Moral Occult

In Peter  Brooks's book Melodramatic Imagination, Brooks emphasized the importance of finding moral occult in melodramas. He demonstrated using melodramatic modes to find and specify the location of moral occult within melodramas. As Peter Brooks defines, moral occult is: "the domain of operative spiritual values which is both indicated within and masked by the surface of reality" (Brooks 5). Melodramas were the perfect place to locate the moral occult because melodrama opened up all the details and emotions that are going on in the story which draws out moral occult and makes it easier to locate. For example, in the movie All that heaven allows, when Cary finally made up her mind and went to Ron, the audiences all knew that he was just coming home from the hunting trip. However, clueless Cary started her car to go back home. Ron, acknowledging the presence of Cary and realizing that she is about to leave, falls off the cliff when trying to chase after Cary. As can be seen through the example above, audiences have all the information and know all the emotions; therefore it is easier for audiences to locate a moral occult in melodramas. I found this book (melodramatic imagination by Peter Brooks) extremely hard to get the gist of the main point, but it clearly had emphasis on the moral occult and on the significance in melodramatic mode on its impact on moral occult considering the time period being at the time.

All that heaven allows

First melodramatic film we watched was All That Heaven Allows  directed by Douglas Sirk. As expected, the movie was very melodramatic and had many melodramatic ingredients to it. Those melodramatic ingredients really made the story line more dramatic and eventually controlled our emotions and feelings towards the movie. The factors such as the sound effects and the use of lighting and colors amplified the melodramatic effects. I found sound effects most helpful in really focusing and getting into the scene. For example, from the scene where Cary is telling her children about Ron and how they are getting married, the sound effect led me into the mood that could almost seem as scary. As those sound effects were leading the audiences into the melodramatic mood, the dark lighting effect came in and really intensified the mood. The lighting focused on the characters and the surroundings became so dark that it was hardly visible. This lighting effects really dramatized the situation by making the audiences really concentrate and focus on the situation as well as every gestures that the actors were carrying out. In the book Melodrama: Genre, Style and Sensibility, the author mentions how these lighting almost seemed artificial the way he tried to make the scene too "melodramatic";"...extremely artificial lighting effects are achieved that represent the mood of a scene or a character rather than aiming for more naturalistic lighting" (John Mercer, Martin Shingler 56). I thought this film was a good example of melodrama to start off because it had many easily noticeable melodramatic effects which we could talk about as a class.