UI Press | Edited and with an Introduction by Darlene J. Sadlier | Latin American Melodrama: Passion, Pathos, and Entertainment

Latin American Melodrama

Passion, Pathos, and Entertainment

The first book to consider cinematic and televisual melodrama in a broad Latin American and U.S. Latino context

Like their Hollywood counterparts, Latin American film and TV melodramas have always been popular and highly profitable. The first of its kind, this anthology engages in a serious study of the aesthetics and cultural implications of Latin American melodramas. Written by some of the major figures in Latin American film scholarship, the studies range across seventy years of movies and television within a transnational context, focusing specifically on the period known as the "Golden Age" of melodrama, the impact of classic melodrama on later forms, and more contemporary forms of melodrama. An introductory essay examines current critical and theoretical debates on melodrama and places the essays within the context of Latin American film and media scholarship.

Contributors are Luisela Alvaray, Mariana Baltar, Catherine L. Benamou, Marvin D'Lugo, Paula Félix-Didier, Andrés Levinson, Gilberto Perez, Darlene J. Sadlier, Cid Vasconcelos, and Ismail Xavier.

"Latin American Melodrama provides long-awaited and much needed analyses of a genre which ... is difficult to define. . . . Sadlier has succeeded in assembling an anthology that is both strongly researched and diverse in its focus. . . . A consistently powerful study of Latin American melodrama."--Studies in Latin American Popular Culture

"Is effective in providing a clear analysis of the use of melodrama in building national narratives while also highlighting the ironic transnational realities of film and telenovelas."--Hispania

"Welcome and long overdue addition to an established field of study."--Luso-Brazilian Review

"A welcome addition to the literature, particularly given melodrama's centrality in cinematic and televisual discourses in Brazil, Mexico, and Venezuela. A very important volume."--Randal Johnson, author of Manoel de Oliveira

"Stimulating, interesting, and informative. The originality and breadth of the research and the interpretations of individual films make this volume a truly significant contribution to the field."--Dennis D. West, author of Contemporary Brazilian Cinema

Darlene J. Sadlier is a professor of Spanish and Portuguese at Indiana University and the author of Nelson Pereira dos Santos and, most recently, Brazil Imagined: 1500 to the Present.