Hollywood film genres: Melodrama

Résumé du document

"Something else besides a mother" this was Stella Dallas' excuse to her daughter in order to alienate her bond with her daughter and secure the latter's marriage into the upper class society.

Discussing the key-scenes of the film that reveal the two contradictory roles Stella has undertaken for herself, womanly desire on one hand and motherly duty on the other, and especially concentrating on the last scene of the "happy ending" that actually underlines the fact that such a reconciliation of the two contradictory roles is impossible.

Stella Dallas is a film which has been categorized as a family melodrama, and more precisely a mother-daughter melodrama addressed to bourgeois women audiences, made in 1937 by King Vidor. It is the story of a woman, who becomes a mother; this woman encounters several difficulties in her role as a mother. As a woman, she wants to climb the social ladder, to belong to the upper class and to have fun; she has to be protective, to take care of her daughter.

Extraits

[...] We find this idea of division in Stella Dallas. The film seems to emphasize the fact that Stella's life can only be achieved through motherhood, that this division between her life as a woman and her motherhood is not negotiable. Stella wants to reach the upper-class society, and to achieve her goal, she seduces Stephen Dallas, the owner of a big factory. She comes in her office pretexting that she wants to give her brother his meal, like if she already had some maternal instinct. [...]

[...] Bibliography The Holywood Melodrama of the Unknown Women, S. Cavel, University of Chicago Press The Desire to Desire. The Woman's film of the 1940s, M-A. Doane, Macmillan Press, London Visulal Pleasures in Narrative Cinema, L. Mulvey The Case Of The Missing Mother. Maternal Issues In Vidor's Stella Dallas. A. [...]

[...] That is what makes this film interesting. Some would argue that the ending of this film is a happy one, but I don't think so. Stella finally doesn't climb the social ladder; she wanted to stay herself in an environment which has rejected her. Because of society and of the judgement of the other, of the power of money, this woman had to give up all she had. This film was made in the late 1930's, and the feminist ideas were not so well spread as today; the film was probably not received with the same critical ideas by the audience, who must have mainly cried at the last scene , seeing this brave woman doing the right thing. [...]

[...] Of course, Stella struggles before giving up. She tries to be at the same time a well-adjusted woman and a good, reliable mother and that is what makes us notice some resisting elements in the narration. But the ending of her story is seen as a fatality, something necessary, and leads the protagonist as well as the viewer to the acceptation of the contradictory demands made on Stella and on women in general. The problem here can be summed up in the term “contradictory roles”: Stella does not manage to fulfil her dreams of a great life, neither is she present at her daughter's side. [...]

[...] Stella's point of view in the movie is always disapproved by people who have more power than herself; It is true that the good point in this is that we don't have one controlling point of view, but we can identify to several characters. However, the last word only seldom belongs to Stella who is often contradicted. She is opposed to a very positive feminine character, H. Morrison, who seems to be the perfect wife, perfect mother and perfect woman. She sympathizes with everybody's problems, even if she does not really interfere; but here again, we can say that she symbolises the ideal of the perfect mother. [...]