Download or read book Melodrama and Trauma written by Thomas Elsaesser and published by . This book was released on 2017-03 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The woman's picture, the male trauma narrative, and mind-game films—three ways that American cinema tests the limits: of what victims can suffer, what the body can bear, and what the mind can understand. Usually considered both marginal and excessive, these genres, modes, or tendencies in contemporary Hollywood have more in common than might at first appear. They tell us much about the way America engages in dialogue with its own divided nature and nation, demonstrated across its most cherished and characteristic of art forms: the movies.