Hollywood Melodrama: American Beauty

"Tears of Joy: Hollywood Melodrama, Ecstasy, and Restoring Meta-Narratives of Transcendence in Modernity" by Garry Leonard explores the Hollywood melodrama first by defining it in psychological and philosophical terms through the works of Freud and Marx, among others. It then analyzes Hollywood melodramatic structure, by comparing themes used in American Beauty (1999) and Broken Blossoms (1919).

The psychological and philosophical portion of the paper is a bit dull, but ultimately boils down to melodrama as an expression of sentiment and overwhelming emotion that audiences are easily able to identify with.

The Hollywood Melodramas explored in the paper are structured as follows:

Disillusioned protagonist must choose between gratification and sacrifice, ultimately choosing sacrifice.

In American Beauty, this is seen primarily in the scene between Lester and Angela, where he begins to undress her, then, upon her declaration that she is a virgin, decides instead to act in a fatherly way towards her. He has sacrificed gratification for something that is, in the film's terms, beautiful, or in Leonard's terms, sacred.

Leonard explains that melodrama takes our secular modern world, and transforms it into something sacred. In American Beauty, Lester feels an overwhelming sense of ennui and disillusionment, until he meets Angela, and she opens up to him the sacredness of beauty. He has the chance to take the beauty for himself, but chooses not to do so, sacrificing his own desires to maintain the beauty.

This essential conflict is present in many films, even those that don't seem to be melodramas at first glance.

In Fight Club, the sacred is identity, and gratification comes from anonymity. Jack is searching for something to end his own sense of ennui and disillusionment, and finds two options: Tyler Durden and Marla Singer. Tyler Durden uses anarchy as a way of creating brotherhood, hitting on the secular desire to fit in with others. Marla Singer, however, expresses herself as an individual regardless of other's feelings. Marla's sense of self is such a point of contention for Jack that he becomes a hypocrite by chastising her for doing the same things as him with the support groups. When Jack fights Angel, he succumbs to gratification, saying, in a line that foils American Beauty, "I wanted to destroy something beautiful". When Jack kills Tyler, he embraces the sacredness of individuality, redeeming his actions of gratification, and sacrificing the power he had as a leader of Project Mayhem.

In my film, responsibility is sacred. Danny quits drinking in the climax of the story, sacrificing his secular desire to remain youthful and free spirited. He could very well have continued to drink, and gratified himself, but he doesn't, because he sees the beauty in a family life and the sacredness of adulthood. He proposes to Jenny not out of obligation, as he might have at the beginning of the story, but out of a desire to experience responsibility. In this sense, I am making good on my desire to create a melodrama.