4
Film Melodrama
This course will examine one particular film genre, the family melodrama. Students will learn the specific features of genre criticism and go on to apply theoretical concepts to the analysis of films chosen for their representative status. Students will become familiar with the early works that established the tradition, with the maternal melodramas that solidified the genre, and with the paradigmatic films of Douglas Sirk that saw the culmination of the form. Students will write critical, evaluative studies of the films as they represent the contradictions of class, race, and gender in American culture. They will learn how to recognize the melodrama as the quintessential Hollywood form.
The course will meet during two 80-minutres class periods each week and will have one evening screening (outside of class) from 6:10 to 9:00 once each week. Given the lab-like nature of the extra two periods of class time, the course should be valued at four credits. Attendance at both lectures and screenings is mandatory. Students may have no more than five unexcused absences. If you expect to miss one or two classes, please use the University absence reporting website https://sims.rutgers.edu/ssra/ to indicate the date and reason for your absence. An email is automatically sent to the instructor.
Departmental Learning Goals: This course addresses learning goals established by the English Department, as follows.
Students who major in English will demonstrate:
1. knowledge of literatures in English, their historical, cultural, and formal dimensions and diversity
2. strategies of interpretation, including an ability to use critical and theoretical terms, concepts, and methods in relation to a variety of textual forms and other media
3. the ability to engage with the work of other critics and writers, using and citing such sources effectively
4. the ability to write persuasively and precisely, in scholarly and, optionally, creative forms.
Required Reading : Lucy Fischer, ed., Imitation of Life: Douglas Sirk Director (IL)
Articles on Reserve @ Alexander Library (xc). Recommended: Christine Gledhill, Home is Where the Heart Is (out of print).
Written requirements: Scene Analysis Paper (20%): The first paper will be a 7-8 page (2,000-word) analysis of a selected scene from a film noir. Research Paper (40%): The second paper will be a 10 page (3,000-word) research paper on a selected aspect of film noir. Suggested topics will be circulated in class.
Exams and other requirements: Final Exam (30%): The exam will cover all readings, screenings, lectures and discussions presented in the course. It will be a short-answer/essay exam. Participation and Attendance (10%): Attendance at all classes and screenings is required. Active participation in class discussions will count favorably in your final evaluation; repeated absences will substantially lower your grade.
Week one: INTRODUCTION: MELODRAMA AS THE QUINTESSENTIAL HOLLYWOOD FORM. MELODRAMA & THE CLASSICAL TEXT: THE BIRTH OF STORYTELLING IN FILM
Screening: Way Down East (D.W. Griffith, 1920). Reading: Nick Browne, “Griffith’s Family Discourse” (xc)
Week two: MELODRAMATIC ARTICULATIONS: CINEMA AND THEATER
Screening: Broken Blossoms (D.W. Griffith, 1919). Reading: Julia Lesage, “Artful Racism” (xc; attached to Browne) and Sandy Flitterman-Lewis, “The Blossom and the Bole” (xc)
Week three: DRAMAS OF THE FAMILY, SCENARIOS OF DESIRE (THE BRIDE & THE VAMP)
Screening: Sunrise (F.W. Murnau, 1927). Reading: Thomas Elsaesser, “Tales of Sound and Fury” (xc); F.W. Murnau, “Notes” (xc).
Week four: FIGURES OF THE MATERNAL: PATRIARCHY AND THE MOTHER
Screening: Stella Dallas (King Vidor, 1937). Reading: Linda Williams, “Something Else Besides a Mother” (xc) and E. Ann Kaplan, “The Case of the Missing Mother” (xc)
Week five: SPINSTERHOOD IS POWERFUL: WHY ASK FOR THE MOON?
Screening: Now, Voyager (Irving Rapper, 1942). Reading: Maria LaPlace, “Producing and Consuming” (xc)
Week six: HYSTERIA, MATERNITY, SEDUCTION: VERSIONS OF THE FEMININE
Screening: Guest in the House (John Brahm, 1944). Reading: Sandy Flitterman-Lewis, “Rupture and Reconstitution” (xc)
Week six: THOREAU IN THE ERA OF LATE CAPITALISM
Screening: All That Heaven Allows (Douglas Sirk, 1956). Reading: Lucy Fischer, “Douglas Sirk, Biographical Sketch” (IL 29-35), Paul Willemen, “Distanciation & Douglas Sirk” (IL 268-72). Jon Halliday, “All That Heaven Allows” (xc).
Week seven: THE COLOR OF MELODRAMA: DOMESTIC BLUES
Screening: Imitation of Life (John Stahl, 1934). Reading: Lucy Fischer, “Source” (IL 159-79); “Production/Star” (IL 181-231).
Week eight: DOUGLAS SIRK AND THE CULTURAL POLITICS OF DESIRE
Screening: Imitation of Life (Douglas Sirk, 1959). Reading: Lucy Fischer, “The Three-Way Mirror” (IL 3-28), Marina Hueng, “What’s the Matter with Sara Jane?” (IL 302-24), Sandy Flitterman-Lewis, “The Black Woman’s Double Determination” (IL 325-335).
Week nine: A GIRL AND HER OIL WELL: THE FAMILY ROMANCE
Screening: Written on the Wind (Douglas Sirk, 1956). Reading: Laura Mulvey, “Sirk and Melodrama” (xc), Fred Camper, “The Films of Douglas Sirk” (IL 247-67).
Week ten: HAPPINESS ISN’T ALWAYS FUN: SIRK REVISITED
Screening: Far From Heaven (Todd Haynes, 2002). Reading: Paul Willemen, “Sirkian System” (IL 273-8), Jeremy Butler, “Style and the Domestic Melodrama” (IL 289-301), “Reviews/Commentaries” (IL 235-46).
Week eleven: CRITICAL DISTANCE AND THE POLITICIZED MELODRAMA
Week twelve: RACE AND GENDER ON MELODRAMA TIC TERRAIN
Screening: Ali:: Fear Eats the Soul (Rainer Werner Fassbinder, 1974). Reading: Robert Kolker, “Rainer Werner Fassbinder” (xc).
Week thirteen: MELODRAMA AND THE FAMILY: VARIED VERSIONS ACROSS TIME
Course Bibliography:
1. Nick BROWNE, “Griffith’s Family Discourse” (Quarterly Review Film Studies 6:1, W 81)
2. Thomas ELSAESSER, “Tales of Sound and Fury” (Monogram 4, 1972)
3. Sandy FLITTERMAN-LEWIS, “The Blossom and the Bole” (Cinema Journal 33:3, Sp94)
4. ------“Rupture and Reconstitution” (Wide Angle 4:2, 1980)
5. Jon HALLIDAY, “All That Heaven Allows” (Douglas Sirk, British Film Institute, 1972)
6. E. Ann KAPLAN, “The Case of the Missing Mother” (P. Erens, ed. Issues in Fem Film Crit Indiana90)
7. Robert KOLKER, “Rainer Werner Fassbinder” (The Altering Eye, Oxford UP, 1983)
8. Maria LAPLACE, “Producing and Consuming” (Gledhill, ed. Home is Where the Heart Is, BFI 1987)
9. Julia LESAGE, “Artful Racism” (Jump Cut 26, 1981 [attached to the Browne article]
10. Laura MULVEY, “Notes on Sirk and Melodrama” (Movie no. 25, Winter 77-78)
11. F. W. MURNAU, “Notes on Sunrise” (texts)
12. Tom SCHATZ, “Douglas Sirk & Family Melodrama” (Hollywood Genres, Random House 1981)
13. Linda WILLIAMS, “Something Else Besides a Mother” (Cinema Journal 24, no.1, Fall 1984)