melodrama
why i love the melodramatic, through examinations of some of my favourite pieces of media.
can you hear the violence?
there’s blood in the air, red dots that stain the world in carnal colours.
the most archaic of emotions bloom in my gut and fingers; they’re screaming, the sounds blend into white noise, but it’s perfect. does it matter if the screams reek with performance, and that the blood flows from rock and not skin? melodrama is bold and exaggerated and impressionistic, and i always find myself drawn to these moments of monstrous presence and ambition in media.
i. are you ready for it?
the bass kicks in, and your body trembles with the beat. she’s revived, reborn, reinvented. the snake strikes and it draws blood.
I can feel the flames on my skin
Crimson red paint on my lips
If a man talks shit, then I owe him nothing
I don't regret it one bit, 'cause he had it coming
this era is a black and white picture, with the occasional eruption of red and green. some call it revolutionary, some call it bland, many call it bold. i call it melodrama. enormous soundscapes and scathing lyrics clawing for vengeance, and vengeance is earned. overdramatic? over–the–top? i want more. she’s awash with smoke and fire, and i want more.
ii. but favour is a breeze that shifts direction all the time
witty snipes, deadly power-plays. they tip toe their way through a marsh rigged to blow, candy-sweet words on their tongues as they lure the white rabbit in a crown closer, and closer, and closer, never thinking about that one misplaced hop that could bring the sky down on them all.
Harley: It is important to make new friends, is it not?
Abigail: Yes. If that's what's actually happening here, and not veiled threats under the guise of civility.
and when the daggers are finally drawn from coats and corsets, the sky does indeed fall. it decays and crumbles as the organs of Bach spiral up and up and up. the danger, the intensity, the intelligence, the manipulation, the ferocity. i call it melodrama.
iii. fear is the mind-killer
“I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.”
hanz zimmer’s score slams through the speakers. towering ships, foggy landscapes; fire, burning and raging across the sand. the scale of dune casts deep, withering shadows across the narrative. it’s the elixir of the future, where humanity builds and destroys whole environments and worlds, where emperors and barons rule the known universe, where “imposing” and “monumental” are useless adjectives because every single detail is just that.
fear is the mind-killer. awe is the mind-expander. harkonnens bellow, atreides croon, and bene gesserits hiss in this ballad of warring civilisations and devilish back-stabbing. some call it perfect. i call it perfect too. i call it melodrama.
iv. i killed my mother
oh did you now?
xavier dolan, québécois king of melodrama. screaming, crying, throwing up; hating your mother and loving you mother are the same thing, right? inhale – arguments, “i hate you”, shattering glass and metal. exhale – black and white shots, his curly hair covering half his eyes; he’s looking off into the distance, saying:
We should be able to kill ourselves. In our heads. And then be reborn. To be able to talk, look at each other, be together. As if we never met before.
he’s turbulent. it’s 2009, and he’s the same age as taylor swift. she wins a grammy at 20, he wins my heart at 20. there’s something youthful in his dramatics, something so personal. i didn’t kill my mother, but loving is hating, so i might as well have done it, right?
making love on newspapers and paint – there’s something romantic about it. the paint will stick for days, and the newspaper is rough on skin – not ideal, but it’s messy, it’s impulsive, it’s exaggerated, it’s true. some call it naive, most call it “french”. i call it melodrama.
v. we told you this was melodrama
All the glamour and the trauma
And the fuckin' melodrama, whoa, whoa
All the gun fights and the lime lights
And the holy sick divine nights, whoa
look into the dying light. look at how you’re shrouded in blue. we'll end up painted on the road, red and chrome, all the broken glass sparkling.
sink into the feeling.
wrap yourself in theatrics, look up at the ceiling.
[Outro]
We told you this was melodrama
We told you this was melodrama
We told you this was melodrama
We told you this was melodrama
We told you this was melodrama
LOVE
real!