Summary Points

• Melodrama describes both an aesthetic mode and an outlook or life vision.
• Melodrama is a type of story that relies on such strong emotionalism and starkness in character and theme that there is little room for moral ambiguity or complex character motivation.
• In the standard melodramatic story, a central protagonist overcomes a series of seemingly insurmountable obstacles and difficulties to restore an idealized state of affairs by the story’s end.
• Melodramatic stories achieve moral clarity by means of a combination of pathos and action.
• The idea of “magical outside assistance” is a fusion of American individualism and Christianity that describes the role of Providence in the melodramatic outlook.
• A key feature of the melodramatic worldview is its insistence on the basic goodness of God, humans, and American society.
• In important ways, the melodramatic outlook runs against the grain of biblical realities.

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Movie Clips

Titanic (1997) Boarding Scene

Titanic (1997) Card Game

Titanic (1997) “I’m Flying” Scene

Titanic (1997) Dawson, Rose Dawson Scene

Titanic (1997) Ending Scene

The Legend of Bagger Vance (2003) Movie Trailer

Bruce Almighty (2003) People “Have the Power” Scene

Forrest Gump (1994) “Where’s This God of Yours?”

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Fun Stuff

Here’s a further explanation of melodrama as a sub-type of drama films from www.filmsite.org. While melodramas can be tearjerkers, chick flicks, soap operas, they are all best characterized as being heightened dramas. Also included is a brief history of the development of melodramas and a few directors that are often associated with the subgenre.

This website provides examples of melodramas from 1919 to 2014.

Looking for melodrama in twenty-first century film? This writer suggests that melodramatic films have largely disappeared from Hollywood only to be reinvented under the male melodramatic film.

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Sidebar: More Outside Magical Assistance

Movies in the melodramatic mode rely on the assumption of a moral order to the universe for story plausibility and stable characterizations. Hollywood’s emphasis on cinematic realism does not preclude use of “outside magical assistance” as a convenient narrative convention. The notion that “God helps those who help themselves” implies that we are capable of securing our own salvation with maybe a little help from God, who is not so much the source of our redemption as merely a dependable aid for self-reliant individuals. When cast, the divine appears as a sidekick, routinely playing the amiable role of patient mentor or shrewd matchmaker.

A visiting angel is an obvious and sentimental way to supply characters with some spiritual assistance. Clarence earns his wings in Frank Capra’s Christmas classic It’s a Wonderful Life (1946) by showing a despondent George Bailey (James Stewart) how awful life in Bedford Falls would have been had George not existed. In Michael (1996), John Travolta plays an irreverent angel that women find irresistible; he quotes the Beatles instead of the Bible, gets drunk, wins a barroom brawl, and plays Cupid orchestrating a match (made in heaven of course) between skeptical journalist Frank (William Hurt) and an expert on angels, Dorothy (Andi McDowell). In The Preacher’s Wife (1996), Dudley (Denzel Washington) is sent to help Reverend Henry Biggs, an overworked Baptist minister, revive both his struggling urban church and his marriage. Things get complicated when Dudley gets distracted from his mission by the most attractive Julia (Whitney Houston), who is not only the star of the church choir but the pastor’s neglected spouse.

In The Legend of Bagger Vance (2000), the game of golf becomes a metaphor for life. His mission accomplished, Bagger (Will Smith) is going to leave just as they approach the eighteenth green of the big golf tournament. Confused, Rannulph Junuh (Matt Damon), says to his angelic caddie, “I need you.” Bagger replies, “No. No you don’t. Not anymore.” The line of dialogue replicates that of Glinda in The Wizard of Oz: “You don’t need to be helped any longer. You’ve always had the power to go back to Kansas.” Junuh just needed a little “magical outside assistance” on that fairway of life—another Yellow Brick Road to self-realization.

Bruce Almighty (2003) employs the same narrative strategy, but with a somewhat different slant. The screenwriters blend a Christian theme with this story convention leaving the interpretive door ajar. God (Morgan Freeman) tells Bruce (Jim Carrey) the human problem is that they “keep looking up.” He says, “People want me to do everything for them. What they don’t realize is they have the power. You want to see a miracle son. Be the miracle.” God leaves telling Bruce, “Yeah, I figure you can handle things now.” You should recognize it as a familiar departing line of dialogue. But then it is only when Bruce surrenders to God’s will that he finally finds real love and satisfaction in life. The emphasis on “keep looking up means that we depend on God to do everything for us,” director Tom Shadyac says. His intent is to motivate people to faithful action: “I hope people will look up, but don’t just keep looking up.”¹ It’s a somewhat different spin on what is otherwise a story about a protagonist benefitting from some magical outside assistance.

The floating feather in Forrest Gump (1994) is an apt symbol of the protagonist’s life—blown by the winds of fate and destiny. Gump doesn’t make decisions so much; he just always seems to be in the right place at the right time. And there is always some magical outside assistance for those who help themselves, whether the good-hearted Forrest (Tom Hanks) or the bitter Lieutenant Dan (Gary Sinise).

After an unsuccessful shrimp run, Lieutenant Daniel asks, “Where the Hell is this God of yours?” In his voiceover narration, Gump says, “It’s funny Lieutenant Dan said that, ‘cause right then, God showed up.” We cut to the two of them dangerously out to sea in Gump’s shrimp boat during a fierce hurricane that night; Lieutenant Dan sits high up in the ship’s rigging in wild abandon, shaking his fist and shouting at God, “Come on! You call this a storm!” When they return to shore the next morning, the storm has passed, and a now calm and quiet Lieutenant Dan says, “Forrest, I never thanked you for saving my life.” And smiling, he jumps into the water. “He never actually said so, but I think he made his peace with God,” Gump says in a voiceover. Meanwhile, a news reporter informs us that all the other docked boats were destroyed that night by Hurricane Carmen. “After that, shrimpin’ was easy,” Gump says happily over a shot of a huge catch falling onto the boat’s deck. With a little well-timed celestial help, Forrest and Lieutenant Dan go on to make a fortune. In Forrest Gump, affluence is an outward indication, if also a result, of internal goodness. Wealth is even associated with spiritual well-being, a sign of God’s blessing. The side-effect of following the Golden Rule is to become a “gazillionaire,” as Gump puts it. Decency and hard work will assuredly make you “healthy, wealthy and wise,” says another one of Franklin’s proverbs in Poor Richard’s Almanac.

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1. Quoted in “Interview with Tom Shadyac,” HollywoodJesus.com, October 10, 2003.

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