| This thesis is an investigation into the tropes of confinement found in three films, all filmic melodramas: Douglas Sirk's All That Heaven Allows (1955), Rainer Werner Fassbinder's Ali: Fear Eats the Soul (1974), and Todd Haynes' Far From Heaven (2002). The thesis explores how these individual directors 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 three chapters deal with these films in chronological order, beginning with the Sirk film and finishing with Haynes' film. The third chapter demonstrates how Haynes develops the tropes of confinement into what could be termed "aperturization", a more sophisticated trope. |
