Melodrama can typically be looked as a form of display on excess and emotions, but it is used as a key to capturing intense feelings that would be hard to express in real life. Linda Williams established the common elements of how melodrama serves to present characters through morality and emotions by ways of pathos and action. Ben Singer explored the narrative devices through key constitutive features such as pathos, overwrought emotion, and non-classical narrative structure. Christine Gledhill looked at how melodrama works not just as a singular genre, but as a recognizable element that compliment within various genres. Some notable genres like comedy, horror, and action aim to bring out certain emotions from the audience. Comedy can make …show more content…
Alfred Hitchcock) explores Linda Williams’ idea of home in melodrama, where it begins and wants to end in a “space of innocence.” Despite the establishment of right and wrong between the main characters and the birds, ultimately the birds do end up rising over them. Even though they are not humans, the birds’ position in the movie still remains clear, based on their sudden attacks against the town of Bodega Bay. Most of the action happens during the daytime, in which the aesthetic brings some sort of a combination of terror and a colorfully rich melodrama that evokes Douglas Sirk-directed movies. However, the final scene where the main characters quietly move out of the house is in a dark aesthetic, just in the brink of dawn. The main characters may have wanted to be in their “space of innocence” by protecting their house, but realized that this space could be achieved by getting out of town instead. When it comes to the part when the characters are walking past a very large group of birds without trying to disturb them, their silence is as much as displaying exaggerated emotion, since it is a matter of life and death. After they leave town, this space of the house they thought they would be staying in would end up being invaded and occupied by the birds, which does bring up a bleak ending. However, this does not mean that this movie subverts the melodramatic element, since the sentimental ending could be seen in such melodramas like …show more content…
Although this scene is a superhero movie, Uncle Ben’s death scene from the 2002 film Spider-Man (dir. Sam Raimi) does not rely on the genre’s mechanics, but on the sense of pathos from Peter, as he is witnessing his uncle’s death, which is mostly told visually through Peter and his uncle’s share of tears. The tears do not just represent Peter’s sentiment towards his uncle, but also act as Peter’s frustration that serves as a driving force for the Spider-Man action sequence right afterwards, in which he chases down the thief. It isn’t until the end of the sequence when Peter realizes that this was the same thief Peter intentionally let go of. This is similar to Singer pointing out that “situation often entails a startling twist of events that creates a dramatic impasse,” (40) so the sense of Peter’s regret is added to the sharing of tears, because this decision, which unbeknownst to Peter, ended up with the death of Uncle Ben by the thief. The moral legibility is clear between Peter and the thief, since Peter is the character the audience roots for. However, this scene does not clearly establish Peter’s position yet, since he feels he is responsible for not preventing this situation from happening. So it is his further determination to use his powers for good, especially when he fights against the lead antagonist Green Goblin later
The novel Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott is a book that was written in order to provide “Some instructions on writing and life.” Lamott published the book in 1994 in hopes to share the secrets of what it is truly like to be a writer, as both a warning and as encouragement. Bird by Bird shares with the reader the ironic truth of being a struggling writer through personal experience and humorous stories. Lamott uses memories from her past to help illustrate her points and to help the reader get to know who she is, not only as a writer, but as a person. The author focuses on the true struggles and benefits of being a writer while using metaphors and analogies to express her points, she also wraps her life stories around almost every writing tip.
persuasions. For that reason, using only pathos for emotions of the audiences is not enough
The films “The Birds” and “Psycho” do not portray your typical family and clearly have some dysfunctionalism going on. Throughout the film In “The Birds” Mitch continually refers to his own mother as “darling” and “dear” – clearly this is a sign of an enmeshed dysfunctional relationship between mother and son. Mitch and his mother Lydia’s relationship has more of a husband and wife's role; for example, when Mitch and Lydia wash dishes, their conversation is like husband and wife. There are three relationships with Mitch that are disrupted by Melanie’s arrival in Bodega Bay; Lydia, Annie, and Cathy. The first attack comes to Cathy’s birthday party, which Melanie attends. While Cathy welcomes Melanie she seems to subconsciously harboring the fear that her brother’s affections will be replaced by Melanie. The other attack comes after Melanie leaves the lovebirds for Cathy; the seagull’s attack is a warning shot that Melanie ignores. When the birds attack the schoolchildren, it's after Melanie has arrived at the school to pick up Mitch's sister. Another warning shot arrives as another gull slams itself into Annie’s front door when Melanie invades Annie’s territory by choosing to board with her for the night. During another attack, Annie is killed, leaving Melanie to take her place. Mitch's mother Lydia, a woman portrayed as cold to anyone not in her immediate family, and especially cold to other women who might have an interest in her son. The bird attacks are just a metaphor for Melanie's "invasion" of the peaceful world of Mitch & his family, a world that seems peaceful on the surface but in fact has all these repressed feelings and anxieties bubbling underneath. Every scene in the film is about Melanie's "invasion" of M...
Relations between sympathy-empathy expressiveness and fiction have become a significant issue in the debate on the emotional responses to the film fiction. Due to their complexity many scholars found it useful to diagram them. With his essay, “Empathy and (Film) Fiction”, Alex Neill tries to develop new theory for analyzing the fiction and, especially, the emotional responses from the audience on it. The project of this essay is represented with an aim to show the audience the significant value of the emotional responses to the film fiction. From my point of view in the thesis of his project he asks a simple question: “Why does the (film) fiction evoke any emotions in the audience?”, further building the project in a very plain and clever way. Tracing the origins of this issue, he distinguishes between two types of emotional responses, sympathy and empathy, as separate concepts in order to understand the influence of both types of emotional responses to fiction. However, relying mostly on this unsupported discrepancy between two concepts and the influence of the “identification” concept, Neill finds himself unable to trace sympathy as a valuable response to fiction. This difficulty makes Neill argue throughout the better part of the text that empathy is the key emotional factor in the reaction to (film) fiction and that it is a more valuable type of emotional response for the audience.
