Western and Melodrama - Essay Example

Introduction Irrefutably, film is one of the most influential and significant art forms. A critic and art historian, Erwin Panofsky, even dramatically suggested that without the film, human life will be a “social catastrophe”. Furthermore, to amplify his admiration for the importance of the film, he maintained that, “If all the serious lyric poets, composers, painters and sculptors were forced by law to stop their activities, a rather small fraction of the general public would seriously regret it. If the same thing were to happen with the movies the social conssequences would be catastrophic” (Quart and Auster 2002, p. 2). The sentiment was rather exaggerated yet films shown in different forms of media such as television, theaters and video cassete are absolutely the channel of the general public’s entertainment and are the embodiment of a democratic cultural framework. However, the primary significance of the film industry in the creation of pleasure for the general public does not necessarily imply that it can be a dimension of the cultural and historical indication. But the reality that films get in touch with the mass audience means that they represent some of the unconsious and conscious experiences of the general public, or probably a considerable portion of it (MacBean 1975, p. 48). Nevertheless, in the case of the American film industry, it is painstaking for many art scholar and historian to discern the relationship between Hollywood films and popular consciousness from the time 1940s until the contemporary period. The popular mind itself is multifaceted. It is inticately divided into different categories such as age, gender, ethnicity and social class and is habitually inconsistent and unstable in response. During the late sixties and early seventies, in the span of four or five years, the general movie audience shifted away from compassion towards social deviance of Bonnie and Clyde (1967) to the justice and regulate vigilantism of Dirty Harry (1971), and it is uncertain if that constant alteration of movie preference is in commune with some deep-seated transformation of popular feeling. However, it is probable that these divergent outlooks toward wickedness and crime coexisted in the American society, and the films further influence the already heteregenous American public. Likewise, it is difficult to determine the factors that contribute to the popular success of a particular film (Neale 1981, p. 11). For instance, did the movie Rambo garner its popularity because of its political undertone such as patriotism and anti-communist sentiments or because of the lead star’s, Sylvester Stallone, muscle-headed allure and the film’s breathtaking violent stunts and actions? Apparently, the combination of these elements provided great sensations to the movie which harvested a large number of audience. However, it is really tricky to isolate the most fundamental element of a movie’s audience appeal. During the last twenty years, some historians and culture reviewers have realized that films must be given credit of its social and cultural importance. Among the notable movies of this period were History/American Film by Jackson and O’Connor, Movie Made America by Robert Sklar, Film: The Democratic Art by Garth Jowett, America in the Movies by Michael Wood and others. Historians have come to a more profound realizaton when they have decided to examine the movies as a way to understand condition of the American psyche. Arthur Schlesinger Jr. has asserted that the film industry is inconceivable without the American contribution and the fact that American movies is the vehicle used by the general public to express their imagination strongly suggest that films are not only relevant at the surface but also at its internal underpinning, as a medium of the American way of life (Quart and Auster 2002, p. 6). Aside from art historians who were partly responsible for the rich depiction of the American film history, there is another group of scholars who have given much vibrancy and color to the liberal film industry of the American nation, the genre critiques. Genre criticism normally identify the shifts in the form’s principles and themes or investigate the rapport of the genre to the audience. Genre critiques are diverse in their ways of dissecting a particular movie; some concentrate on the external aspects of the movie such as the iconography of the musical, its structure and argument whereas some put emphasis on the internal features such as its cultural and social significance and its psychological meaning and implication (Bordwell 1979, p. 56). Nevertheless, the American film history zeroed in on the two most critiqued movie genre, the western and the melodrama. The Western Genre The western is considered by art historians as the richest, the most complicated and the most lasting of all the narratives that the American society recurrently enlightens itself. As the foundation of the American nation, the western genre has been continually renewed, revolutionized and amended through an assortment of discursive forms, “from folk ballads and wood carvings to pulp novels and cigarette ads” (Gehring 1988, p. 25). Its origins can be traced back from the age-old American tradition to tales of Indian captivity and colonial music, to the literary works of James Fenimore Cooper and other celebrated fiction authors, and predominantly to the popular description of the “taming” of the American West in the concluding half of the nineteenth century. Yet, the western story has been related most regularly, most influentially and most accesibly on film. The western genre gained its reputation as a symbol of national legend and cultural bearing in the early twentieth century as an ingenious mass medium emerged, the cinema (Tuska 1985, p. 3). In its fundamental nature, the western is both historically and geographically definite; it sketches the peopling of the American West from the final days of the Civil War until the early twentienth century. Consequently, the western is more openly binded to social and historical reality than practically any other fim genre. Hence, the simultaneous generality and specificity of the western genre in terms of its nature and characteristics produced three categories, namely, the historical reconstruction, the historical romance and the formulary western, which have been predominant throughout the genre’s development. The traditional western story which is characterized by a conflict that is resolved by a revolutionary and innovative protagonist necessitates a degree of romanticism so that the lackluster narration of historical events will be stimulating and inspiring. Similarly, the most commonplace and typical formulation requires a certain degree of historical legitimacy to be classified as western (Bazin 1971, p. 140). Unfortunately, even though the western genre had provided the foundations of American mythology and legend in the field of cinematic knowledge, it has been continuously attacked by genre critics because of its crude morality. The genre critics derided the structure of the western genre which