The Saddest Music in the World: A Surreal Melodrama
analytical Essay
2152 words
Canadian filmmaker and cinephile, Guy Maddin once said, “I do feel a bit like Dracula in Winnipeg. I’m safe, but can travel abroad and suck up all sorts of ideas from other filmmakers… Then I can come back here and hoard these tropes and cinematic devices.” Here, Maddin addresses his filmmaking saying that he takes aspects from different film styles and appropriates them into his own work. In The Saddest Music in the World (2003), Maddin uses a combination of French Surrealist filmmaking and classical American Hollywood cinema, specifically melodrama, to create his own style. In an article by William Beard, Steven Shaviro talks about Maddin’s filmmaking, and he links Surrealism and melodrama together saying, “Maddin’s films are driven by a tension between romantic excess [melodrama] on the one hand and absurdist humour [Surrealism] on the other.” In regards to The Saddest Music in the World, the relationship between Surrealism and melodrama is not one of tension, as Shaviro suggests, but one of cooperation. This paper will analyze two films by filmmakers Maddin was familiar with —Un Chien Andalou (1929) by Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dali on the Surrealist side, and All That Heaven Allows (1955) by Douglas Sirk on the melodrama side—to showcase the important elements of each, concluding with an analysis of The Saddest Music in the World in conjunction with both film styles. Ultimately, it will be shown how Guy Maddin combines French Surrealist cinema and Hollywood melodrama in The Saddest Music in the World, to create his own unique film style.
Un Chien Andalou (1929) by Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dali is the quintessential Surrealist film, including shocking imagery, non-linear time, black humour, oddities and a specific editing st...
... middle of paper ...
...Saddest Music in the World. DVD. Directed by Guy Maddin. 2003; Winnipeg: MGM Home Entertainment, 2004.
Un Chien Andalou. Youtube. Directed by Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dali. France.
Beard William. “Maddin and Melodrama.” Canadian Journal of Film Studies 14.2 (2005): 2-15.
Beebe, John. “Canadian Surrealism.” The San Francisco Jung Institute Library Journal 23.3 (2004): 85-89.
Coombs, Neil. Studying Surrealist and Fantasy Film. New York: Columbia University Press, 2008.
Losier, Marie and Porton, Richard. “The Pleasures of Melancholy: An Interview with Guy Maddin.” Cineaste 29.3 (2004): 18-25.
Semley, John. “From Big Snow to Big Sadness: The Repatriation of Canadian Cultural Identity in the Films of Guy Maddin.” Cineaction 73 (2008): 32-37.
White, Kenneth. “Forget Your Desire: The Cinema of Guy Maddin.” Millenium Film Journal 45/46 (2006): 133-139.
In this essay, the author
- Analyzes how guy maddin combines french surrealist filmmaking and hollywood melodrama to create his own unique film style.
- Explains that un chien andalou is the quintessential surrealist film, with shocking imagery, non-linear time, black humour, oddities, and a specific editing style.
- Analyzes how douglas sirk's film, all that heaven allows, is an excellent example of hollywood melodrama with a linear storyline, cause-effect, conflict resolution, heightened emotion/action, happy ending, and its own editing style.
- Analyzes how guy maddin combines french surrealist filmmaking and hollywood melodrama to create his own unique film style.
- Explains that un chien andalou is the quintessential surrealist film, with shocking imagery, non-linear time, black humour, oddities, and a specific editing style.
- Analyzes how douglas sirk's film, all that heaven allows, is an excellent example of hollywood melodrama with a linear storyline, cause-effect, conflict resolution, heightened emotion/action, happy ending, and its own editing style.
- Analyzes how hollywood melodrama focuses on continuity editing and invisible cuts to create a story, which is exactly what sirk does in all that heaven allows.
- Analyzes how maddin uses his knowledge of film history to revisit various occulted cinematic traditions and claims them in the name of canada.
- Analyzes how maddin's use of melodrama and surrealism in the saddest music in the world is complicated.
- Analyzes how the melodrama of "the song is you" transforms into a musical, involving cause-effect, emotion/action, the happy ending, and linear story mixed with surrealist aspects.
- Analyzes how maddin's the saddest music in the world is a true example of what canada is and what his own style of filmmaking is.
- Explains that douglas sirk directed all that heaven allows and guy maddin's the saddest music in the world.
- Analyzes losier, marie, and porton, richard's "the pleasures of melancholy: an interview with guy maddin."
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- Analyzes how michel's gangster persona replicates the clichéd american character in breathless. he is rash, sex-crazed, and egocentric.
- Analyzes how andy warhol juxtaposes marilyn monroe to mary, similar to how godard uses his characters in a sexy portrayal of modern art but ties it back to classical films.
- Analyzes how godard challenged commercial narrative cinema norms and film criticism's vocabulary. he created a pure, uncontaminated film that is the pinnacle of cinematic modernism.
- Explains that "an ideal for living." film comment 46, no. 3 (may 2010): 28.
