Too Much: Melodrama on Film

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Too Much: Melodrama on Film

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Too Much: Melodrama on Film

Cinema is, by nature, melodramatic.

Beautiful people perform impossible stories, hearts on sleeves as they dance through an artificial world. In a passionate purge of emotion, melodrama employs exaggerated staging, score and performance to create the ultimate spectacle. The stories it tells are intimate and familial, but stakes are high, and characters rarely behave rationally. They are human, after all.

Despite (or because of) its popularity, melodrama has repeatedly been dismissed by critics. They find sincerity confronting, a lack of restraint distasteful. As women through the ages have been told: it’s not right to be so hysterical.

The rare cinematic form concerned with women’s inner lives, these films span infidelity, motherhood and exploitation to capture our hearts and evoke our empathy. The legacy of early ‘women’s pictures’, created for female audiences with their favourite female stars, echoes across generations and around the world. As in life, these women do not always triumph. Imperfectly feminist yet endlessly relatable, their sensationalist struggles carry searing social commentary beneath their glossy veneer.

In the coming months we will embrace the vivid visual language and heightened dramatics of melodrama, inviting you to leave your cynicism at the door and feel something.

Don’t forget your tissues.

The below screenings as part of our Too Much: Melodrama on Film season will be preceded by guest introductions:

Monday 3rd November, 20:15 - Letter from an Unknown Woman, introduced by Dr Sarah Artt.

Saturday 8th November, 18:10 - Mamma Roma, introduced by Dr Pasquale Iannone.

Wednesday 26th November, 20:35 - Forever a Woman (Eternal Breasts), introduced by Dr Pasquale Iannone.

Saturday 29th November, 18:00 - Imitation of Life, introduced by Dr Pasquale Iannone.

Saturday 6th December, 17:30 - The Silences of the Palace, introduced by Dr Sarah Artt.

Sunday 7th December, 15:00 - Brief Encounter, introduced by Dr Malgorzata Bugaj.

Tuesday 16th December, 18:00 - Far From Heaven, introduced by Dr Malgorzata Bugaj.

Wednesday 17th December, 18:00 - All That Heaven Allows, introduced by Dr Malgorzata Bugaj.

Dr Sarah Artt is Lecturer in English and Film at Edinburgh Napier University, where she has taught since 2007. Her work has appeared with a variety of academic presses, as well as online in The Conversation. She maintains a Substack about horror and art cinema entitled Visual Aroma. Her book Quiet Pictures: Women and Silence in Contemporary British and French Cinema was published by Bloomsbury in 2024.

Dr Pasquale Iannone is Lecturer in Film Studies at the University of Edinburgh. He is also a critic and broadcaster.

Dr Malgorzata Bugaj is a Film and Media Studies Teaching Fellow at the University of Edinburgh’s Centre for Open Learning where she teaches short open-access courses, such as Cinema and the Five Senses or Women Directors in Focus. She is a researcher at the Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities exploring the intersection of film and medical humanities. She also works as a freelance curator, organising film events in Edinburgh and beyond.

Book tickets for two or more of our Melodrama films (excluding Safe + Discussion & Stronger Than Love: ¡Too Much Mexican Melodrama! titles) to receive a discount! Tickets can also be bought separately.

All copy provided by British Film Institute.

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We open 30 minutes before the first showtime of the day.

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All theaters are ADA accessible with wheelchair seating.

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Closed captioning and assistive listening devices are available at the box office.

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