Alejandro González Iñárritu’s melodramatic masculinities

Melodrama is a genre with deep roots in Mexican cinema with distinct conventions and particularities. Alejandro González Iñárritu (AGI) demonstrates a fluency in this genre integrating it into the conventions of transnational art house cinema. As someone whose auteur status is conferred both through multiple prestigious awards and articulations of his creative self as originator of his projects, AGI’s play with genre is often overlooked. Using videographic criticism as a tool for analysis, this article considers the actor’s dynamic performances in AGI’s male-centred melodramas Amores perros (2000), 21 Grams (2003), Babel (2006), Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) (2014) and The Revenant (2015).