Genre by description

Positive	Negative
Categorise	Too much blurring of boundaries
Distinguish	Lots of film don’t fit
Helps film industry	Can put you off the movie choice
Helps pitch	Double/triple genre films
Directs the actors

Deborah Méndez ©

Descriptive and Functional approaches to Genre

Deborah Méndez ©

	Film Noir	Gangster	Horror	Western	War	Science-fiction	Monster
Themes	Mystery, investigation, isolation in city	Organized crime, MOB, family values, violence	Revenge, supernatural	Injustice, heroes, power, honour	Fights, death, conflicts, violence, man vs. man, honour	Action, adventure, discovering unknown, man vs. technology/unknown	Unknown places, violence
Mood	Worried	Contrast	Loneliness, scary, terror, suspense	Frustration, agitated, adventure, dramatic, fear	Obedience duty, respect, suffering, patriotism	Sadness, action	Action, suspense, fear
Setting	Naturalistic, urban, B&W, driving scenes	Rich houses, parties, poor houses, rural/urban	Isolated places, haunted houses	Towns, desert	Battle field, trenches, destroyed terrains, real places	The “Future”, big spaces/cities, spaceships, forbidden areas	Empire States Building, islands, cities
Other			Music, different shots	Typical Western movie/music	Epic music	Robot prototype
Examples	The Big Sleep	The Godfather	The Shining	The Magnificient Seven	Paths of Glory	Metropolis	King Kong

Genre study

What is it?

-          ‘Genre’ means type or category

-          To study a film as a genre involves a grouping together a large body of films according to characteristics that they all share

-          There are two approaches to identify thee characteristic: the descriptive approach, an the functional approach

Two approaches:

-          A  descriptive approach to genre study means simply describing the attributes of a film, such as theme, mood, and setting, and assigning it to a genre on that basis (e.g. film noire)

-           A functional approach means defining the function or purpose of a film and linking it to other films trying to do the same thing (e.g. blockbuster)

Genre study VS. Auteurism

-          Seems to be a contrast between these two approaches

-          Genre study is all about thinking what makes a particular film the same as many others, regardless of director

-          Auteurism is all about thinking what makes a particular film different from any other according to who directed it.

Why study films according to genre?

1.      Simplifying and making sense of film (convenience)

2.      Comparison of particular characteristics of films

3.      Tracing and understanding social development

4.      Satisfaction of expectations

Problems with the descriptive approach to genre study

- Boundaries between film genres are fuzzy – some films are hard to categorize

- Genres evolve over time à Thrillers from the 1930s and from today

Problems with the functional approach to genre study

-          The ‘function’ of the same film can often be read in different ways

-          E.g. Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Don Siegel, 1956, USA (written by Daniel Mainwaring)

General problems with genre study

- Who should define genres à film critics, film industry or movie-goers

Criticisms of genre study

-          The main criticism assigning a genre to every film is artificial and contrived

-          Robert Stam: “are they really the construction of analysis?”

Examples of main genres (according to Tim Dirks)

-          Action

-          Adventure

-          Comedy

-          Crime and gangster

-          Drama

-          Epics / Historical films

-          Fantasy

-          Horror

-          Musicals / Dance

-          Science fiction

-          War

-          Westerns

Examples of sub-genres within the crime and gangster genre

-          Blaxploitation

-          Buddy cop

-          Caper stories

-          Cops & robbers

-          Espionage

-          Femme tales

-          Film noir

-          Hard-boiled detective

-          Heist

-          Trial films

-          Lovers on the run

-          Mob films

-          Neo-noir

-          Outlaw biker films

-          Police

-          Prison

-          Private-eye

-          Whodunits

-          Suspense thrillers

-          Vice films


Deborah Méndez ©