By Marie Frangie
Edited by Rachel Barker and Megan Belrose
Try as one might to explain that Oedipus or Agamemnon are not actually punished for wrongdoing when they meet their fates, American students imbued with the popular values of melodrama cannot help but see these fates as punishment for antidemocratic, “over-weening” pride. Thus Americans read Greek tragedy melodramatically. (Williams, “Melodrama Revised” 53)
Introduction
In both tragedy and melodrama, suffering is foregrounded to expose deeper dimensions of human experience—but where tragedy often leads to emotional release, melodrama directs audiences toward moral evaluation. Literary theorist Peter Brook situates the origins of melodrama in the theatre stages of nineteenth-century France (43). As bans on speech were increasingly imposed on unlicensed establishments, plays utilized the spectacular—visual cues, like gesture and picture—to induce recognition of moral truths among audiences by drawing on felt sensations rather than words. Interpreted by film theorist Linda Williams, melodrama’s spectacles induce a new kind of understanding—one that incites audiences to sense the moral virtue in characters that conventional representation and language have long ignored (“Melodrama Revised” 53–62). Specifically, melodrama moralizes the victimization of its protagonists, inextricably linking characters’ “goodness” to their suffering in the face of a fundamentally unjust system. Hence, artists may employ the melodramatic mode to navigate contemporary social problems, especially those of marginalized groups, asserting moral truths in an otherwise morally ambiguous world. Consequently, modern film adaptations of Greek tragedies have become more sympathetic to the melodramatic rather than to the tragic mode. This essay demonstrates how Denis Villeneuve’s Incendies (2010), a cinematic reimagining of the Oedipus myth, aligns more closely with melodramatic conventions than tragedy through its reliance on spectacle. To do so, this paper first explores Aristotle’s classic delineations of tragedy in “Poetics,” particularly his disdain for its spectacle component (lines 2316–40). Afterwards, the sensationalism of melodrama as defined by Williams is outlined, thus highlighting the discrepancies between tragedy and melodrama. With such insight, Incendies will be illustrated as a decidedly melodramatic work as opposed to a tragic composition. This modal shift in the film’s treatment of the Oedipus myth reflects a broader didactic trend in cinematic adaptations of Greek tragedies, wherein melodrama supplants catharsis with moral judgment to provoke critical engagement with contemporary social issues.
Tragedy and Aristotle’s Devaluation of the Spectacle
Among tragedy’s seven components, Aristotle names spectacle “the least artistic of all the parts.” The philosopher defines the spectacle as “an attraction” that stimulates audiences’ senses through visual elements, like the play’s scenery, stage effects, and costuming (2321). Though pleasing, Aristotle ultimately deems spectacle a dispensable part of tragedy, asserting that its inclusion is not necessary to achieve a tragic effect (2326). He justifies his position by first noting that a public performance and actors are not imperative to convey tragedy (2321). In fact, he argues that merely recounting the plot should inspire enough pity and fear (pathos) in the listener to evoke the play’s tragedy, referencing Oedipus Tyrannus as an exemplary plot (2326). Aristotle also minimizes spectacle because it falls under the designer’s scope of responsibility rather than the poet’s (2321). Both lines of reasoning demonstrate an elevation of plot as tragedy’s primary factor.
Here, plot refers to the arrangement of the incidents that unfold in the story, i.e., how the story’s action is structured. Sequentially, the following components succeed the plot: character (what causes audiences to ascribe certain traits to characters); thought (ideas conveyed by the characters’ words or general truths echoed through characters); diction (how verses are composed); melody (musical elements of the play, including the chorus); and spectacle (2320). Plot ultimately remains the most important of tragedy’s parts, as Aristotle believes that the best possible anagnorisis stems from a unified and incidental plot. Tragedy, as defined by Aristotle, is a mode grounded in catharsis—the process by which viewers experience pity and fear (pathos) so they may purge these emotions. Ideally, catharsis is evoked when a character’s tragic flaw (hamartia) causes an inevitable reversal of fortune (peripeteia) and a simultaneous shift from ignorance to knowledge when a critical but tragic discovery is made (anagnorisis). Thus, catharsis operates through the audience’s recognition of a character’s misfortune, prompting in them an emotional release of pity and fear while foregoing the character’s choices and moral character.
Moreover, the character’s hamartia is not indicative of their moral evil, but is rather identified as a misjudgment indicative of humans’ inherent fallibility. For instance, in Sophocles’ Oedipus Tyrannus, Oedipus’s insistence on uncovering Laius’s murderer is not a vice. Still, it constitutes his hamartia and sets the course for his anagnorisis and peripeteia—it is the catalyst for the harrowing realization that he has slain his father and lain with his mother. The unknowing perversity of Oedipus’s horrific acts generates the tragic irony of the play, since Oedipus’s realization of the tragically unchangeable leads to his downfall (peripeteia). Indeed, Aristotle praises Sophocles’ Oedipus Tyrannus because Oedipus’s anagnorisis is born from the incidents in the plot itself. In other words, he celebrates the poet’s manipulation of the plot, whose beginning, middle, and end causally work together to evoke pathos (2328).
