All that Heaven Allows analysis

The music in the melodrama, All That Heaven Allows plays a large role, in that if the music was even a bit different, the mood would be changed. for example, when Cary was confronted by her son about marrying Ron Curby, we could tell easily, even before Cary entered the house, that the mood was becoming even worse than it already was; at the party that she had just left. when Cary enters her home, even though it is known to us to be the same home that she was in before, suddenly the entrance to their mansion is very dark, even though the fire is burning. here, the music becomes louder almost spontaneously as Cary notices her son standing by the fire. sometimes in the melodrama, the music might get so loud that it almost drowns out what the characters are saying, because what the character is about to say is so obvious due to the lighting, the tone, the preceding actions, etc. As David Bordwell said in Narration and Film Form, . . . music, one of the foundations of "melodrama" as classically conceived, communicates characters' connections and attitudes" (Bordwell 2) Bordwell, in his statement about music is exactly right in every aspect when it comes to the film, All that Heaven Allows. After Cary enters her house, she and Ned talk, but no matter what she says to Ned, he does not want to accept that she will move out of the house and marry Ron;the conversation ends with Ned storming out of the house, saying that he will not come home until she changes her mind