Скачать или смотреть MELODRAMA IN FILM: AROUSING EMOTIONS IN THE DARK - PROF. RUTHE STEIN

If you’ve been totally swept away by a movie so that two hours pass like 20 minutes, chances are you’ve watched a melodrama. The oldest and sturdiest of film genres, it dates back to early silents. Screening dozens of clips from obscure as well as famous melodramas, accompanied by detailed analysis, this comprehensive course on “Melodrama in Film: Arousing Emotions in the Dark,” will range from its beginnings to contemporary titles. So we start with damsels in silent movies tied to railroad tracks and sex-crazed wanton women in pre-code films. This takes us to the heyday of melodramas in the 1940s, a bonanza for actresses like Bette Davis, Joan Crawford and Olivia de Havilland to the enduring contribution to the genre of European directors Douglas Sirk, Luchino Visconti, Rainer Werner Fassbinder and Pedro Almodovar. Chronicle critic Mick LaSalle will speak to the class about the French melodrama Love Crime starring Kristin Scott Thomas. This class will show iconic scenes from classics such as “Dark Victory,” “Mildred Pierce,” “The Letter,” “A Woman’s Face” and “Washington Square” to later fare like “Imitation of Life,” “Splendor in the Grass, “ An Affair to Remember” and “The Bridges of Madison Country.” These films share a theme of the hazards of falling in love--fertile ground for melodrama.