Through original analysis of three contemporary, auteur-directed melodramas (Matthew Weiner s Mad Men, Lars von Trier s Melancholia and Todd Haynes s Mildred Pierce), Living Screens reconceives and renovates the terms in which melodrama has been understood. Returning to Jean-Jacques Rousseau s foundational, Enlightenment-era melodrama Pygmalion with its revival of an old story about sculpted objects that spring to life, it contends that this early production prefigures the structure of contemporary melodramas and serves as a model for the way we interact with media today. Melodrama is...

Through original analysis of three contemporary, auteur-directed melodramas (Matthew Weiner s Mad Men, Lars von Trier s Melancholia and Todd Haynes s Mildred Pierce), Living Screens reconceives and renovates the terms in which melodrama has been understood. Returning to Jean-Jacques Rousseau s foundational, Enlightenment-era melodrama Pygmalion with its revival of an old story about sculpted objects that spring to life, it contends that this early production prefigures the structure of contemporary melodramas and serves as a model for the way we interact with media today. Melodrama is...