THE MODALITY OF MELODRAMA AND DOCUMENTARY : JURIS PODNIEKS ’ FILM “ IS IT EASY TO BE YOUNG ?” ( 1986 )

Abstract

Although it is common for genres to be different for fiction films and documentaries, a productive element of genres can also be identified in documentary cinema. The film “Is It Easy to Be Young?” was made at the time when historic changes in the Soviet Union were in the air and tension, pathos and hope were offered by the time itself. The main characters of the film are young, and so is Latvia, the country that regained its independence a few years after the documentary was made. The characters seek, have doubts, cross the boundaries and make choices. Till the 1950s melodrama was treated more as a genre with its characteristic narrative and stylistic features. The main characteristics of melodrama: emotion, dynamic activities; the main goal of melodrama is to raise emotional response in the audience. In contemporary cinema theory (Linda Williams, Christine Gledhill and others), melodrama is also interpreted as a modality that permeates art forms and genres. The concept of melodrama modality gives melodrama an ontological status. That is, melodrama, if we look at it as a basic code of culture, from the aesthetic phenomenon becomes a form of existence. In “Is It Easy to Be Young?” the use of codes and artistic techniques makes it possible to analyse film as a melodrama, while melodrama modality challenges an attempt to obtain a detached view of the form of existence in which the observer is located. Keywords: