Cinematic genre
From Open Encyclopedia
In film theory, genre refers to one method of dividing films into groups. Typically, genres are formed of films that share similarities in the narrative elements from which they are constructed.
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Categorizing film genres
Three main types are often used to categorize film genres; setting, mood, and format. The location where a film's narrative takes place is the setting. The emotional charge carried throughout the film is known as the film's mood. And the film may be presented in a special manner, or format.
Setting
- Crime - places its character within realm of criminal or moral law
- Film noir - portrays its principal characters in a nihilistic and existentialist world
- Historical - taking place in the past
- Science fiction - placement of characters and setting in an alternate reality that does not exist or exists only in part
- Sports - sporting events and locations pertaining to given sport of film
- War - battlefields and locations pertaining to a time of war
- Westerns - colonial period to modern era of the western United States
Mood
- Action - good vs. bad with much physical force
- Adventure - involving danger, risk, and/or chance, and also usually occurring in the past
- Comedy - intended to provoke laughter into audience
- Drama - mainly focuses on character development
- Family - intended to meet and entertain interests of a family
- Fantasy - speculative fiction outside reality (i.e. myth, legend)
- Horror - intended to provoke fear into audience
- Mystery - the progression from the unknown to the known by discovering and solving a series of clues
- Romance - dwelling on the elements of romantic love
- Thrillers - intended to provoke excitement and/or nervous tension into audience
Format
- Animation - illusion of motion by consecutive display of static images
- Biographical - a biopic is a film that dramatizes the life of an actual person
- Documentary - factually following of an event or person to gain an understanding of some point
- Experimental (avant-garde) - created to test an audience's reaction
- Musical - film interspersed with singing by all or some of the characters
- Narrative - fictional film
- Short - popular particularly among amateurs and enthusiasts
Criticisms of film genres
What genres are not
There are other methods of dividing films into groups besides genre; for example auteur critics group films according to their directors. Some groupings may be casually described as genres but this definition is questionable; for example, independent films are sometimes discussed as if they are a genre, but in fact independent production does not determine a film's storyline, and they can belong to any genre.
Some have argued that genre needs to be distinguished from style; the latter describes the choices made about such things as cinematography, editing, and sound and a particular style can be applied to any genre. Others argue that some genres are primarily recognisable by their styles, and that this distinction is thus simplistic.
Are film genres definable?
A genre is always a vague term with no fixed boundaries. Many works also cross into multiple genres. In this respect film theorist Robert Stam has noted:
A number of perennial doubts plague genre theory. Are genres really 'out there' in the world, or are they merely the constructions of analysts? Is there a finite taxonomy of genres or are they in principle infinite? Are genres timeless Platonic essences or ephemeral, time-bound entities? Are genres culture-bound or transcultural?... Should genre analysis be descriptive or proscriptive?[..] <p>While some genres are based on story content (the war film), other are borrowed from literature (comedy, melodrama) or from other media (the musical). Some are performer-based (the Astaire-Rogers films) or budget-based (blockbusters), while others are based on artistic status (the art film), racial identity (Black cinema), locat[ion] (the Western) or sexual orientation (Queer cinema). (Robert Stam 2000, 14). </blockquote> Many genres have built in audiences and corresponding publications that support them, such as magazines and websites. Films that are difficult to categorize into a genre are often less successful. As such, film genres are also useful in areas of marketing, criticism and consumption. John Truby, Hollywood story consultant states that "...you have to know how to transcend the forms [genres] so you can give the audience a sense of originality and surprise." Some screenwriters use genre as a means of determining what kind of plot or content to put into a screenplay. They may study films of specific genres to find examples. This is a way that some screenwriters are able to copy elements of successful movies and pass them off in a new screenplay. It is likely that such screenplays fall short in originality. As Trubysays, "Writers know enough to write a genre script but they haven’t twisted the story beats of that genre in such a way that it gives an original face to it." It makes sense for writers to defy the elements found in past works and come up with something different or opposite to what's been done before. Originality and surprise are the elements that make for good movie stories. For example, Spagetti Westerns are known to have turned the western film genre upside down by making the good guy be bad as well as good. Prior to them, westerns had what are now considered genre clichés, like good guys wearing white hats, bad guys wearing black hats, and the good guy always beating the bad guy in a shootout. The cliché western disappeared after the Spagetti Westerns broke the "rules" of the genre.
[edit]Style compared to genre
Whereas film genres identify the manifest content of film, film styles identify the manner by which any given film's genre(s) is/are rendered for the screen. Style may be determined by plot structure, scenic design, lighting, cinematography, acting, and other intentional artistic components of the finished film product. The most obvious distinction is between fictional film and non-fictional film.
[edit]See also
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