Marylee's Dance,
from Written on the Wind
In this scene from the melodrama, Writtten on the Wind, elements of film language are used in a way common to the genre called melodrama, which specializes in heightened emotions.Parallel editing shows Marylee (Dorothy Malone) in her bedroom, dancing to the tune, "Temptation," while her father slowly dies of a heart attack to the same song (distantly heard outside Marylee's bedroom).
The fire in the fireplace in Marylee's room as well as in her father's office (but more lively in Marylee's); the red flowers in Marylee's bedroom; her negligee; the gun taken away from Marylee's father; the father's fall down the stairs, contrasting against the daughter's confident ascent up the stairs moments before; the Big Band recording of "Temptation" to which Marylee dances; the photograph of Mitch that Marylee holds in her hands as she dances; the wild dance itself; the parallel editing among characters that include father, daughter, Mitch (Rock Hudson), Marylee, and Lucy (Lauren Bacall), involving them all in this moment of failure and excess, make this a typical melodramatic sequence, while advancing themes of sexual displacement and impotence.
These themes, as motifs, can be observed throughout the film. In an early shot, Kyle Hadley (Robert Stack) smashes his liquor bottle against the Hadley mansion (above, left). In audacious scene, after being informed by the family physician of his weakened potency, Kyle ruefully observes a little boy contentedly rocking back and forth on a mechanical horse (right), as if in mockery of Kyle's impotence.
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