In contrast, with regard to inspiring catharsis, spectacle is again dismissed. Aristotle deems discoveries made by way of visual signs to be symptoms of the poet’s lack of invention. Such visuals, like scars or external tokens, do not produce recognition thanks to the plot’s incidental events, but through contrived representations (2328). Hence, Aristotle’s influential definition of tragedy frames the mode as one that should induce a purging of emotions in audiences. Plot is established as a central tool, while spectacle—though an attractive addition—is unnecessary and debasing if overly relied upon.
The Revival of Spectacle in Melodrama
Though melodrama literally means the addition of music (melos) to drama, film scholars Christine Gledhill and Linda Williams argue that the mode should not merely be understood by the introduction of music, but rather, by “what music represents—the opening up of drama—on stage, in fiction, then in film, radio, and television—to waves of feeling that would have been unthinkable in Greek tragedy” (1). Williams has long maintained that, with the heightened presence of sensational effects like music, pantomime, and gesture on the French stage, emotions emerged as a new register of signification, frequently bypassing verbal language altogether. Through the spectacle of emotions, ideological truths are not only merely accepted through the cause-and-effect logic characteristic of tragic narratives, but are felt viscerally through sensational effects (“Melodrama Revised” 50–2).
Melodrama’s heightened sensations ultimately serve to invoke moral truths, identifying vice and virtue in a post-sacred society. Importantly, the mode searches for moral redemption, trying to recover the innocence lost within an unjust system. Hence, melodrama is often grounded in the “everyday,” dramatizing the mundane to find moral good in a world where it seems difficult to recognize (“Melodrama Revised” 53). Thus, “good” and “bad” morals are not prescribed stereotypically, but lent to “any body,” positioning melodrama as an effective means of inspiring pathos for a range of individuals. (Gledhill and Williams 5). Characters who are hurt at the hands of an unjust system are deemed virtuous, and the spectacle of their suffering becomes deeply linked to their moral “goodness.” In Gledhill and Williams’ Melodrama Unbound, E. Diedre Pribham concludes that recognition of the emotions elicited by melodrama’s sensational effects enables spectators to “acknowledge [their] history, [their] cultural experiences, and [their] felt existence” (242). Indeed, as melodrama often reflects on its current moment, emotional recognition of those condemned by society inspires a contemporary awareness. Audiences possess a “dual recognition,” understanding how things are and how they ought to be, ultimately seeking justice for the victimized (Williams, “Melodrama Revised” 48). Consequently, a melodramatic narrative begins and strives to end with innocence, the latter defined as “virtue taking pleasure in itself” (Williams 65). According to Williams, melodrama has become the dominant aesthetic mode of American cinema, fitting with the nation’s (often hypocritical) cultural imagining of itself as the patron of justice and virtue (50).
Melodrama’s spectacle of strong emotions, then, does not render it a failed tragedy, as critics often claim. Though frequently dismissed as exaggerated or superficial, these intense emotional displays serve to convey and legitimize socially significant sentiments (“Melodrama Revised” 50). Audiences do not simply mimic pathos; instead, it becomes part of a complex negotiation between their emotions and thoughts. Again, melodrama prompts audiences to consider both the realities of social life and the ideals toward which it should aspire. It attempts to delineate who is virtuous and ought to be supported, as well as who upholds vice and should consequently be punished (48–53). Thus, melodrama conveys moral and political perspectives. Moreover, melodrama stands as a mode distinct from tragedy, one that engages audiences in critical reflection. For this reason, Williams observes that American audiences, accustomed to the poetics of melodrama, interpret the Oedipal myth in ways that deny both the inevitability of characters’ fates and their role in producing catharsis, as tragedy conventionally dictates (53). Rather, viewers judge peripeteia through a moral lens, assessing the extent to which justice has—or has not—been realized. Within the melodramatic mode, Oedipus’s downfall becomes a punishment for his sinful pride and the wrongdoings which enriched him at Laius’s behest, as opposed to a fateful incident. Hence, “Americans read Greek tragedy melodramatically” (53).
