dead wife montage

Meanings

1. A montage that shows a male protagonist's female partner, in a lost idealized, intimate state, sometimes in an idyllic setting.
2. An image or scene evocative of the above, generally with regard to the photogenicity of the subject, or the intimacy between the subject and perspective character.

Etymology

From a trope in film and television in which the deceased female partner of a grieving male protagonist appears in flashback or diegetic home movie, in happier circumstances than the protagonist now appears.