There is much debate in film studies about what films count as melodrama. Film scholar Steve Neale's essay, “Melodrama and the Woman's Film,” describes the paradigm shift that melodrama underwent from the silent era to the 1970s. On the other hand, Christine Gledhill's essays, “Rethinking Genre” and “The Melodramatic Field: An Investigation,” suggest that melodrama is only a mode and not, in fact, a genre. While Thomas Elsaesser's essay "Tales of Sound and Fury: Observations on The Family Melodrama" identifies the different types of melodrama. But what is a true form of melodrama? At first, it might be difficult to understand why an animated movie like Curious George made my nephew ask me why he wanted to cry when the monkey was separated from his zookeeper, and then ask me why the movie made him sad. What my little nephew didn't know was that I was crying too. Melodramatic films are those that make you cry: films that have an essence of verisimilitude, evoke pathos, and use music to heighten the "drama." In this essay, I will take elements from Neale, Elsaesser, and Gledhill's talks on melodrama to support my definition. At the end of this essay, I will give a brief explanation of why melodramatic film as a contemporary drama is important and universally understood. For a film to be considered a melodrama, it must have a presence of verisimilitude. In other words, a melodramatic film must imitate real life. According to Elsaesser's essay, he says that, "even though the situations and feelings defied all categories of verisimilitude and were totally different from anything that exists in real life, the structure had a truth and a life to it." was clean, which artists could integrate into their material. (37...... middle of paper ...... realizes the loss Pita will experience. As an adult, one is familiar with extreme sadness and real suffering. Most adults know the feeling to never be able to say you love someone because they died or because you lost your favorite toy Even if you haven't experienced such life-changing events, we have all experienced separation. our mother's womb. Our first cry is our first trauma. It is implanted in our psyche. This is why in melodramatic films there are those of great pathos which make the spectator cry because he becomes familiar. with the pain (even a five year old can understand), and there are screams of joy at the end for the purpose of catharsis that relieves the trauma of separation (Why is crying therapeutic? How does it relieve. Does this trauma lead us to confront the separation anxiety that you are referring to?.?)