“The king must be obeyed. Otherwise, the monarchy makes no sense.”

Tragedy is a very difficult art form to master in the modern world. All too often the narrative can veer into contrivance. At first glance, the reason why isn’t straightforward. It’s not a problem of plotting, per say, but has more to do with cinema as a form of self-reference and self-understanding. More and more, we moderns come to understand the meaning of our lives through the lens of cinema. Our understanding of a particular film’s meaning is shaped by our past filmic experiences, connecting points inside a common shared space, a larger cinematic map we learn to orient along a plane. Tragedy is not the end result of a series of unfortunate events or plot points, but is framed within the larger context of this shared cinematic universe. It is a daunting task. The obstacles we place before our tragic heroes may well be too high for the audience to scale, and there is always a danger they will give up and refuse to climb along the journey. To experience the modern world is already an ironic gesture, a self-referential reification. The ironic pose of tragedy culminates in its highest expression: melodrama. But melodrama creates precarious footing upon which the narrative can slip beneath our feet. Every new ledge along the precipice, each toehold we create for safe footing becomes a tired well-worn path which advanced cinephiles like us reject as trite. Been there. Done that. The thirst for novelty threatens to plunge our story into increasingly strange and bizarre twists to keep the excitement level high. Melodrama is the addiction, but like all addictive drugs, we are forced to increase the dosage to maintain our high.