In cinema, Romance films are characterized by their stories of the sentimental relationship between two characters. Romance films tend to play on the viewer’s perceptions of romance by incorporating scenes with the characters staring dreamily into each other’s eyes or the characters in shots with romantic sunsets in the background. These films often play on the idea that romance is a transcendental bliss. These factors make romance films possibly the biggest purveyors of escapism in film because they portray love in an ideal but unrealistic manner. Romantic stories typically revolve around two lovers who meet and fall deeply in love. The lovers also must deal with obstacles thrown at them that sometimes make their relationship stronger or make it fall apart. These obstacles include the characters’ different social class or race, parental disapproval, tragic events, illness, and sometimes even death. Sometimes, in order to overcome these obstacles, one lover must make sacrifices for the other. This intensifies the plot and captivates the audience through emotion, which are both important to romantic films. Common, romantic themes such as love at first sight, obsessive love, forbidden love, sacrificial love, tragic love, destructive love, and unrequited love, are somewhat portrayed in romances. The generic “happily ever after ending” is seen in many romances, but many romantic films do not have this fairy-tale ending. Yet, even though there might not be a happy ending, the love between the two characters serves as a shield against the harshness of the real world. In some cases people would rather imagine the unrealistic, fairy-tale ending, but in many cases the audience gets more out the movie with a realistic ending that they can relate to.
Romance films have existed ever since the beginning of film. Thomas Edison’s The May Irwin Kiss (1896) is noted to have been the first filming of a kiss. Not too later on, Alexander Dumas’ romance film, Camille (1915), was remade three more times during the silent era. The 1917 version features Theda Bara, the “vamp,” who was the first movie sex symbol. Through the years, new types of romances, such as romantic comedies, have developed. Romantic comedies of the 1930s and 1940s involved “zany plots, unlikely romances or interesting pairings, and rapid-fire dialogue” (filmsite.org). Frank Capra’s It Happened One Night (1934), and Howard Hawk’s His Girl Friday (1940) are just few of the many romantic comedies during this time. Film noir, dark film, brings in a destructive side to romances. These types of romances are generally dark and include things like death, murder, and some mystery. One example of a destructive romance is Henry Hathaway’s Niagara (1953), which is about a sexy, scheming woman (played by Marilyn Monroe) who plots to kill her husband on their honeymoon. These types of films keep the audience on the edge of their seats, but if one truly enjoys romance, then there is not need for all the extra suspense to add to the relationship between the two central characters. Romance films come in different forms, but they all tie together with love and relationship – the true aspects of romance.
Sources Used:
http://www.filmsite.org/romancefilms4.html
http://www.allmovie.com/explore/genre/romance-948
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