Meals and Melodrama Commensality in Contemporary International Cinema

Date of Award

2003

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelors

Department

Humanities

First Advisor

Cuomo, Glenn

Keywords

Meals, Cinema, Family

Area of Concentration

Humanities

Abstract

Authors, filmmakers, psychologists and anthropologists agree: families who eat together, stay together. Contemporary world cinema embraces mealtime as a symbol of family togetherness. Melodrama provides the perfect generic venue for family mealtime, with its emphasis on relationships, domestic situations, and heightened emotion. In other films, foods can connote magical qualities, such as the ability to reconcile opposing cultural and religious values. This thesis project analyzes contemporary film dramas where rituals of cooking and eating are central framing devices. The idea behind such films is that mealtimes reveal character and conflict, while also providing a means of narrative resolution. Consequently, these 'food films' bring special focus to mealtime behaviors found across cultures and subcultures, employing the table as a universal gathering device and bonding mechanism for characters. Chapter One explores the historical underpinnings of melodrama and analyzes three films: Alfonso Arau's Como Agua Para Chocolate (Like Water for Chocolate) (1993), Ang Lee's Eat Drink Man Woman (1994), and Gurinder Chadha's What's Cooking (2000). Chapter Two briefly explains Scandinavian philosophy and literature (Kierkegaard, Andersen) as they inform Gabriel Axel's Babette's Feast (I 987) and Lasse Hallstr6m's Chocolat (2000). While the first part of this study explores the sharing of food at the family level, the second part explores how a community comes together around food as well.

Rights

This bibliographic record is available under the Creative Commons CC0 public domain dedication. The New College of Florida, as creator of this bibliographic record, has waived all rights to it worldwide under copyright law, including all related and neighboring rights, to the extent allowed by law.

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