Melodrama and Modernity

Film and Culture Series

by Ben Singer

In this groundbreaking investigation into the nature and meanings of melodrama in American culture between 1880 and 1920, Ben Singer offers a challenging new reevaluation of early American cinema and the era that spawned it. Singer looks back to the sensational or "blood and thunder" melodramas (e.g., The Perils of Pauline, The Hazards of Helen, etc.) and uncovers a fundamentally modern cultural expression, one reflecting spectacular transformations in the sensory environment of the metropolis, in the experience of capitalism, in the popular imagination of gender, and in the exploitation of the thrill in popular amusement. Written with verve and panache, and illustrated with 100 striking photos and drawings, Singer's study provides an invaluable historical and conceptual map both of melodrama as a genre on stage and screen and of modernity as a pivotal idea in social theory.

Genres: History, Film, Criticism

256 pages, Paperback

First published January 15, 2001

Reviews

[Kent · Rating 5 out of 5]

Straight-up fascinating. Fecundly illustrated: the vintage pictures alone are worth the price of admission. Lots of great quotes from original sources, too. Casts ambitious net on theoretical stuff, hauling in Kracauer, Simmel, Mulvey, Weber and naturally Walter Benjamin. These parts don’t always work but often are provocative, esp on circuitous route from 19th c. aesthetics to early film aesthetics.

[Ietrio · Rating 1 out of 5]

Simply amazing! One can take even a recent technique, like the movies, and there will be academic paper pushers who will find long dead subjects to drone about.

[John Fitzgerald · Rating 4 out of 5]

A little esoteric, but I thought this was a fascinating account of early film melodrama. The book is thorough and comprehensive, academic, but still very readable and interesting.

[Bjorn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pretty interesting stuff over all.