Ming Wong's Lerne Deutsch mit Petra Von Kant specially focus on the scene of Petra's monologue. It amplifies the drastic emotional outlet of Petra and displays her inner self which cannot be so vividly presented and exposed in real life occasions. Yet, such emotional breakout is common and understandable in audience's experience. It is exactly what Linda Williams indicates in “Melodrama Revised” that “melodrama is a peculiarly democratic and American form that seeks dramatic revelation of moral and emotional truths through a dialectic of pathos and action”. (Williams 42) She also argues that “The theatrical function of melodrama's big sensation scenes was to be able to put forth a moral truth in gesture and to picture what could not be fully spoken in words.” (Williams 52)
In this scene, Wong did not arrange a exact same setting as he did to other films he produced. Also, the engagement with other characters is also omitted. We could try to interpret his purpose of focusing on Petra alone in several ways. This monologue is the Petra's reflection to herself. Even though she interacts with her daughter, mother and friend, she in fact is imploding, collapsing and rebuilding inside. Also, the props, actresses and settings no longer matter as they are only the tools that serve for the theme. Wong's work is an explicit extract of Fassbinder's The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant. Wong gets the essence of the film by reproducing it in such way.
It is so inarguably true that Linda Williams refers melodrama as the best representation of America's most controversial sexual, racial and gender issues. (Williams 82) It is a all female film while there is a disturbing male nudity on the wall painting. "The role of this enormous painting is not simply to provide pictorial opportunities for Fassbinder's camera. The painting stands for, and underlines, artifice." by Paul Thomas in “Fassbinder: The Poetry of the Inarticulate”. To say the entire film is set up as an artifice, the best example can be found in the scene where Petra lies down and she stretch her legs in the bed. The female nudity in the painting does the same. The bare legs represent the sexual invite and implication as the relation develops between two. (41 min)
“you want to be told lies”
"Yes, lie to me. Please lie to me. "
"I was walking alone all night. Thinking about us."
"Really. That was not true." By saying that, there is a fleeting and undisguised smile on Petra's face as if she is completely convinced by the obvious lie. The phlegmatic expression on Karin's face also indicates such lying between them is a norm that happens a lot. That's what the melodrama is about. We see reality and humanity in an artefact.
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