Introduction to Films Genres

                                             Genre -  category of type of film

Warner Jordan Eduction. (Nov 2011). Introduction to Film Genres.mov.Available: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aS7EHDwIzPc. Last accessed Sept 2015.

How did this develop?

• Studios wanted to standardize products
• Realized that unique films would sell better
• 1930-1045 : Compromise between repetition and variation 

 Genres Applied 

• Later.. 1970's
• Film critics looking back and labelling what they saw 

What are some Genres

• Western
• Gangster
• Musical
• Romantic - Comedy

Terms in Genres study :

• Stock characters

- flat characters

- secondary

- think of reality TV 

• In most shows , what is the pattern of the "cast"

                                   Themes

• Messages that the films share about the world
• Westerns 

- individualism 

- end of the Frontier

• Detective

- World is corrupt

                                  Iconography

• Repeated images
• Seems throughout individuals films
• Seems amongst genre

                                  Mood 

• Emotional settings of the genre

- Western

- Detective 

- Sci-Fi

                                 Cinematic Style

• How the genre is shoot

- Western

- Detective

- Sci-Fi

Stages of the Genre

• Primitive

- Patterns are a established

- Themes are developed

- Iconography created

• Revisionist

- Iconography similar

- More complex and ambiguous

- Questions the values inherent in the original genre

- Ties to original genre must be looked for

• Parody

- Genre is mocked

- Theme may stay the same

- Iconography highlighted 

- Stock characters over- embellished 

• Extension

- Basic values- themes of the genre reappear 

- Film's structure may be divergent

- Film's iconography / settings may be divergent

                               The Western

• Primitive

- The Great Train Robbery 

• Classical

- Stagecoach

• Revisionist

- The Wild Bunch 

• Parody

- Blazing Saddles 

• Extension

- Blade Runner

- Star Wars 

                                               Modern Day

• Many current films don't fit onto one genre
• Uniqueness is sought more then speed of production
• Some films do retain "throwbacks" to  genre of the 1940s-50s