Incendies and Oedipus as Melodrama
As melodrama’s reach has expanded in media, film adaptations of Greek tragedies have become sites of the melodramatic rather than the tragic. Denis Villeneuve’s Incendies reinterprets the myth of Oedipus in a modern context and provides an exemplary instance of this phenomenon. Though the film is deserving of a more thorough explanation, a brief summary must suffice. Its plot follows twins Jeanne and Simon, who are tasked with finding the father and brother they never knew at the request of their deceased mother, Nawal. To do so, they must temporarily leave Montreal and return to her home country in the Middle East, where they learn about her life in the midst of a civil war. The twins make the horrific discovery that their father, a man who they learn had repeatedly raped their mother while she was a political prisoner, is also their brother, orphaned as the product of an intersectarian love affair. The film concludes with the Oedipus figure’s anagnorisis as the brother/father receives two letters, where Nawal, the Jocasta figure, reveals herself as both his prisoner and his mother.
While acknowledging the continued relevance of melodrama in contemporary storytelling, it is essential to uncover precisely why Incendies adopts this mode over classical tragedy. The film is based on Wajdi Mouawad’s play of the same title, which in turn takes inspiration from Soha Bechara’s life. Bechara was a Lebanese resistance fighter imprisoned from 1988 to 1999 by the Israeli government, which operated by proxy of the South Lebanese Army (Moussa). Wajdi Mouawad and his family were forced to flee Lebanon during its civil war spanning from 1975 to 1990, moving to France in 1977 and Montreal in 1983 (Garebian), with many Lebanese immigrants settling in Canada at the time (Aoun and Madi). Though Incendies never explicitly mentions Lebanon as its primary setting, its history and presence are echoed in the film. Nawal is ultimately harmed by the violence that arises from sectarian conflict, as was the case in the Lebanese Civil War. Her lover, a Muslim refugee (likely a Palestinian refugee given the historical context), is first killed by her Christian brothers, as their affair has shamed Nawal’s family. Their son is forced into a Muslim militia as a child, and he is later embraced by a Christian militia as a torturer in the same prison where Nawal is jailed after attempting to kill a leading figure within the Christian militia. Countless other instances in the film depict how Nawal and her family are directly harmed by the sectarian ideologies that governed the Lebanese Civil War. By consistently highlighting Nawal’s suffering at the hands of such a society, she is justified as a “good” person who has ultimately been victimized by an “evil” system. The choice to depict Nawal as such through a reinterpretation of Oedipus shifts the story from the realm of tragedy to melodrama. Indeed, moral qualities are ascribed to engage audiences in pathos with victims of civil war and to critique the systems that enable such violence. Given the recent history of the Lebanese Civil War during the play’s first performance in 2003 and the film’s release in 2010, there may have been an effort to critically engage audiences in a recent moment while encouraging discourse with Lebanese-Canadians. Thus, in Incendies, the Greek tragedy is adapted in the melodramatic mode to address political events and a contemporary social context.
In Incendies, the tragic framework of Oedipus Tyrannus is intricately reimagined through melodrama. Though eager to explore them all, this essay narrows its focus to the most pivotal sensational strategies, namely the film’s diverging treatments of suffering, morality, and recognition. First, the sources of suffering in the classic Oedipus myth and in Incendies differ significantly. Aristotle conceives the tragic Oedipus as a figure whose peripeteia is inevitable and rooted in his fatal flaw (hamartia). Oedipus’s downfall is therefore seen as neither unjust nor contestable, and audiences largely accept it as a necessary, though unfortunate, outcome. In contrast, Incendies frames suffering not as the result of individual flaws, but as stemming from broader societal violence, particularly civil war. Even as the film foregrounds Jocasta’s perspective, her family’s suffering is persistently represented as a consequence of broader societal strife. Indeed, it is telling that though both Nawal and her son align themselves with different factions throughout the film, they suffer regardless of their loyalties. Hence, the movie persistently blames characters’ suffering on the sectarian ideologies of the civil war. Consequently, audiences are prompted to acknowledge sectarian beliefs that engender division and hierarchy as agents of violence and are encouraged to condemn them. Rather than inciting passive reactions through the tragic mode, Incendies utilizes the melodramatic mode to inspire recognition and critique of harmful social ideologies. This same motivation propels Nawal to send Jeanne and Simon on a mission to uncover their family’s identity. In their understanding of the harrowing consequences of sectarian ideology, they may disparage it and break the chain of anger which has afflicted their kin. With this redemption, the film resurfaces the innocence briefly displayed at its beginning, where sects co-existed through Nawal and her lover.
