107-432 Melodrama, Class and the Cinema

Formerly available as 107-051. Students who have completed 107-051 are not eligible to enrol in this subject.

Admission to the postgraduate diploma or fourth-year honours in cinema studies, see Honours entry.

This subject involves a study of the role the melodrama has played in the representation of class and ideological conflict in the cinema. Students are asked to examine melodramas from various periods such as the silent period, the 1930s, the 1950s and contemporary cinema, from both mainstream narrative and art cinema traditions. They will encounter theoretical writings on class and ideology in the subject's interrogation of the melodrama's tendency to expose ideological contradictions at a domestic and political level. This subject enables students to understand issues of film form, gender, sexuality and psychoanalysis in relation to the melodrama's complex representation of class in the cinema.

• be skilled in research;

• possess advanced skills of critical thinking and analysis;

• possess an ability to communicate knowledge intelligibly, economically and effectively;

• have an understanding of social, ethical and cultural context.

A research essay of 5000 words 100% (due during the examination period).