Post-Irony and Three Faces of Melodrama
Patrycja Włodek
kwartalnik.filmowy@ispan.plUniversity of the National Education Commission, Kraków (Poland)
Abstract
As Włodek notes in the introduction to the article, the title “three faces” refer to the three moments in the existence of melodrama - pre-ironic, ironic and post-ironic. It is in this schema that the author presents a theoretical reflection, enriched with numerous film exam- ples, on the issue of film melodrama in its three periods. The first part of the text is devoted to the interpretation of the melodrama, its definition and relation to the classic cinema, as well as the application of the concepts of “post-irony” and “New Sincerity”. In the second part, she focuses on selected films and strategies for updating the melodrama on cinema screen, and also identifies one of the key figures for this genre, which is a harlot with a heart of gold. She also emphasizes that the extended understanding of melodrama turns out to be particularly justified if we consider melodrama from a diachronic perspective - from pre- to post-irony. In summary, she notes that each of these discussed forms of melodrama shows how flickering and vivid is not only contemporary cinema, but also older films, even those before the classic period. Each of the evoked cinematographic formations (pre-classic and pre-codex, post-modernist and post-ironic) function - in accordance with the observations of Jim Collins quoted by Włodek - in a metamythological dimension built of layers of popular mythology that coexist and are constantly redefined.
Keywords:
post-irony, melodrama, New Sincerity, Jim CollinsReferences
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Authors
Patrycja Włodekkwartalnik.filmowy@ispan.pl
University of the National Education Commission, Kraków Poland
Dr nauk o sztuce, absolwentka socjologii i filmoznawstwa na Uniwersytecie Jagiellońskim, adiunkt na Uniwersytecie Pedagogicznym im. KEN w Krakowie. Autorka książki „Świat był przemoczoną pustką”. Czarny kryminał Raymonda Chandlera w literaturze i filmie (2015) oraz licznych tekstów o tematyce filmowej i serialowej publikowanych w tomach zbiorowych i czasopismach naukowych. Współredaktorka (wraz z Alicją Helman) tomu zbiorowego Od de Laclosa do Collarda. Adaptacje literatury francuskiej (2016). W kręgu jej zainteresowań znajdują się zagadnienia z zakresu historii kina, ze szczególnym uwzględnieniem kinematografii amerykańskiej i neoseriali.
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