Feeling Impressions: Aesthetic Form, Affective Economy, and Religious Sensibilities in Melodrama

A film’s moving images move us, the viewers, in our bodies, minds and feelings, draw us out of ourselves and into the world of the film, and create a shared affectivity among viewers. This presentation will inquire about how cinema is able to move and affect us, focusing specifically on the genre of melodrama with its characteristic intense emotional expressivity and impact. Through the formal analysis of select scenes from non-typical melodramas – Shane, Breaking the Waves, Au hasard Balthazar, 120 BPM – I will argue that the careful construction of images and scenes through aesthetic forms creates an affective economy that reflects and impacts religious sensibilities (here focusing on Christianity) in several ways: it deepens the sense of self as gift, encourages the experience of shared creatureliness, draws attention to the affective dimension of moral orders, and opens up a space of new possibility of healing and flourishing.