Melodrama and Meaning: History, Culture, and the Films of Douglas Sirk

by Barbara Klinger

Melodrama and Meaning is a major addition to the new historical approach to film studies. Barbara Klinger shows how institutions most associated with Hollywood cinema―academia, the film industry, review journalism, star publicity, and the mass media―create meaning and ideological identity for films. Chapters focus on Sirk's place in the development of film studies from the 1950s through the 1980s, as well as the history of the critical reception (both academic and popular) of Sirk's films, a history that outlines journalism's role in public tastemaking. Other chapters are devoted to Universal's selling of Written on the Wind, the machinery of star publicity and the changing image of Rock Hudson, and the contemporary "institutionalized" camp response to Sirk that has resulted from developments in mass culture.

Genres: Film

224 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1994

Reviews

[Jack · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've only seen one Sirk movie before, an early one from Germany, so I wasn't sure if I'd be missing out on anything major, but thankfully this is more about the subject of film criticism than it is about the individual films Sirk directed. This is an interesting look at how films can have different, sometimes contradictory readings over time, using Sirk as an example. His 1950s melodramas for Universal have gone from critically reviled to critically acclaimed and can even be read as camp, and the author basically goes through and looks at how these various different readings happened and why and how that relates to the study of film in general. It's fascinating stuff and the academic writing style isn't overbearingly stuffy or anything so I had a good time.

[Belinda · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really interesting and readable book that looks at how the films of Douglas Sirk have been regarded since their release from different perspectives. This is another book that I wish I'd read as an undergraduate!