Post-irony and Three Faces of Melodrama
Postironia i trzy twarze melodramatu

Summary/Abstract: As Włodek notes in the introduction to the article, the title “three faces” refer to the three moments in the existence of melodrama – pre-ironic, ironic and post-ironic. It is in this schema that the author presents a theoretical reflection, enriched with numerous film examples, on the issue of film melodrama in its three periods. The first part of the text is devoted to the interpretation of the melodrama, its definition and relation to the classic cinema, as well as the application of the concepts of “post-irony” and “New Sincerity”. In the second part, she focuses on selected films and strategies for updating the melodrama on cinema screen, and also identifies one of the key figures for this genre, which is a harlot with a heart of gold. She also emphasizes that the extended understanding of melodrama turns out to be particularly justified if we consider melodrama from a diachronic perspective – from preto post-irony. In summary, she notes that each of these discussed forms of melodrama shows how flickering and vivid is not only contemporary cinema, but also older films, even those before the classic period. Each of the evoked cinematographic formations (pre-classic and pre-codex, post-modernist and post-ironic) function – in accordance with the observations of Jim Collins quoted by Włodek – in a metamythological dimension built of layers of popular mythology that coexist and are constantly redefined.

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