Of course, the melodramatic effect is also identifiable in Incendies thanks to the film’s significant leveraging of spectacle. It is perhaps in this way that Incendies is most distinct from Aristotle’s conception of tragedy, the former so invested in the component that the philosopher least embraces. Visually, Incendies’ sensational effects are achieved through the actors’ performances and the use of external tokens to convey key information. Aristotle devalues both, claiming the former unnecessary for evoking tragedy (2321) and the latter a lesser means of anagnorisis than plot causality (2326). In contrast, as Williams states, melodrama views “body and gesture” as essential to revealing characters’ personalities, consequently enabling the communication of emotional and moral truths (“Melodrama Revised” 77). Quoting Gledhill, Williams argues that this focus on expressive performance accounts for the prominence of Lee Strasberg’s method acting in melodrama, as actors’ efforts to externalize a character’s inner life and emotions become a key means of conveying moral and ethical values (78). This melodramatic approach to performance helps illuminate how Incendies harnesses emotional spectacle to convey the heightened affect typical of melodrama.
In turn, both physical representations and reactions to violence are emphasized in the film. For instance, when Jeanne learns that her father is also her brother, the actress emits a horrified gasp, facing the camera. After Jeanne and Simon discover that they are products of rape, the degree of their horror is embodied through fierce movements as the film cuts to a scene of them vigorously swimming. The camera floats above turbulent water, disturbed by their crashing limbs, each movement a physical manifestation of the storm of shattering emotions within. Indeed, in Incendies, characters’ reactions to violence first present somatically. Of course, Aristotle’s contemporary tragic performers could not act out feelings to the same degree, wearing masks that statically and stereotypically depicted a character’s given emotion. Though their gestures and masks could be exaggerated to better convey characters’ sentiments, the crux of the tragedy’s pathos remained dependent on the play’s plot (Aristotle 2326).
Beyond initial responses, characters’ traumas and sustained emotional states in Incendies also present physically, their appearances transformed by their suffering. The presentation of Nawal’s catatonic state provides a significant example. At the pool, she recognizes her son thanks to the three dots tattooed on his heel at birth. She simultaneously recognizes him as her torturer once she sees his face. Soon after, the camera cuts to a close-up of Nawal, capturing her in a state of visible bewilderment. Her lips are gently parted in disbelief, and her eyes stare into the abyss, weighed down by bags that have rematerialized as visible expressions of the exhaustion and pain she has accumulated over the years. She wears the same expression later when the twins visit her in the hospital. Ultimately, Incendies intentionally wishes to overtly and indisputably demonstrate the effects of trauma. The film forces audiences to recognize the system’s violence clearly, its effects physically manifested through its victims. The outward and sensational nature of this suffering also inspires further pathos from audiences, as melodrama is fundamentally a body genre, inspiring emotional reactions from its viewers (Williams, “Melodrama Revisited”).
Finally, the use of signs—the boy’s tattoo and the letters—for Nawal and her son’s anagnorises emphasizes the melodramatic spectacle Incendies harnesses to assert and legitimize the consequences of violence. Representing the destructive results of sectarian ideology, these external tokens assertively take up space, firmly echoing the legitimate presence of such violent systems through their own existence. Though Oedipus’s club foot in Sophocles’s account is a sign of his origins, it is not the catalyst of his anagnorisis, as is the case for the mentioned signs in Incendies. Hence, in the modern adaptation of the myth, spectacle becomes imperative to the unfolding story in a way that subverts Aristotle’s delineations for tragedy. Of course, this is fitting, as Incendies transforms the tragedy into melodrama, utilizing the spectacular and the sensational not only to evoke pathos but also to make apparent the consequences of sectarian violence.
Conclusion
Where Greek tragedies once relied on catharsis, modern adaptations turn to melodrama, foregrounding moral judgment and the spectacle of emotion to engage audiences critically—a shift exemplified in Denis Villeneuve’s Incendies, where the Oedipus myth is reworked to prompt confrontation with contemporary social violences. As Linda Williams argues, melodrama notably spectacularizes suffering, invoking empathy for virtuous victims of a devastating society. Melodrama becomes a crucial moral framework at filmmakers’ disposal to concern audiences with current issues and suggest that they challenge them. Tragedy, as defined in Aristotle’s “Poetics”—with its focus on plot and catharsis rather than critical awareness—does not work towards the same socially-driven purpose as melodrama. By contrast, in Incendies, melodrama forces audiences to recognize the inherent violence of sectarian ideologies that harmed an entire people during the Lebanese Civil War. Other films grounded in their contemporary moment, such as We Are Not Princesses (2018) and Agnus Dei (2012), have utilized Greek tragedies as inter-text with politically charged topics (the former alluding to Sophocles’ Antigone to explore the stories of Syrian refugee women and the latter referring to Oedipus Tyrannus in the context of the Kosovo War). Further research may prove illuminating in determining whether the politicization of Greek tragedies has, in effect, led to their melodramatization.
Works Cited
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Gledhill, Christine and Linda Williams. Melodrama Unbound. Columbia University Press, 2018.
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Feature Photo
Lubna Azabal as Nawal Marwan in Incendies. Photo: Courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics.