merry widow

In response to essay question 1 involving narrative construction and style, The Merry Widow (Ernst Lubitsch, 1934) is constructed using both the classic Hollywood film and the American film musical structure. Due to its familiarity, the style of such films goes relatively unnoticed, although within the veranda scene depicting Count Danilo (Maurice Chevalier) and Madam Sonya’s (Jeanette McDonald) first encounter, stylistic features and narrative construction are quite overt. The musical genre of the film determines a plot driven by the actions and relationship between these two protagonists, yet is the cause and effect structure of the classical Hollywood film that is the catalyst for action in this scene. To define and construct character, conventions are primarily related to the film musical genre whilst a continuous flow of action creates a unified structure throughout the entire scene.
In one of the most pivotal scenes of the entire film, where specific actions from the two leads act as catalyst’s for primary plot development, a reliance on causality is undoubtedly a driving force. Whilst the scene holds true to both the inextricable psychological truth of action driven by desire and the film musical’s construction by way of “submerged parallelism”, the scene principally develops a cause and effect narrative through the actions of Danilo and Sonya. The obstacles depicted in the fabula are established in this scene through Danilo’s brazen attempt at another conquest and Sonya’s stubborn inability to admit her loneliness and lust. The scene consists of a multitude of actions reliant on cause and effect, the preponderance of Sonya over Danilo, marked by her shift to controller of the conversation, is a direct result of Danilo’s blatant attempt at courtship. EXAMPLE FROM FILM. This constant power shift is a reoccurring feature throughout the film.

Classic American film musical conventions and structure are paramount to the development and defining of