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 ©

Key elements of documentary scripts

Visual Elements                                                                   

1. Montage

- Process of combining a number of small shots and weaving them together to communicate a large amount of information QUICKLY

- Can portray the past life of individual character of film, covering childhood, adolescence young adulthood and middle age in a matter of seconds.

2. Talking heads

- Common feature of documentaries

- Either interview of people on camera or people talking directly to the audience on camera or both

- Documentary is non-fiction, so the idea of people talking to camera, or a filmmaker behind the camera is acceptable

- Talking heads usually experts, etc

3. Colour Symbolism

- Language of colour, harnessed in a film, is a powerful one

- Choice if hues for certain items or its use in out-of-the-ordinary contexts and even type of lighting gives subliminal messages to the audience

- Red = emotion, etc

- Don’t overuse symbolism

4. Textures

- Giving old footage a ‘grainy’ texture, thereby signifying that footage is of real events that happened in the past

- A ‘sepia’ texture used in recreations or flashbacks

5. Lines

- Lines and frames add another dimension

- A man walking tall amidst the vertical columns of an old building perceived as someone powerful

- Same columns bathed in dark lighting so that only the layers are shown in implies his dark or negative power

- Using green emphasises nature

Sound Elements      

- Sound is as important as the image

- French film theorist Christian Metz identified five channels of information in film à visual image, print and other graphics, speech, music, noise

Types of sound:

1. Narrative commentary / Voice over

- The narrator telling the story, the voice of authority

- Narration is sound-track commentary that accompanies a visual image

- Also called ‘voice-over’

2. Talking heads

- Speech element of talking heads, of interviews, is important element of soundtrack.
- Effective way to communicate information

- In some documentaries, filmmakers discard narration in favour of talking heads for more credibility

3. Music

- Enhances moments and create moods and cultural flavour in documentary.

- Background music appeals on emotional level with audience and increases level of empathy with events on screen

- Used to establish geographical location and introduce the concept

4. Ambiance sound

- Traditionally referred to as ‘noise’.

- Speech and music given more attention

Sound technology developed, its important that is has grown

- Essential to the creation of a location atmosphere. E.g. French accordion music

5. Sound effects

- Any sound that is not speech, music or ambiance

- Artificially injected to enhance soundtrack

-Can be natural sound like bird chirping to digitally created or distorted sounds and of microphone feedback

6. Silence

- Helps audience to hone in on visual to such an extent that it takes them into a kind of suspended or unnatural reality.

- Should be used sparingly

- Too long a gap between sound risks losing audience attention.


Deborah Méndez ©

The French New Wave

Important characteristics:

    -         Jazz movement                                

-         Jump cuts

-         Light changes

-         Modern costumes

-         Movement

-         Low budgets

-         Black and white

-         Modern feeling


Deborah Méndez ©

Narrative techniques applied to a film: Kill Bill

Kill Bill – Quentin Tarantino

Year: 2003

Countries: USA, Japan

Quentin Tarantino

Technique	Description	Effect (in term of driving forward the narrative of the film)	Example from a film
1. Exposition	Fills in the back of the characters and their situations	Shows interest in the characters and want to see what happens next	Applied when using flashbacks in black and white
2. Dangling cause	Information or actions that leads to no effect of resolution until much later in the film	- You can retain your interest so you watch the film until the end - Allows the story to be told in different levels	The list that first doesn’t seem too important but then it is really important because it is the list of the ones who are going to kill
3. Obstacle	Stands in the way of the characters reaching their goal	- Makes it more interesting/dramatic - With no obstacle nothing interest will happen / leave social norms	The crazy 88: a group of samurais which are going to fight against the main character.
4. Deadline	A time limit placed on a protagonist to accomplish a goal	- Increases tension - Makes film more goal orientated	Has to fly to Japan before Lucy’s character has to fly to Japan
5. Dialogue hook	Creates a link between two consecutive scenes	- Allows the scenes to have a continuity - To have sense between scenes	Main character says needs to go to Japan, next scene is in airplane



Deborah Méndez ©