genre action-adventure comedy contemporary crime costume drama (no coverage) exploitation...

Genre

Action-AdventureComedyContemporary CrimeCostume Drama (no coverage)Exploitation Cinema (no coverage)Film NoirMelodramaThe MusicalScience Fiction and HorrorTeenpicsThe Western

Tim Dirks Filmsite.org: Genres

Film Studies

http://www.filmsite.org/genres.html

http://www.filmsite.org/genres.html

Dictionarygenre |ˈ zh änrə|

Nouna category of artistic composition, as in music or literature, characterized by similarities in form, style, or subject matter.ORIGIN early 19th cent.: French, literally ‘a kind’ (see gender ).

Thesaurus

Noun

historical fiction is my favorite genre of literature

category, class, classification, group, set, list; type, sort, kind, breed, variety, style, model, school, stamp, cast, ilk.

GenreFilm Studies

Megagenre: A large, all encompassing, umbrella genre, having no distinct subject matter or style or iconography or formulae. The megagenres of the movies might be thought of as non-fiction (documentary) film, fiction film, animated film, and experimental / underground film.

GenreFilm Studies

• Action

• Adventure

• Comedy

• Crime/Gangster

• Drama

• Epics/Historical

• Musicals

• Science Fiction

• War

• Westerns

Major Movie Genres(according to Tim Dirks [filmsite.org])

GenreFilm Studies

• Biopics

• Chick Flicks

• Detective/Mystery

• Disaster

• Fantasy

• Film Noir

• Guy Films

• Melodrama

• Road Films

• Romance

• Sports

• Supernatural

• Thrillers/Suspense

Major Movie Sub-Genres(according to Tim Dirks [filmsite.org])

GenreFilm Studies

• Aviation

• Buddy

• Caper

• Chase

• Espionage

• Fallen Woman

• Jungle

• Legal

• Martial Arts

• Medical

• Parody

• Police

Minor Movie Sub-Genres(according to Tim Dirks [filmsite.org])

• Political

• Prison

• Religious

• Slasher

• Swashbucklers

GenreFilm Studies

“The classification of texts is not just the province of academic specialists, it is a fundamental aspect of the way texts of all kinds are understood.” (Neale in Creeber p. 1)

GenreFilm Studies

“In many cases, of course, it is likely that audiences will have some idea in advance of the kind of film (or play or programme) they are going to watch. They will have made an active choice either to watch or, if their preferences dictate, to avoid it. They will have done so on the basis of information supplied by advertising, by reviews, and previews, perhaps by a title (such as Singin’ in the Rain) or by the presence of particular performers. They are therefore likely to bring with them a set of expectations, and to anticipate that these expectations will be met in one way or another.” (Neale in Creeber 1)

GenreFilm Studies

Relevant Terms for Genre from Hans Robert Jauss, German Reception Theorist/Reader-Response Critic

“generic audience”

“generic frustration”

“generic tension”

GenreFilm Studies

“In English-speaking countries, the term ‘genre’ came to be applied to literary works during the nineteenth century, at a point in history at which art of all kinds began to be industrialized, mass-produced for a popular public (Cohen, 1986, 120).”--Neale in Creeber 2)

GenreFilm Studies

The “repertoire of elements” that identify genres (Lacey [2000], cited by Neale in Creeber 3):

• Character Types

• Setting

• Iconography

• Narrative

• Style

GenreFilm Studies

Institutional Aspects of Genre:

• Scheduling

• Modes of Production

• Demands of Advertisers

• Demands of Audiences

• Developments in Adjacent Entertainment Institutions/Media (Neale in Creeber 4)

GenreFilm Studies

Complaints Against Genre Criticism:

1) Circularity--critics dismiss texts for failing to meet criteria they have themselves established.

2) Prescriptiveness--critics dismiss genre shows/series for departing from Platonic “ideal” versions. (Turner in Creeber 6)

GenreFilm Studies

Hybridity: The now common tendency to “splice” together different genres.

GenreFilm Studies

“Genres came to be identified with impersonal, formulaic, commercial forms and distinguished from individualized art. Ironically, this represented a reversal of previous characterizations, which saw ‘high art’ as rule-bound and ordered (as evident in genres lke the sonnet and tragedy) and ‘low art’ as unconstrained by the rules of decorum (Cohen, 1986, 120).”--Neale in Creeber 2

GenreFilm Studies

“Some important new critical theories have challenged the primacy of genre as a basic critical concept. The next important task of genre theory is to examine these objections in order to discover to what extent they require revision of the theory of popular genres and to what extent they may require us to go ‘beyond genre’” (John Cawelti, “The Question of Popular Genres Revisited” [1997]).

GenreFilm Studies

Genre films essentially ask the audience, "Do you still want to believe this?" Popularity is the audience answering, "Yes." Change in genre occurs when the audience says, "That's too infantile a form of what we believe. Show us something more complicated." And genres turn to self-parody to say, "Well, at least if we make fun of it for being infantile, it will show how far we've come." Films and television have in this way speeded up cultural history.

Leo Braudy, American film scholar

Genre

Film Studies

Thomas Schatz's life history of a genre (from Hollywood Genres) :

an experimental stage, during which its conventions are isolated and established, a classic stage, in which the conventions reach their “equilibrium” and are mutually understood by artist and audience, an age of refinement, during which certain formal and stylistic details embellish the form, and finally a baroque (or “mannerist,” or “self-reflexive”) stage, when the form and its establishments are accented to the point where they “themselves become the “substance” or “content” of the work. (37-38)

Thomas Schatz, American film scholar

Genre

Film Studies

genre action-adventure comedy contemporary crime costume drama (no coverage) exploitation...

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