It would seem that Mike Chopra-Grant and I both note a 'canonisation' of
selected films by Deborah Thomas in these two books - an emphasis by her
on the work of 'a select group of auteur directors' (to use Mike's
phrase). In my case, reviewing Thomas's 'Beyond Genre', I couldn't help
but express a misgiving that the result for her theory of
melodrama-comedy-romance was to vitiate its general applicability back
to (Hollywood) films in general. I called my review 'Small World'.
Right there you have the fundamental reason why I wrote that Thomas's
'theory itself is unexciting' - that, and my conviction that 'melodrama'
(subject to 100 different understandings, in my experience) and 'comedy'
(admittedly not the same thing as 'humour') are such broad categories as
to invite blandness when theorised about in comparative terms. Reading
'Beyond Genre' didn't change my mind on that. A whole book telling me
(in essence) that there is comedy in melodrama, and melodrama in comedy,
and that 'romance' helps to link them? The 'theory' simply had to be an
excuse for the analytical 'practice', I reasoned.
The best book on 'genres' that I know of, Eric Bentley's aptly-named
'The Life of the Drama' (1964), represents the fruits of a lifetime
spent in the theatre and writing about it. The contrast with Thomas's
unlively book nagged at me as I read the latter. And at least Lesley
Brill's 'The Hitchcock Romance' (1988) opens onto the world-at-large to
the extent that it uses the conceptual framework of Northrop Frye with
its interesting analogues of 'genres' and the seasons, for example.
What I meant when I referred to Thomas's expressed perceptions in
'Beyond Genre' as remaining 'of a largely theoretical bent' was that
they lacked a 'secondary discipline' to open a window onto the
world-at-large, to be engaging observations in their own right (as Eric
Bentley's constantly are). But I expressed myself badly.
Importantly, I didn't say that Thomas's reading of Leo McCarey's _An
Affair To Remember_ was generally 'ugly' and 'petty'. (It is a splendid
reading, on the whole.) I was referring quite specifically to Thomas's
interpretation of the lines of the song in the film's titles-sequence.
Those are wondrous lines, and Thomas simply doesn't do them justice.
They could be applied to any stage of the 'affair' (beginning, middle,
or end - in a worldly sense) and still carry the same timeless charge.
That's quite enough. Thomas knows that I have appreciated her work in
the past (notably, as published in 'CineAction'), and I don't doubt that
the good times will return!
- Ken Mogg.
|