Emotional Response to Cinema Flashcards
What are some of the narrative features of a melodramatic mode of storytelling?
- moral polarities of good and evil (makes it easier for us to get involved and to take sides)
- plot contrivance and coincidence as a narrative device (e.g Judge just happens to have lost a daughter, lawyer isn’t in control of his own body)
- dramatic transformation (e.g wanting divorce to kissing)
- extreme states of being, situations and actions (e.g suicide attempt in Room)
- emotive subject matter and themes e.g illness/self-sacrifice/guilt
- focus on conflicts in family and personal relationships
What are some stylistic features of a melodramatic mode of storytelling?
- use of music/songs for dramatic emphasis (e.g Beach scenes)
- overt emotionalism and extreme states in actions and speech, characters wearing hearts on sleeves (e.g Jack screaming when he sees Ma in the bathroom)
- use of emblems (a ‘physical gesture capable of conveying meaning’/gestures, a ‘crystallising enactment’ (e.g Sara’s wistful look through the window pane after Taylor’s death)
- expressionistic and symbolic style/techniques, sometimes referred to as an ‘aesthetic overstatement’ (e.g slow motion in beach scene, killing of diegetic sound when Joy is reunited with Jack, pathetic fallacy of rain on windows)
- sentimental props (e.g Kate’s photo scrapbook, Joy giving Jack her tooth)
What does melodramatic mode of storytelling generate?
A powerful sense of pathos, expresses and evokes a powerful sense of emotion and pity
What are the narratives features of character engagement (cognitive explanation)?
- a strong moral dimension
- the narrative should give us subjective access to characters, should align us and attach us to them
- to feel sympathy for them characters should have a desirable set of personal traits e.g kind to the weak
- the interior states of characters should be transparent and not opaque, we should know what they think/feel
What are the stylistic features of character engagement (cognitive explanation)? Note: these give us transparent access to a character
- expressive performance e.g facial expressions, body lang, attitude (emotions given full acting out)
- expressive close-ups and reaction shots, lack of POV as we cannot read their external behaviour and so can’t sympathise
- visual and tactile ‘display rules’ should be evident e.g ‘touchy feely’
- impassioned speeches/kind words
The cognitive explanation roots our emotional response in response to characters, but how does narrative and style work to aid this?
They create the right conditions in which to feel ‘sympathetic allegiance’
Why are ‘women’s pictures’ considered to be more powerful in generating pathos and sympathy?
Because culturally - and in popular cinema - women have been more inclined to show and reveal their emotions (both Room and My Sister’s Keeper feature female lead character that give their emotions a full acting out)
What can we find in the scene where Taylor dies (RE melodramatic mode of storytelling?
- Kate tells her mum “we did it, ok?!”, to which mum isn’t pleased. This wrong-foots us and makes the the ensuing scenario much more melodramatic and emotionally changed (this is the sort of plot contrivance and excess and exaggeration that goes with what Phillip identifies as a melodramatic mode of storytelling)
- when Sara asks Alice where Taylor is we cut to a POV shot through the glass in Kate’s room which kills off the diegetic sound (consequently emphasising the dramatic qualities of performance in melodramatic fashion, such as Sara’s head dropping). We don’t ‘hear’ the news but infer it from body lang, intensifying the emotional impact
- we then cut to Kate and Sara entwined on the hospital bed. Rain streams down the windows, creating the pathetic fallacy that is a feature of melodrama while Sara’s wistful look out of the window is a classic melodramatic ‘emblem’. There’s gentle underscoring of piano which adds to the emotional power of the scene, and there is no dialogue which highlights the expressive gestures (e.g Sara gently stroking Kate)
What is the significance of the photo scrapbook?
It’s a sentimental prop that are commonplace in melodramatic storytelling (see also: the tooth Joy gives Jack)
How does the Beach scene work (in terms of melodramatic mode of storytelling)
- Kate requests to go the beach which she loves (and thus has sentimental value). When Sara finds out, believing Kate is too sick, she acts out her anger in a histrionic way e.g lots of stopping, flailing arms
- when we get to the beach the sun shines (pathetic fallacy), family unit highlighted by fact no one else is on beach
- a generally acoustic guitar song titled “Feels Like Home” plays, clearly narratively motivated, adds emotional resonance to the scene
- when Sara arrives she kisses the dad (dramatic transformation, they were talking of divorce in the last scene). Kate responds by clapping and laughing, we rely on expressive performance and overt emotionalism
- Kate bravely gets up and walks off on her own. There’s a rosy glow as sunset beckons, another example of pathetic fallacy as the sun sets (both literally and metaphorically on her life)
How does the Beach scene work (in terms of Professor Dancyger’s concept of ‘feeling states’)
Feeling states;
- Professor Dancyger highlights significance of songs in creating ‘feeling states ‘ (“a single short song can be viewed as an even greater concentration of emotion”)
- of crucial importance here is the dramatic combination of music and its lyrics. Dancyger says that music itself “synthesis human emotion” but that “when we add lyrics…we are given a direction for the emotion of the music”
- this is certainly the case with ‘Feels Like Home’. The words are narratively motivated, movingly poignant and add pathos to the scene (“if you knew how much this moment means to me…”)
How does the Beach scene work (in terms of Greg Smith’s ‘mood cues’)?
- Greg Smith’s ‘mood cue’ approach works for the Beach scene as it can be said this scene is instrumental in sustaining the (sentimental) mood of the film. ‘Emotional markers’, as he says, “encourage the mood to continue”.
- the primary purpose of an ‘emotional marker’ is to to generate a brief burst of emotion. The beach scene is not narratively crucial but it is a very intense emotional that is both congruent with the established sentimental mood and helps hold us into this mood, but also makes it more likely we will continue to evaluate future stimuli as sad, thus sustaining the mood and preparing us for what is to come
How does the scene in which Jack and Ma are reunited work (in terms of melodramatic mode of storytelling)?
Although Room largely works in a fairly typical indie film manner (lo-fi aesthetic, fairly minimal production values) it is as one review noted “occasionally melodramatic”. Arguably the most memorable scene, it is undoubtedly the most melodramatic (due to ticking so many boxes associated with melodrama), and there is a sense of being, as Phillips puts it, “more than is needed to tell the story”
- in melodrama the interplay of narrative with stylistic features is important, as it is here. The re-uniting of a mother and child is a naturally poignant experience and a good example of ‘extreme situation’ that makes for a melodramatic storyline. Couple this with the knowledge that Joy is unsure if she would ever see Jack again, and that Jack has never been without his mother, and we see narrative ‘contrivance’ making an already dramatic and emotional scenario more melodramatic in nature
- we see pathetic fallacy with the rain on the window, one of the most familiar melodramatic cinematic ‘emblems’, while Jack’s expressive performance (with the desperate banging) registering his ‘extreme state’ of anguish
- when Jack sees Ma running to him te ‘manipulation’ kicks in; the action goes into slow motion (a common melodramatic device in contemporary cinema) which elongates the moment and intensifies it, and the diegetic sound is muted and soft piano comes in. There’s also a rich ambient sound which adds textures and shows how how sound is used as a ‘special effect’ in intensifying and exaggerating the filmic experience. Once she opens the door she pulls Jack into a passionate embrace (captured in close up), the like of which is synonymous with melodramatic performance. Note: the scene is largely acted without dialogue, relying on physical expressivity to convey the intensity.
- this is the peak of the emotional charge; after this things return to normal, narratively and stylistically. The diegetic sound of sirens comes back and we can hear Joy sobbing