they illustrated as a sequence of conventions and rules that functioned as a short-hand communication approach with the viewers. For instance, it is common in western movies to portray the protagonist wearing a white hat whereas the antagonist wears a dark hat; then these two main characters will duel against each other on an abandoned avenue. Another prevailing theme of the western movies is the contrast between the lifestyle of the cattlemen and ranchers who are pictured as loners and the townsfolks as fairly sociable (ibid). Apparently, the genre critics are dissatisfied with the recurrent hence predictable premise of the western genre. Other genre critics argued that “Westerners” should not be tied up with the convention of the American West setting in the 19th century since other movie genres exploit similar codes. For instance, a very ordinary Western stratagem depicts a lawman from the east who traveled west and wrestles with a gang of criminals and hooligans, and is guided by a local lawman who is initially an insignificant character in the story until the time he can redeem himself by rescuing the protagonist’s life. This narrative can be applied by any action film and can express any number of Westerns. Equally, films located in the old American West may not essentially be deemed “Westerns” (Gehring 1988, p. 40). The Melodrama Genre Of all the film genres, melodrama is definitely the easiest to distinguish yet the hardest to define. It is constituted of multitudes of things. There is no existent prevailing formal aspect that differentiates melodrama from all others. Viewers may recognize western because of its setting, a musical because of the presence of joyful and melancholic singing and dancing, or a horror fil because of the occurrence of the eerie. However, the consistently agreed-upon characteristic of the melodrama genre is its “domestic” or “maternal” emphasis of family life (Cook 1981, p. 5). Thomas Elsaesser, in his landmark historical overview of melodrama, accentuated the importance of music melodrama as emphasizer of emotional effects. While almost all traditional film narratives represent and engender emotion, melodrama not only punctuates emotionality, but it has the responsibility to situate the effects within a clear-cut outlined moral codes. According to Robert B. Heilman, the indispensable purpose of melodrama is to reveal "the worlds evil in characters of single-mindedness rather than tragic dividedness” (Gehring 1988, p. 286). Melodrama then should narrate a fundamentally emotional story within the confines of a comprehensible moral constitution. The ideological structure of the melodrama genre is then reinforced by a series of visual excess which is created by the musical enticement of emotional and moral contradictions in the film (ibid). Yet, despite the emotionally appealing effects of the melodrama genre, many genre critics ridicule its shortcomings such as its lack of visual realism. Melodramas, in fact, had an array of visual techniques devised to hark back the viewers that they weren’t factual. These technological methodologies employed in melodrama are, “extreme high and low camera angles, the placement of large objects in the foreground, visual blocks (like columns) separating characters, and non-natural lighting were jarring to the audience and were a manifestation of the inner tensions of the characters (filmfrog 1959, p. 5). These tactics are put into place primarily to allow the viewers some time to realize that they are actually watching a fabricated reality and that social problems are only overcome efficiently and successfully in the synthetic world. However, the negative effect is that the support for genuine human sociality is eventually relegated to doubt (Schatz 1981, p. 249). Furthermore, genre critics habitually observe the tendency of melodramas to pass judgment on the role of women through illustrating the conflict between profession and domestic responsibilities; yet, the genre critics also speak well of the melodramas’ treatment of female characters. Even though women are often typecast in melodramas, that are to be always attractive and alluring, they were given the most important roles. This feministic inclination of the film industry is quite rare at times when women are consigned to domestic servitude as a wife and as a mother. In 1959, the production of melodramas was put into halt. As popular romances, they were dislodged by television soap operas. Moreover, genre criticism on melodramas was also stopped because of the risky condition of the stable family in the modern times. The primary importance of melodramas faded with time yet it is still venerated as a “serious artistic and cultural form” (Klinger 1994, p. xii). Conclusion The history of the American film and society is unquestionably one of the most dynamic among the other existing cultural visual manifestations and presentations from around the globe. The foundation of the American identity can be partly and significantly attributed to the diverse structure, themes and strategies of the various film genres that the American entertainment industry was able to spawn. However, the inherent dynamism and rich identity of the American film and society are not possible without the two most important groups of the industry, the art historians and the genre critics. Expectedly, each of the various film genres has its own strengths and weaknesses. These polarities of the film genres were exploited by both the art historians and genre critics in order to generate a well-argued and coherent set of review and appraisal. Unfortunately, only two of the diverse film genres were able to make it to the top priorities of these film scholars, the western and the melodrama. In a sense, the fundamental difference of the western and the melodrama from the other genres is their erstwhile and conventional portrayal of reality. Genre critics often label these genres as typical and very much predictable because of similar codes rearranged over time. Yet, genre critics also acknowledge the contributions and accomplishments of western and melodrama genres to the American film history. The basis or pillar of American mythology and legend was espoused by the western whereas the talent of women in playing the major roles in a narrative was promoted by the melodramas. Works Cited Bordwell D. 1979, "The Art Cinema as a Mode of Film Practice," Film Criticism. FilmFrog Archives: Lecture given at Sonoma State University (1995), Imitation of Life (1959), http://yorty.sonoma.edu:80/filmfrog/archive/Imitation_of_Life.html Jon T. 1985, The American West in Film, Greenwood Press, Westport, Conn. Klinger, B. 1994, Melodrama and Meaning: History, Culture, and the Films of Douglas Sirk, Indiana University Press, Indianapolis. Macbean, J.R. 1975, Film and Revolution, Indiana University Press, Bloomington. Neale, S. 1981, “Art Cinema as Institution”, Screen, Spring. Quart, L. and Auster, A. 2002, American Film and Society since 1945, Praeger, Westport, CT. Schatz, T. 1981, Hollywood Genres: Formulas, Filmmaking, and the Studio System, Temple University Press, Philadelphia. Read More