Blog Post 3: Research Paper topic

One topic that I am considering to use for my research paper is the use of omniscience in the melodramas. I thought of this during class on Friday during our discussion on possible ideas. I think this would be interesting because it is something that exists in every movie or tv show and has a very important role in intriguing the audience. Omniscience is what the audience knows but the characters in the movie/show aren't aware of yet. The use of this is significant in every good melodrama because it gives the audience a sense of importance and involvement. It also makes them emotionally involved in the melodrama because they want the other characters to know what they know and get annoyed when nothing happens or if the wrong thing happens. I think that if I picked the right melodramas to use for examples this could be a very interesting essay to write. So far, I have thought of Romeo and Juliet as a perfect example for this topic. There are a lot of Shakespeare works that could also work in this essay, but I think more current melodramas would be more fun to use. I am also interested in celebrity gossip as a topic of unconventional melodramas, I enjoy reading tabloids and seeing how the celebrities react. I also like reality tv as another topic but I'm not sure exactly what I would use to elaborate on it. If I can think of good ideas for my omniscience topic I will definitely use that one. I think I could use that in a fun way.

Blog Post 2

In The Melodramatic Imagination, Peter Brooks mentions the ‘moral occult’, which serves as a major supporter in a melodrama, acting as the center of interest in the movie. In every melodrama, there are always scenes in which are filled with intensity, excitement, and surprise. Due to the immensity of emotions in these movies, it may be difficult to locate the moral occult, especially if you’re not looking for it. With the help of cinematic elements, like gestures, the audience is able to notice and understand the scene that it’s in. Brooks mentions, “James’s moral manichaeism is the basis of a vision of the social world as the scene of dramatic choice between heightened moral alternatives, where every gesture, however frivolous or insignificant it may seem, is charged with the conflict between light and darkness, salvation and damnation”(pg. 5). By the use of gestures, the audience is given more insight to what a character is trying to express or what the director is trying to portray. In the movie All That Heaven Allows, there are many metaphoric gestures that are used. For example, the trophy in the living room represents the father, and what he stood for and how he is remembered. The branch that Ron gives to Cary represents Ron and how he is tied together with nature. The gestures aren’t direct and aren’t as obvious, but if it is being analyzed it is clear that the objects have more meaning.

All That Heaven Allows

The use of music and lighting play a major role in movies, especially in melodramas. Douglas Sirk uses both tools to emphasize the emotions in his movie, All That Heaven Allows.  To start with, music plays a strong role in creating the sense of the scene that is about to role out, without a character even speaking. Light and cheerful music is played during either happy scenes or scenes where nothing in particular is happening. The audience is at ease listening to the music knowing that nothing terrible is about to happen. When an intense, dramatic scene is happening, the music is dark, loud, and powerful. The audience instantly is aware that something serious is about to happen. The same goes for lighting; it’s very exaggerated in this movie in particular. When Cary and Ron are in the mill and decide to get married, they are standing in front of the large window, which is radiating with light. Then, when Cary’s son tells her that he will never talk to her again if she goes through with the marriage, the lighting is very dark and somber. The book says that, “widescreen, deep-focus photography of the kind that Sirk in almost all of his most celebrated melodramas makes it possible to illustrate the emotional distance between characters in physical terms and this is a technique that he was to take full advantage of” (Mercer and Shingler 53). The audience can physically see the separation between Cary and her son during that scene when he is standing behind the screen, but if closer analyzed, it is used to prove the point that they are emotionally separated as well.