Posts Tagged ‘melodrama’

Short Take: Without the usual grounding presence of Kristen Stewart it's too melodramatic for its own good

Director: Bill Condon

Screenwriters: Melissa Rosenberg (screenplay), Stephenie Meyer (novel)

Cast: Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson, Taylor Lautner

Length: 1 hour 57 minutes

Synopsis: Breaking Dawn – Part 1 opens with Bella (Stewart) and her vampire boyfriend Edward (Pattinson) on the cusp of eternal happiness. Their lavish wedding marks the beginning of the end of Bella’s human life. She bids farewell to her parents and friends, knowing that transforming into a vampire means never being able to see them again. The happy couple sets off on their honeymoon to a private island in Brazil to finally consummate their relationship. However, things take a bad turn when the impossible happens and Bella finds herself pregnant with a hybrid vampire-human child. Against the advice of everyone around her, Bella decides to keep the baby. As it drains the life out of Bella, Edward and werewolf Jacob (Lautner) worry that the woman they love won’t survive.

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Short Take: Definitely the most interesting of the series thus far

Director: David Slade (30 Days of Night)

Screenwriter: Melissa Rosenberg (Twilight Saga, Step Up)

Cast: Kristen Stewart (Twilight Saga, The Runaways, Adventureland), Robert Pattinson (Twilight Saga, Remember Me), Taylor Lautner (Twilight Saga, Valentine’s Day)

Length: 2 hours 4 minutes

Synopsis: When last we left Bella Swan (Stewart) in New Moon, she was deciding between vampire boyfriend Edward Cullen (Pattinson) or werewolf and best friend Jacob Black (Lautner).  Bella spends much of Eclipse weighing her options.  On the one hand, she could spend eternity as a vampire with Edward, though that would mean giving up important human experiences like aging and having a normal family. Choosing Jacob would allow her life to continue unchanged, except that she would have to lose Edward.  On top of this love triangle an army of recently turned or “newborn” vampires is after Bella, and Jacob and Edward must put aside the rivalry between their warring families to protect her. Read the rest of this entry »

Miley Cyrus and Liam Hemsworth in the new Nicholas Sparks adaptation "The Last Song," opening this weekend

A very interesting article in the Village Voice, written by Eric Hynes, examines what he dubs the “Eight Tired Themes of Nicholas Sparks’ Love-Stories.” The topic of the article comes up of course due to this weekend’s release of the Miley Cyrus vehicle The Last Song, which is the last film based from Sparks’ novels. Such themes in Sparks’ work that Hynes identifies include a preference of setting (North Carolina), belief in God (Christian but not too Christian), and penchant for letter-writing (which Hynes claims connects Sparks’ works with the epistolary women’s novels of the 18th century). The entire article, though, is not so much a listing of Sparks’ consistencies in writing (things like the motifs listed above can be chalked up to being elements which help define Sparks as an auteur – to use a film term). Instead it functions to claim for an existence of formula, and that this formula does not coincide greatly with the melodramatic love stories of yesteryear (Douglas Sirk is brought up at one point).

The subject of melodrama is acknowledge by Hynes, but not really focused on. Sparks’ books are clearly melodramatic, and sell themselves for being as such. But, if one of Hynes’ main goals was to argue how Sparks’ developed dramatic formula differs from the famed and well-regarded Douglas Sirk films of yesteryear, then perhaps it would have been better had that subject been explored in greater detail. As it is, the claim is somewhat tucked away.

One major discrepancy that is proposed is that while the characters in Sirk’s films grapple with inner demons or desires, which are problems that are difficult to resolve, the characters in Sparks’ novels only battle with issues outside of their control (hurricanes, cancer, etc.). And perhaps because the conflicts are rooted in circumstance, the characters are “remarkably accepting of the cruelties of fate.” What’s really being pointed out here, I would argue, is that while Sirk’s melodramas sometimes dealt with outside influences like social roles and prejudices (All That Heaven Allows), those concerns were directly related to bigger issues like personal identity. Sparks’ books, and thus the movies based off them, do not delve deeply into overly-personal matters but instead incorporate characters written broadly enough so as to make them as identifiable as possible.

We encourage you to read the entirety of Hynes’ article, as it beyond what is discussed above it includes numerous interesting topics, subjects and tidbits. (We would also like to say that we recognize that Hynes’ wasn’t trying to offer an exhaustive examination, as the format of the article didn’t allow it to become a venue for a laborious argument. Do keep that in mind.)