stories. For a recap, Joe Gillis is a small time B grade American film screenwriter with a couple of creditors and unpaid rent hanging around his neck, flees the police and discovers the gigantic deserted mansion on his way. He thinks of playing a...
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...character (his tragic flaw which precipitates the tragedy) 4. the conflict within the hero is the source of tragedy. However, since Nietzsche, the tragic flaw is often found to be in the universe itself, or in man’s relationship to it, rather than in the hero himself. Comedy- a play written in a kindly or humorous, perhaps bitter or satiric vein, in which the problems or difficulties of the characters are resolved satisfactorily, if not for all characters, at least from the point of view of the audience. Low characters as opposed to noble; characters not always changed by the action of the play; based upon observation of life. Comedy and tragedy are concerned more with character, whereas farce and melodrama are concerned more with plot. Melodrama- a play in which the characters are types rather than individuals, the story and situations exaggerated to the point of improbability or sensationalism and the language and emotion over-emphasized Farce- a comedy in which story, character, and especially situations are exaggerated to the point of improbability; the situation begins with a highly improbable premise, but when that is accepted everything that follows is completely logical. Fast moving; uses such theatrical devices as duplications, reversals, repetitions, surprises, disguises,...
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...character (his tragic flaw which precipitates the tragedy) 4. the conflict within the hero is the source of tragedy. However, since Nietzsche, the tragic flaw is often found to be in the universe itself, or in man’s relationship to it, rather than in the hero himself. Comedy- a play written in a kindly or humorous, perhaps bitter or satiric vein, in which the problems or difficulties of the characters are resolved satisfactorily, if not for all characters, at least from the point of view of the audience. Low characters as opposed to noble; characters not always changed by the action of the play; based upon observation of life. Comedy and tragedy are concerned more with character, whereas farce and melodrama are concerned more with plot. Melodrama- a play in which the characters are types rather than individuals, the story and situations exaggerated to the point of improbability or sensationalism and the language and emotion over-emphasized Farce- a comedy in which story, character, and especially situations are exaggerated to the point of improbability; the situation begins with a highly improbable premise, but when that is accepted everything that follows is completely logical. Fast moving; uses such theatrical devices as duplications, reversals, repetitions, surprises, disguises,...
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...Western Theatre Greek Theatre Greek theatre initially began with religious festivals, with songs, chants, and dances that in time started the revolution of drama. Greek theatre helped develop and influence theatre and drama throughout the world particularly within western society and has helped create one of the greatest play writes in history William Shakespeare. Some important playwrights are Aeschylus, Euripides and Aristophes. Ancinet Greek Costumes The costumes in the ancient Greek theatre also have a symbolic significance in the way the production is understood. Since the hypocrits were all male, it was necessary to make them look female for female roles. "In order to have a female appearance, they were playing wearing the ‘prosterniad’ before the chest and the ‘progastrida’ before the belly. In order to look taller and more impressive they were wearing ‘cothornous’ (wooden shoes with tall heels)".The shoes that they wore had no left and right, but were the same for both sides. They also wore long robes with vertical stripes. The female masks had bigger mouths and eyes. The Chorus The chorus was one of the most important components of the play. It narrates and reflects on the action. Without them, the audience would have no background information, and the play would be more confusing. Originally the chorus had twelve members. Sophocles added three more to make it fifteen. The chorus entered from the two paradoi in three rows of five people. They formed little squares...
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