VDM Verlag Melodramatic License: The Re-Imaging of Douglas Sirk's All That Heaven Allows by Rainer Werner Fassbender and Todd Haynes

This monograph is a critical investigation into the "tropes of confinement" found in three films, all filmic melodramas: Douglas Sirk's All That Heaven Allows (1955), Rainer Werner Fassbender's Ali: Fear Eats The Soul (1974), and Todd Haynes'Far From Heaven (2002). The monograph explores how these individual directoirs evoke an emotional response in their viewers through the use of certain aspects of mise en scene (the tropes of confinement)and use these elements as signposts of meaning for the viewer. The monograph deals with these three films in chronological order, beginning with the Sirk film and ending with Haynes' film. The last third of the monograph demonstrates how Haynes develops the tropes of confinement into what could be termed "aperturization", a more sophisticated trope.