First glances at Mildred Pierce: adapting hardboiled melodrama
Résumé
Set in California in the midst of the Depression years, James M. Cain's novel Mildred Pierce (1941) epitomizes the singularity of its author's writing within the hardboiled tradition that thrived in the 1930s, drawing the attention of Hollywood producers in search of original screenplay materials. His book recounts the struggle for money which leads a housewife into the workforce after the building bubble bursts, causing the man of the house (Bert) to lose his main source of income and to walk out on his family. In the words of Cain, ‘Mildred Pierce is one woman's struggle against a great social injustice – which is the mother's necessity to support her children even though husband and community give her not the slightest assistance’.1
The novel was twice adapted for the screen: Michael Curtiz's 1945 interpretation enhances the noir underpinning of the story through its ambiguous characterization of the female lead, torn between her domestic duties as a mother and her ambition to climb the social ladder; Todd Haynes's 2011 television miniseries sheds light on the portrayal of the woman's discontent with her second-class status as a ‘grass widow’,2 nurturing her desire to overcome the limits of her gender.3 The opening sequences provide a threshold into the fictional world of the film and pave the way for ‘genrification’.4 Seeking to entice the viewers and arouse expectation through narrative and visual hooks that anchor the films in different generic frames, the opening sequences of the two films unveil the narrative strategies that guide adaptation, generating distinct ideological discourses around the female lead.