FRINK Linked Data Fragments server

Matches in SemOpenAlex for { <https://semopenalex.org/work/W1552222076> ?p ?o ?g. }

• W1552222076 startingPage "24" @default.
• W1552222076 abstract "How Modernity Shaped Early Film Melodrama 2001. Melodrama and modernity: early sensational cinema and its contexts. Ben Singer. New York: Columbia University Press Ben Singer's Melodrama and modernity is a fascinating, ambitious book that will be of great interest to a wide range of scholars both inside and outside of film studies. This is because of the impressive breadth and depth of its concerns. Not only does Singer, through meticulous archival research, uncover a wealth of information about early film melodrama (serials such as The Perils of Pauline), he also experdy summarizes, and often makes original contributions to, research and debates in a variety of other areas: the history and definition of melodrama; the history and definition of modernity; popular entertainment around the turn of the twentieth century; melodrama on the theatrical stage; the representation of female power; and many others. This is because Singer's aim is to do much more than provide an empirical history of the emergence of early film melodrama, which he refers to as 'sensational' melodrama. Rather, he wants to show that 'sensational melodrama in American popular theater and film between 1880 and 1920 [is] a product and reflection of modernity' (1). Hence, he positions its emergence within a range of other phenomena associated with modernity in order to point to a wealth of connections between them. This 'contextualist' approach, as he calls it, pays many dividends. For example, in chapter six, titled 'Ten-Twenty-Thirty Melodrama: Boom and Bust,' Singer describes how sensational stage melodrama in the 1890s and early 1900s employed 'new technologies of mechanical-electrical stagecraft' in order to create increasingly spectacular scenes of exciting action (149). Drawing on a variety of archival sources, he shows that thrilling races, rescues, escapes, and fights involving cars, trains, boats, and hot-air balloons during fires, floods, hurricanes, and other natural disasters were 'realistically' depicted using sophisticated moving stage elements, the latest light and sound effects, and large, panoramic backdrops. Not only does Singer thereby demonstrate that sensational stage melodrama was, in part, enabled by the technological progress that is one of the hallmarks of modernity, but he also shows that sensational film melodrama did not emerge in a vacuum, that it built on, and indeed replaced, a tradition of stage melodrama that had flourished around the turn of the twentieth century. Similarly, in chapter eight, titied 'The Serial-Queen Melodrama,' Singer analyzes the 'fantasy of female power' embodied in the 'physical strength and endurance, self-reliance, courage, social authority, and freedom to explore novel experiences outside the domestic sphere' typical of the female heroines ('Queens') of serial sensational film melodramas (221). Not only does he show, again by drawing on a range of archival sources, that these films participated in a much larger process of 'destabliz[ing] traditional ideologies of gender' (ibid.)-which, like technological progress, is another hallmark of modernity-but he also demonstrates that sensational film melodrama differed in crucial ways in its representation of women from the domestic melodrama later adopted by Hollywood, which is the form of film melodrama that has received the most attention from scholars of gender representation in film. He thereby opens up a rich area of new research and debate for such scholars. As a non-expert about many of these things, I learned an enormous amount about a huge variety of topics reading Singer's book, which is well illustrated and indexed, and written in a clear, readable prose laudably free of jargon. The one problem I had with Singer's book is that it sometimes seems to try too hard to demonstrate that early film melodrama was the 'product and reflection' of modernity, and at these moments, the high empirical and conceptual standards characteristic of most of the book slip somewhat. …" @default.
• W1552222076 created "2016-06-24" @default.
• W1552222076 creator A5035118787 @default.
• W1552222076 date "2003-10-01" @default.
• W1552222076 modified "2023-09-23" @default.
• W1552222076 title "How Modernity Shaped Early Film Melodrama" @default.
• W1552222076 hasPublicationYear "2003" @default.
• W1552222076 type Work @default.
• W1552222076 sameAs 1552222076 @default.
• W1552222076 citedByCount "0" @default.
• W1552222076 crossrefType "journal-article" @default.
• W1552222076 hasAuthorship W1552222076A5035118787 @default.
• W1552222076 hasConcept C107038049 @default.
• W1552222076 hasConcept C124952713 @default.
• W1552222076 hasConcept C142362112 @default.
• W1552222076 hasConcept C153349607 @default.
• W1552222076 hasConcept C17744445 @default.
• W1552222076 hasConcept C199539241 @default.
• W1552222076 hasConcept C2778682666 @default.
• W1552222076 hasConcept C512170562 @default.
• W1552222076 hasConcept C519580073 @default.
• W1552222076 hasConcept C52119013 @default.
• W1552222076 hasConcept C95457728 @default.
• W1552222076 hasConceptScore W1552222076C107038049 @default.
• W1552222076 hasConceptScore W1552222076C124952713 @default.
• W1552222076 hasConceptScore W1552222076C142362112 @default.
• W1552222076 hasConceptScore W1552222076C153349607 @default.
• W1552222076 hasConceptScore W1552222076C17744445 @default.
• W1552222076 hasConceptScore W1552222076C199539241 @default.
• W1552222076 hasConceptScore W1552222076C2778682666 @default.
• W1552222076 hasConceptScore W1552222076C512170562 @default.
• W1552222076 hasConceptScore W1552222076C519580073 @default.
• W1552222076 hasConceptScore W1552222076C52119013 @default.
• W1552222076 hasConceptScore W1552222076C95457728 @default.
• W1552222076 hasIssue "2" @default.
• W1552222076 hasLocation W15522220761 @default.
• W1552222076 hasOpenAccess W1552222076 @default.
• W1552222076 hasPrimaryLocation W15522220761 @default.
• W1552222076 hasRelatedWork W146084980 @default.
• W1552222076 hasRelatedWork W1480190987 @default.
• W1552222076 hasRelatedWork W1579329541 @default.
• W1552222076 hasRelatedWork W1607785307 @default.
• W1552222076 hasRelatedWork W1929245762 @default.
• W1552222076 hasRelatedWork W1992160178 @default.
• W1552222076 hasRelatedWork W2054107130 @default.
• W1552222076 hasRelatedWork W2130526632 @default.
• W1552222076 hasRelatedWork W2174601191 @default.
• W1552222076 hasRelatedWork W2266759770 @default.
• W1552222076 hasRelatedWork W256958242 @default.
• W1552222076 hasRelatedWork W2751584177 @default.
• W1552222076 hasRelatedWork W2801450126 @default.
• W1552222076 hasRelatedWork W283960394 @default.
• W1552222076 hasRelatedWork W2908748064 @default.
• W1552222076 hasRelatedWork W337062439 @default.
• W1552222076 hasRelatedWork W347360121 @default.
• W1552222076 hasRelatedWork W589091996 @default.
• W1552222076 hasRelatedWork W1581102927 @default.
• W1552222076 hasRelatedWork W2740045268 @default.
• W1552222076 hasVolume "44" @default.
• W1552222076 isParatext "false" @default.
• W1552222076 isRetracted "false" @default.
• W1552222076 magId "1552222076" @default.
• W1552222076 workType "article" @default.