film genres for gcse
TRANSCRIPT
genre & film
moving image arts study guide
Similarity and Difference
Genre refers to groups of texts which share a pattern of similarity and difference.
Many of the earliest films were genre pictures – as studios (as always) tried to repeat success.
In Shakespeare, there are a limited number of genres: Tragedies, Comedies, Histories
Film genres
Thriller, Action, Romantic Comedy, Road Movie, Disaster Movie and various hybrid genres including Period Drama, Crime Drama, Horror Comedy etc.
changes in genres over time reveal changes in our society and our values
iconography
Genre films usually feature key imagery that repeats itself across different films
setting
Some genres have a distinct location or time period
narrative
Some genres include specific story structures (“a hero’s journey”) or narrative devices (song & dance sequence, showdown, chase scene, shopping montage…)
characters
Heroes, sidekicks, antagonists: some character types are associated more with particular genres and become “generic types”
style
Visual techniques can be specific (or at least more common) in some genres - e.g. low key lighting in horror; epic music in superhero movies
themes
Universal themes characterise some genres. What does it mean to be human? Conflict between tradition and modernity. What is truth? What is love?
Audience
The most important aspect of genre: the response and expectations of the target audience
As an audience, we gain mastery over genre texts by “reading” them — we feel good about doing this
The pleasure for the audience often lies in the experience of difference within the similarity (or vice versa!).
Genre is a bargain between media producers and media audiences — we can feel cheated if genres “trick” us
What scares you?
Mark Kermode (BBC Film Critic)
“William Friedkin [director of The Exorcist] once said that there [are] only really three reasons for making movies: to scare people; to make them laugh; or to turn them on. And that means there [are] only three
genres of movie. I actually think that as far as horror movies are concerned, they are the
sump from which all great cinema comes...”
Types of HorrorPsychological Horror
Body Horror
Gothic Horror
All can involve elements of the supernatural (ghosts, demons, spirits)
All can involve encounters with the monstrous Other (who can appear to be normal until their inner-monster is revealed).
Psychological HorrorRelies on character fears, guilt, beliefs, emotional instability
Can also refer to personality disorders
Creates discomfort in the viewer by exposing common vulnerabilities or fears – the shadowy parts of the self or self-as-other
Examples
Psycho
The Birds
The Haunting
Blair Witch
Body HorrorHorror derived from a sense of “wrongness” with the body:
Physical transformations, body degeneration, mutations, or invasion/violation of the body
ExamplesUn Chien Andalou
Alien
The Fly
The Thing
...anything by Cronenberg!
Gothic HorrorRomantic/Sexual imagery is blended with other elements – it can be a blend of psychological and body horror
Our inner fears are projected onto the outside environment: buildings, forests, the weather
Examples
Anything with vampires!
FrankensteinThe MummyAmityville Horror
Freud’s paper “The Uncanny” was published in 1919
In it, he tried to explain the appeal of the horror genre
Freud noticed that whereas most ART was concerned with beauty, horror fiction was concerned with its opposite: the frightening or the fearful
“The class of frightening things that leads us back to what is known and familiar.”
Freud went further with this idea and talked about things that were hidden from the self.
The scariest things are those which fail to fit
a category: the undead, the not-human.