The Birds, the film version, is more clear and accurate to represent which is more successful. The novel is a story about a family who lives on a peninsula in England and deals with multiple attacks from different species of birds. The movie is a late work up about bird problems just as the story“The Birds” has. On the other hand, in the movie, towns people that live near the sea come into problems with bird attacks but do not take it serious at first. Although both versions of the story attempt to leave a lasting impact on their audiences, Alfred Hitchcock’s film is ultimately more successful due to the director’s use of mood, settings, and visuals. Daphne Du Maurier’s short story “The Birds” written in 1952 took place on a peninsula in
Through strong dramatic plots, characters and music, melodrama has created an engaging, well-developed form of theatre. But melodrama is not limited to one category. Like other forms of the theatre arts, melodrama can be further broken down into Victorian melodrama and Modern melodrama. As the names entail, Victorian melodrama was practiced in the Victorian Era (1837-1901) whereas Modern melodrama is still being performed today. Both equally exaggerated and emphasizing the good vs. evil conflict, these two forms of melodrama have shaped the stage theatrically and developed complexity in character and plot development.
For example, the short story “ Why we crave horror “ Stephen says that we are having a “ particular sort of fun” meaning death. King says “ pro football has become the voyeur's version of combat,then the horror film has become the modern version”( Kings , “ why we crave horror” .2). Meaning the soldier’s version of combat has become the horror , in which kids see, fun to watch at a young age. Horror movies are to make a purpose for you to feel catharsis towards it. Emotion muscles also known as the human condition, are the way you feel about the horror in that case, having fun while watching it and finding it interesting. Compared to the narrator and the events of “Strawberry Spring,” we “reestablish our feelings of essential normality” (King, “Why We Crave” 1). Despite the macabre fact that multiple women are killed in the short story “Strawberry Spring,” the experience is a “peculiar sort of fun” (King, “Why We Crave”
The term melodrama has come to be applied to any play with romantic plot in which an author manipulates events to act on the emotions of the audience without regard for character development or logic (Microsoft Encarta). In order to classify as a Victorian melodrama, several key techniques must be used, including proximity and familiarity to the audience, deceit rather than vindictive malice, lack of character development and especially the role of social status.
Everybody knows Alfred Hitchcock is the master of suspense and is known for inciting fear in the hearts of his audience. His multiple, fast cuts directs his audience to what he wants them to see and feel. Close-ups of the actors faces clearly shows what the characters are feeling and forces the audience to feel the same emotions. With all his expert directing skills, is there any meaning behind what he chooses to portray in his films or is it all for show? Could there be a deeper meaning to his films? The answer to these questions is a firm yes. Hitchcock’s past experiences guided him to be the director he was. The inadequateness of the police, control of all details in his films, and long stretches of no dialogue all portrayed in his films are all directly correlated to Hitchcock’s early life and early professional life.
In Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds he uses the unreal intelligence of the birds to have the humans in the film be treated like animals. Having nature fight back for its place in the food chain. This all starts with the birds attacking Melanie in the boat in the beginning of the movie. In the scene the camera is in a high angle when the bird attacks, then the camera cuts to a close up of the drop of blood falling from her head. The way that the shot is framed with a close up of the drop of blood on her hand helps foreshadow the doom that is getting ready to come upon her and the rest of the town. This only being the first occurrence they find it not necessary to investigate any more, but is not until later during the school house scene that the
Williams juxtaposes the three genres together, to reveal similarities and differences, and, in turn, their similar and different desire effects on the audiences. Specifically, she points out the physical reaction of characters in the films, and how the audience members mimic them. Firstly, in regards to the physical body, Williams discusses the similar uncontrollable “convulsion or spasm,” that comes with the different genres; a body on the screen is “’beside itself’ with sexual pleasure, fear and terror, or overpowering sadness.” (729) Next, she dissects the sound of these bodily reactions – the overpowering moan, scream, or sob that the chara...
Hitchcock has characteristics as an auteur that is apparent in most of his films, as well as this one.
The two films Psycho and The Birds, both directed by Alfred Hitchcock, share similar themes and elements. These recurring themes and elements are often prevalent in many of Hitchcock’s works. In Psycho and The Birds, Hitchcock uses thematic elements like the ideal blonde woman, “the motherly figure”, birds, and unusual factors that often leave the viewer thinking. Hitchcock’s works consist of melodramatic films, while also using pure cinema to help convey messages throughout the film.
There are four crucial scenes of this film in which Hitchcock shows a change in perspective and identity through the mise-en-scène. Hitchcock’s signature motifs, style, and themes are conveyed through the mise-en-scène.
In society today, there are thousands of genres in the world that can be used in a plethora of ways. Probably the most common and most popular genres in this current generation are horror and comedy. These genres are found at the opposite end of the spectrum but it is not rare to see them side by side in movie theaters or even some libraries. Horror and comedy are known for their fictitious storylines along with some semblance of a lesson to be learned. Although in most cases lessons that are taught in horror films or novels are more likely to stick then in a comedy situation.