Popular melodramas are a balm for emotional wounds

2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25

The genre of melodrama is as complex and intricate as life itself. Movies of this type convey the deepest, hidden feelings of a person: love, deceit, hatred, betrayal, loy alty. Traditionally, the storyline is based on the life story (episode) of the central character, filled with exciting moments and experiences. Well-known and popular melodramas encourage the viewer to empathize with the characters, while not revealing the intrigue until the climax. Directors deliberately focus on personal emotions, feelings and experiences.

Classic of the genre

Cult, recognized by a wide audience, are those popular melodramas, on the basis of which an infinite number of films by other authors working in this genre were created. Traditionally, they encourage the viewer to think about his life, remember his own emotions, feelings experienced in the past, notice the funny and kind in the surrounding reality, or just have a good time. The most popular melodramas are considered canonical, the action of which takes place during the war years or the post-war period, whenfeelings an order of magnitude sharper, cleaner:

1. "Casablanca" (1942) dir. Michael Curtitz.
2. "Gone with the Wind" (1939) dir. Victor Fleming.
3. "Doctor Zhivago" (1965) dir. David Lin.

Love and melodrama

One of the strongest and most beautiful human feelings - love - most often becomes the basis for creating films of this genre. Is it possible to think of something more exciting and exciting than the innermost feeling that resides in the hearts of the beloved! Naturally, to contemplate how loving hearts overcome obstacles and vicissitudes of life is terribly exciting and instructive, so the most popular melodramas deliberately exaggerate this burning topic.

1. "Ghost" (1990) dir. Jerry Zucker, starring Patrick Swayze, Demi Moore.
2. "Pretty Woman" (1990) dir. Garry Marshall, starring the unrivaled Richard Gere, Julia Roberts.
3. "Titanic" (1997) dir. James Cameron, starring the inimitable Leonardo DiCaprio, Kate Winslet.
4. "Shakespeare in Love" (1998) dir. John Madden, starring the inimitable Gwyneth P altrow, Joseph Fiennes.
5. Animated film-tale "Beauty and the Beast" (1991) dir. Gary Trousdale.

Russian films - domestic mentality

Popular Russian melodramas, in addition to traditional and generally accepted for the genre, have their own specialcharacteristics. This is a unique original color and expressive mentality. Soviet films dedicated to life and love show not only a specific way of life, national character traits, but also a unique manner of expressing emotions and feelings. Special concepts, which are not characterized by shades of expression and clear edges, are demonstrated by the paintings "Spring on Zarechnaya Street", "Moscow Does Not Believe in Tears", "Office Romance", "Girls", "Love and Doves", "Ordinary Miracle" (1978), "Cruel Romance", "Beware of the Car", "Station for Two", "Afonya" and the musical "Juno and Avos". The films listed above are still in demand and do not lose ground in the category of "popular melodramas".

Modern domestic film projects

Modern film projects are easy to distinguish from foreign ones by their peculiar attitude to family values and love in general, violent passions that sweep away everything in their path, on an unconscious ability to sacrifice for the sake of a lover. They are not at all characterized by amazing special effects, sometimes even against the backdrop of the meager decoration of a village estate, serious passions unfold. Popular Russian melodramas of the post-Soviet period can be counted on one hand: "Asya", "Afrikanych", "Winter Cherry", "The Barber of Siberia", "Hello and Farewell", "My Beloved Star", "Poor Sasha", mini-series "Gypsy" " and others.

Newly minted

Popular melodramas of 2014 provide the viewer with an exclusive opportunity to experience what, by the will of fate, is not given to everyone in life. The viewer involuntarily empathizes with the main characters, experiencing with them their success, satisfaction from the rapid development of their careers, pride. Domestic novelties of 2014 will pleasantly surprise the viewer: “When you do not expect it at all”, “Minus one”, “Love and Roman”, and foreign films will definitely like: “Beauty and the Beast”, “Maleficent”, “Dangerous Illusion”, “Love Through Time" and "The Fault in the Stars". Often new popular melodramas reveal problems that were once left unresolved.