Emotion Pictures: International Melodrama
Tickets
When many of us think about movie melodramas, the first names that come to mind are titans of Hollywood’s golden age, directors (Douglas Sirk, Nicholas Ray, Vincente Minnelli, George Cukor) and stars (Lillian Gish, Joan Crawford, Bette Davis) alike. But the melodrama is by no means a distinctly American or mid-century genre, having laid its roots during the silent era (in the work of D. W. Griffith, Erich von Stroheim, F. W. Murnau) before flowering in Japan (Kenji Mizoguchi, Mikio Naruse), Italy (Pier Paolo Pasolini, Federico Fellini), England (David Lean), and elsewhere. Indeed, the careers of many key filmmakers of modern cinema have been predicated on radical reinterpretations of the form, as in the work of Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Pedro Almodóvar, Todd Haynes, Leos Carax, Lars von Trier, Wong Kar Wai, and Guy Maddin. This series pays tribute to the genre that boldly endeavored to put emotion on screen in its purest form, featuring classics from the silent era and Hollywood’s Golden Age to major mid-century films from around the world to modern dramas and subversive postmodern incarnations. Bring tissues.
Organized by Florence Almozini, Dennis Lim, and Tyler Wilson.
Acknowledgments:
Academy Film Archive; China Film Archive; Cineteca di Bologna; Filmoteca UNAM; Instituto Mexicano de Cinematografía (IMCINE); Instituto Nacional de Cine y Artes Audiovisuales (Argentina); Istituto Luce Cinecittà; Japan Foundation; Library of Congress; The Museum of Modern Art; National Audiovisual Institute (Finland); UCLA Film & Television Archive; Richard Suchenski, Center for Moving Image Art at Bard College; Mark Rappaport; Stacey Steers; Ming Wong
Download the series brochure or pick one up at our theaters. On The Close-Up, programmers Florence Almozini, Dennis Lim, and Tyler Wilson recently sat down with the Film Society of Lincoln Center’s Editorial Director Michael Koresky to talk about the genre’s history, its relevance today, and some of the series’ hidden gems. Listen below or subscribe in iTunes.
Silent Screen
Among the most expressive movies ever made, melodramas of the silent era allowed actors to emote with astonishingly direct purity.
The Goddess
Orphans of the Storm
Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans
The Wind
Within Our Gates
Hollywood's Golden Age
From the thirties to the late fifties, the studios regularly produced melodramas of forthright emotion, the most exquisite of which were made by such practitioners of the genre as Leo McCarey, Vincente Minnelli, Nicholas Ray, Douglas Sirk, and others.
All That Heaven Allows
Back Street
Bigger Than Life
Christopher Strong
The Cobweb
Gaslight
Hard, Fast and Beautiful
Imitation of Life
Letter from an Unknown Woman
Limelight
Magnificent Obsession
Make Way for Tomorrow
Mildred Pierce
Now, Voyager
Only Yesterday
Rebel Without a Cause
Some Came Running
Stella Dallas
International Classics
Get an eclectic sampling of melodramas from around the world, which run the gamut from minor-key to overheated, and hail from fourteen different countries, including China, Egypt, Finland, France, India, Italy, Japan, and more.
Ali: Fear Eats the Soul
Beyond Oblivion
Brief Encounter
Cairo Station
The Castle of Purity
Chains
The Cloud-Capped Star
New Restoration · Introduction by scholar Udaya Kumar on November 2
This soul-shattering classic of Indian cinema combines searing imagery, joltingly expressionistic sound design, and an extraordinary central performance from Supriya Choudhury as a relentlessly self-sacrificing daughter supporting her ungrateful family.The Cranes Are Flying
Floating Clouds
The Housemaid
Insiang
The Kneeling Goddess
The Life of Oharu
Mamma Roma
The Song of the Scarlet Flower
Spring in a Small Town
La Strada
The Umbrellas of Cherbourg
Modern/Postmodern Drama
The melodrama is still being made around the world today, whether as restrained contemporary dramas of repressed love or as deconstructed, more meta-cinematic works that play off the history of the genre—sometimes in the same film.
All About My Mother
Breaking the Waves
The Bridges of Madison County
Brokeback Mountain
Careful
The Devil’s Cleavage
Far from Heaven
The Long Day Closes
Pola X
Rouge
Secret Sunshine
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