2. HDFTV001 | Admin
• screenings
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• writing
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• PH411
• the brief- three parts, three deliverables
3. Genre as theory
it is a contested area of theorizing, open to academic
debate, speculation and disagreement about the
definition, scope and social implications of the idea
4. Genre
‘Put simply, genre movies are those commercial feature
films which, through repetition and variation, tell
familiar stories with familiar characters in familiar
situations’ (Grant, 2007, p. 1).
6. Ways of approaching film
film as text - text being - something we make meaning
from. (an approach drawn from literary studies,
semiotics, structuralism and post-structuralism)
7. textual analysis
a way of looking at texts and inferring how meanings
may be shaped - not only by their content but by the
manner in which they are made.
14. Genre
‘Put simply, genre movies are those commercial feature
films which, through repetition and variation, tell
familiar stories with familiar characters in familiar
situations’ (Grant, 2007, p. 1).
15. Genre
‘Put simply, genre movies are those commercial feature
films which, through repetition and variation, tell
familiar stories with familiar characters in familiar
situations’ (Grant, 2007, p. 1).
Is this definition problematic?
16. it’s almost too broad to be meaningful
- What happens to the definition when one of the elements is not familiar?
17. it’s almost too broad to be meaningful
- What happens to the definition when one of the elements is not familiar?
- (Rachel Moine) its impossible to organize a universal typology
not all genres use the same criteria in their definition.
18. it’s almost too broad to be meaningful
- What happens to the definition when one of the elements is not familiar?
- (Rachel Moine) its impossible to organize a universal typology
not all genres use the same criteria in their definition.
- what about those films that mix stylistic elements from various genres?
19. it’s almost too broad to be meaningful
- What happens to the definition when one of the elements is not familiar?
- (Rachel Moine) its impossible to organize a universal typology
not all genres use the same criteria in their definition.
- what about those films that mix stylistic elements from various genres?
not a new phenomenon
( Able Gance’s Napoleon 1927), biopic & history film
Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (Donen, 1954) Musical & Western
Se7en (Fincher 1995) Thriller, Horror, Crime, Detective
Iron Sky (Timo Vuorensola 2012), Comedy, Sci-Fi, War Film
20. it’s almost too broad to be meaningful
- What happens to the definition when one of the elements is not familiar?
- (Rachel Moine) its impossible to organize a universal typology
not all genres use the same criteria in their definition.
- what about those films that mix stylistic elements from various genres?
not a new phenomenon
( Able Gance’s Napoleon 1927), biopic & history film
Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (Donen, 1954) Musical & Western
Se7en (Fincher 1995) Thriller, Horror, Crime, Detective
Iron Sky (Timo Vuorensola 2012), Comedy, Sci-Fi,
- historically they are not fixed, they adapt and change
21. Looking at the example
of Film Noir
• Bordwell (1985)- Noir is not a genre because it ‘did not exist in popular
discourse’ Noir is a style not a genre.
22. Looking at the example
of Film Noir
• Bordwell (1985)- Noir is not a genre because it ‘did not exist in popular
discourse’ Noir is a style not a genre.
• This ‘style’ can be present in any genre so we can have a noir western-
Pursued (1947) or a noir comedy Its a Wonderful Life (1946).
23. Looking at the example
of Film Noir
• Bordwell (1985)- Noir is not a genre because it ‘did not exist in popular
discourse’ Noir is a style not a genre.
• This ‘style’ can be present in any genre so we can have a noir western-
Pursued (1947) or a noir comedy Its a Wonderful Life (1946).
• Against noir as a genre- Noir had a specific beginning and end (early 1940s-
late 50s (when widescreen and colour were widely introduced)
24. Looking at the example
of Film Noir
• Bordwell (1985)- Noir is not a genre because it ‘did not exist in popular
discourse’ Noir is a style not a genre.
• This ‘style’ can be present in any genre so we can have a noir western-
Pursued (1947) or a noir comedy Its a Wonderful Life (1946).
• Against noir as a genre- Noir had a specific beginning and end (early 1940s-
late 50s (when widescreen and colour were widely introduced)
• So what about neo-noir then? Polanski’s Chinatown (1974), Bladerunner,
Dark City, Sin City? as a hybrid form of tech-noir, Blood Simple (1984) and
Fargo (1996) from the Coen Bros as examples of neo-noir. Much of David
Lynch’s work has elements of noir. Retro-noir from Tarantino
25. Contemporary Film Noir
Blue Velvet
Body Heat
Brick
The Grifters
Heat
Rumble Fish
Down By Law
Memento
Mulholland Drive
Red Rock West
The Usual Suspects
Sin City
26. 'A genre is ultimately an abstract
conception rather than something that
exists empirically in the world,' notes
Jane Feuer (1992, 144). Introduction to Genre Theory
27. 'one could... argue that no set of necessary
and sufficient conditions can mark off
genres from other sorts of groupings in
ways that all experts or ordinary film-goers
would find acceptable'
(Bordwell 1989, 147).