- Analyzes how godard's most influential film, breathless, combines romance and carnage, humor and misfortune. it is a film of consistency yet chaos and had an element of uncompromised truth
- Analyzes existentialism, which emphasizes an awareness of death and making free individual choices and meaning for your own life, was trendy in france among intellectual youths.
- Analyzes how godard's "breathless" still asks why something so bad can be so good. kauffmann, stanley. "adventures of an anti-hero."
2023 wordsRead More - Influences Of German Expressionism In Fritz Lang's Manalytical essayFritz Lang’s M is very much a product of its time, receiving huge influences from German Expressionism during the 1930s. After World War I, this form of presenting film became very prominent in Germany reflecting the cynicism and disillusionment that encapsulated the country. As a result of Lang’s expressionist approach to the film along with his own unique take on the genre, M is also a very early example of film noir.
In this essay, the author
- Explains fritz lang's m is a product of its time, receiving huge influences from german expressionism during the 1930s, reflecting the cynicism and disillusionment that encapsulated germany.
- Analyzes how the expressionist movement in german art and cinema was sensitive to the current state of the country after a huge worldwide conflict.
- Analyzes how german expressionism left many influences which became frequently used in hollywood dramas, horror films, and film noirs. the dark nature of the film is expressed by the protagonist being a criminal being chased by police.
- Explains fritz lang's m is a product of its time, receiving huge influences from german expressionism during the 1930s, reflecting the cynicism and disillusionment that encapsulated germany.
- Analyzes how the expressionist movement in german art and cinema was sensitive to the current state of the country after a huge worldwide conflict.
- Analyzes how german expressionism left many influences which became frequently used in hollywood dramas, horror films, and film noirs. the dark nature of the film is expressed by the protagonist being a criminal being chased by police.
- Analyzes how lighting plays a huge role in illumination and contrast and creates meaning. the murderer being pursued by the cops and the criminal underworld characterize how many film noirs present an imperfect person
- Explains that m was created under various techniques popular during its time and place of production. it has influenced the rise of film noir and generations of films to come.
611 wordsRead More - The link between expressionism and horror quickly became a dominant feature in many films and continues to be prominent in contemporary films mainly due to the German expressionist masterpiece Das Kabinett des Doctor Caligari. Wiene’s 1920 Das Kabinett des Doctor Caligari utilized a distinctive creepiness and the uncanny throughout the film that became one the most distinctive features of externalising inner mental and emotional states of protagonists through various expressionist methods. Its revolutionary and innovative new art was heavily influenced by the German state and its populace in conjunction with their experience of war; Caligari took a clear cue from what was happening in Germany at the time. It was this film that set cinematic conventions that still apply today, heavily influencing the later Hollywood film noir genre as well as the psychological thrillers that has lead several film audiences to engage with a film, its character, its plot and anticipate its outcome, only to question whether the entire movie was a dream, a story of a crazy man, or an elaborate role play. This concept of the familiar and the strange, the reality, the illusion and the dream developed in Das Kabinett des Doctor Caligari, is once again present in Scorsese’s 2010 film Shutter Island. It is laced with influences from different films of the film noir and horror genre, and many themes that are directly linked to Das Kabinett des Doctor Caligari shot 90 years prior.
In this essay, the author
- Analyzes how the german expressionist masterpiece das kabinett des doctor caligari set cinematic conventions that still apply today, heavily influencing the later hollywood film noir genre and psychological thrillers.
- Analyzes how das kabinett des doctor caligari is told through flashbacks, with expressionist-inspired set design and deformed locations to emphasize the unreliable state of mind of the storyteller.
- Analyzes how the two unreliable narrators, dr. caligari and teddy daniels, are both patients in their respective mental facilities. both films feature the plot becoming increasingly fanatic and fantastic with highly expressionist set design.
- Analyzes how the german expressionist masterpiece das kabinett des doctor caligari set cinematic conventions that still apply today, heavily influencing the later hollywood film noir genre and psychological thrillers.
- Analyzes how das kabinett des doctor caligari is told through flashbacks, with expressionist-inspired set design and deformed locations to emphasize the unreliable state of mind of the storyteller.
- Analyzes how the two unreliable narrators, dr. caligari and teddy daniels, are both patients in their respective mental facilities. both films feature the plot becoming increasingly fanatic and fantastic with highly expressionist set design.
- Analyzes how teddy, or andrew, invent the second persona, a war hero and federal marshall who is on the hunt for the disappeared patience.
- Analyzes how fire and water symbolism play an integral part in illustrating andrew/teddy’s insanity.
- Analyzes how scorsese gives the viewer some early hints of teddy being the same person as the man lighting the match we saw in the earlier shot.
- Analyzes how both caligari and shutter island deal with the underlying theme of the unreliable narrator who constructs an alternate reality to deal, or disassociate himself, with his past.
- Analyzes how shutter island is heavily influenced by the hollywood film noir genre and psychological thrillers, and indirectly by das kabinett des doctor caligari.
1657 wordsRead More