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Writing the Short Film, 3rd Edition
book

Writing the Short Film, 3rd Edition

by Patricia Cooper, Ken Dancyger
September 2012
Beginner
312 pages
8h 37m
English
Routledge
Content preview from Writing the Short Film, 3rd Edition

13

The Melodrama

Perhaps it’s best to start this chapter with a bit of fact and fiction about melodrama. First the fiction.

Over the years, the term melodrama has increasingly taken on a negative implication. It is associated with soap opera, exclusively with romantic women’s stories, and with a dramatic device best characterized as exaggeration (as opposed to realism, or a story that is simply more believable). Although all of the above has a hint of truth, each is too narrow an approach to melodrama and keeps us away from the usefulness of melodrama as a form.

Turning to the “truth” about melodrama, what then do we mean by the term? A good starting point is to suggest that melodrama at its most basic concerns itself with stories that are essentially ...

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Publisher Resources

ISBN: 9780240805887