Melodrama and Asian Cinema

Front Cover
Wimal Dissanayake
Cambridge University Press, 1993 M05 28 - 281 pages
Cinema is a dominant force in the lives of many people living in Asia, a continent that has a number of distinguished national film industries. A concept central to much of Asian film production is melodrama. This path-breaking study examines the importance of melodrama in the film traditions of Japan, India, China, Indonesia, the Philippines, and Australia. Exploring the various ways that melodrama operates with theoretical sophistication, the various essays contained in this volume shed light on the different traditions of Asian cinema, as well as on the wider cultural discourse in which they participate.

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Contents

Western
9
Reflections on melodrama East and West
59
The making
73
Melodrama postmodernism and Japanese cinema
101
The melodramatization
127
Crosscultural criticism
143
The United States
155
The case
179
Politics of melodrama in Indonesian cinema
205
The female body
218
Melodrama as
232
What is American about film study
254
Index
279
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