What is the difference between drama and melodrama, and how are they similar?

Even the child knows: if there are a lot of funny moments in the film and a traditional happy end, then this is a comedy. When, on the screen, everything ends in gloom, and the search for truth or happiness led the heroes only into a hopeless dead end - most likely, you looked at the tragedy.

Not so sad

In the third genre of literature, cinema, theater - drama - not everything is so sad, the characters usually have a way out of what seems to be a dead end or a hope for the best. What is the difference between drama and melodrama? First, in the drama everything is as close to life as possible, social, everyday problems, conflicts arising at work are shown. The drama of the Soviet period "Holiday in September" based on Vampilov's play with Oleg Dal in the title role, the Italian film "Life is Beautiful" almost comes close to the tragedy, but still it's dramas. Melodrama sharply exacerbates conflicts, clearly opposing the love of hatred, good - evil. The lyric heroine in melodrama is called to suffer and cry, for which she will be rewarded with the appearance of the "beautiful prince" (hero), and the villain in such films will necessarily remain so until the final credits. This is also the difference between drama and melodrama. Very characteristic of the work done in "Bollywood". Indian cinematographers tend to make the situation sometimes absurd (facilitated by a somewhat deliberate game of actors with pronounced gestures and facial expressions), but at the same time everything is perfectly fine. Unforgettable "Zita and Gita", "Beloved Raja", "Vagabond" are melodramas.

Rainbow of emotions

In the melodrama, the spiritual world of the characters unfolds in all the multicolored emotions - that's what dramas differ from melodramas, because in the drama everything is maximally "mundane". Not without reason in the word "melodrama" to the component "drama", that is "action" is added a piece of "melos", which means "song". Feelings of heroes, their spiritual world - this subtle matter - are emphasized in every way in melodrama. Recognized classics: the American "Titanic" Cameron and "Gone with the Wind" Fleming, Russian "Moscow does not believe in tears" Men'shova and "you never dreamed" Fraz. And here, for example, many of Eldar Ryazanov's works, such as "The irony of fate, or With easy steam!", "Promised Heaven", "Service romance" to melodrama in "pure form" can not be attributed. This, to all other things, also comedies. The same can be said about the work of Leonid Gaidai.

Blurred Frames

Age is what distinguishes dramas from melodramas. If the "three whales" - tragedy, comedy and drama - existed on the theatrical stage and in literature even in Ancient Greece, then the melodrama-genre in comparison with them is quite young. Originating in the depths of the tragedy, she smoothed her too "sharp corners." Sometimes it is difficult to understand what is before you - drama or melodrama. Sometimes, the movie begins everyday, and then suddenly the plot makes a melodramatic turn. Therefore, very often in the description of works of cinema we see films of "melodrama (drama)". An example is the one shot by Stephen King's work Escape from Shawshank. Very often directors shoot "synthetic" pictures, carrying elements, for example, thriller, drama and melodrama. As, for example, the adaptation of the novel "The Green Mile" of the same King. So in modern cinema you do not often see a work shot in a strictly defined genre, the frames are more and more blurred. And sometimes it's hard to understand what dramas differ from melodramas, where one ends and another begins.