American Film Melodrama and the Gothic

3 units

American film melodrama has been considered both the genre of suffering protagonists, incredible coincidences, and weeping spectators as well as a mode of action, suspense, and in-the-nick-of-time rescues. In this course, we will examine American film melodrama as a dialectic of sentiment and sensation which draws heavily on Gothic tropes of terror, live burial, and haunted internal states. We will trace the origins of film melodrama and the cinematic Gothic to their literary antecedents, the horrors of the French Revolution, and classical and sensational stage melodramas of the nineteenth century. In addition to the 1940s Gothic woman's film cycle, we will excavate the Gothic in the maternal melodrama, the suspense thriller, film noir, domestic melodrama, the slasher film, and the supernatural horror film. Required screenings.