Melodrama and the Psychology of Tears

In: Cinema Journal. Vol. 56, No. 4, 2017

In this article we investigate the astonishing variety of emotions that a brief scene in a film melodrama can evoke. We thus take issue with the reductive view of melodrama that limits this genre’s emotional effects to sadness, pity, and tear-jerking potential. Through a close analysis of a melodramatic standard situation—a “news of death” scene—in Alejandro González Iñárritu’s "21 Grams" (2003), we reveal the emotional dynamics and the high density as well as rich variety of affective phenomena likely to be experienced during the trajectory of this two-minute scene.

2021

Note: This paper only elaborates my own theoretical viewpoint behind an experimental work currently in progress. Based on this theoretical framework, I formulated a project proposal that might test the culture-appraisal-interaction model of emotion reactivity. I was subsequently awarded the Newton International Fellowship by the British Academy in 2017 to work with Dr Jeremy Skipper at the Dept. of Experimental Psychology, Division of Psychology and Language Sciences at University College London. However, this paper is limited to describing the theory behind the research proposal. The actual project, as well as the experimental work involving data acquisition and data analyses (in progress), is beyond the scope of this paper, and not discussed here. Summary: Emotion transfer shapes the essential dynamics of film melodramatic techniques which conform to the audience preference of a particular culture. A central question that this paper would try to answer concerns the remarkable inter-cultural difference in taste when it comes to appreciating a particular film melodramatic form. I argue that this variability of preference across cultures might not solely be an obvious phenomenon of changing tastes but might be driven by an inherent behavioural-psychological predisposition deep-rooted in the emotion system of a specific culture. My proposed theoretical viewpoint enables us to examine the evolution of film melodramatic techniques across cultures from this aforementioned perspective and could offer a first of its kind empirical, a psycho-behavioural experimental paradigm called Cross-cultural Emotion Elicitation through Film (CEE-through-Film) to test whether melodramatic techniques can influence the culture-appraisal-interaction model of emotion.

PsycCRITIQUES, 2013

This is a comparison of the emotions we have in watching a movie with those we have in everyday life. Everyday emotion is loose in frame or context but rather controlled and regulated in content. Movie emotion, in contrast, is tightly framed and boundaried but permissive and uncontrolled in content. Movie emotion is therefore quite safe and inconsequential but can still be unusually satisfying and pleasurable. I think of the movie emotions as modeling clay that can symbolize all sorts of human troubles. Amajor function of movies then is catharsis, a term I use more inclusively than usual. Throughout I use a pragmatist approach to film theory. This position gives the optimal distance to the study of ordinary, middle-level emotion. In contrast psychoanalysis is too close and cognitive theory too distant. This middle position is similar to Arlie Hochschild's symbolic interactionist approach to the sociology of emotions, which also mediates between psychoanalysis and cognitive theories.

Midwest Studies in Philosophy XXXIV (2010): 278-292

Some films scare us; some make us cry; some thrill us. Some of the most interesting films, however, leave us suspended between feelings – both joyous and sad, or angry and serene. This paper attempts to explain how this can happen and why it is important. I look closely at one film that creates and exploits these conflicted responses. I argue that cases of conflict in film illuminate a pair of vexing questions about emotion in film: (1) To what extent are emotional responses rational, or in need of rationalization?; and (2) What relationship is there between emotional response and value (moral, filmic, or otherwise)? I argue that conflicted emotions in response to film are valuable because they remind us of our epistemic limitations and of the disorder of moral and social life.

Projections, 2021

A look at current emotion research in film studies, a field that has been thriving for over three decades, reveals three limitations. (1) Film scholars concentrate strongly on a restricted set of garden-variety emotions-some emotions are therefore neglected. (2) Their understanding of standard emotions is often too monolithic-some subtypes of these emotions are consequently overlooked. (3) The range of existing emotion terms does not seem fine-grained enough to cover the wide range of affective experiences viewers undergo when watching films-a number of emotions might thus be missed. Against this background, the article suggests at least four benefits of introducing a more granular emotion lexicon in film studies. As a remedy, the article suggests paying closer attention to the subjective-experience component of emotions. Here the descriptive method of phenomenology-including its particular subfield phenomenology of emotions-might have useful things to tell film scholars.

Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts, 2008

In the 1940s and 50s, melodrama was described as "the lady's film," whereas men were the supposed fans of film noir. No empirical studies were conducted with filmgoers of that era to validate such claims. This study examined responses of modern-day audiences comprising 16 females and 16 males to these classic genres. An experimental montage technique was developed to compare problem and solution scenes excerpted from 4 melodrama and 4 film noir movies. Participants rated each scene on fifteen 5-point scales related to cognitive and emotional responses and interpreted the meaning of each scene open-endedly. Quantitative analyses indicated that subjects were more sensitive to the character's emotions in melodrama, found this genre to be more complex, and were more apt to experience personal memories. Qualitative analyses revealed that subjects were more aware of the character's emotions and were more likely to identify with the character in melodramas. Interactions showed that participants judged the solution scenes in film noirs to be unrealistic and criticized the main character's actions. Male and female participants did not differentially respond to the two genres.

Offscreen, 17 (12)

found at Amazon customer's review. The analysis is supported by a close reading of the last sequence of the film.

A cognitive approach suggests that original bodily changes are subject to an assessment of the objects, people and events involved in a situation - this assessment leads to the formation of beliefs that in turn help to recognise the bodily signals as emotions. Emotions at the movies, however, are affected by a pre-arranged context whose emotional impact has largely been foreseen. This impact requires that viewers develop attitudes of sympathy or concern for the movie characters, so that expectations towards the outcome of their situation can be formed and eventually fulfilled. In most cases, such attitudes also involve a moral dimension which makes the emotional involvement even stronger. Film genres generally specialize in staging characters and events that are used to elicit particular kinds of emotions in viewers. This Interactive workshop offers opportunities to analyse film sequences in terms of the beliefs, attitudes and expectations that are elicited by the film itself in order for the viewers to experience a range of emotions.