AHSS*1070 Lecture Notes - Lecture 12: Action Film
Chapter 13: Genre
-Most filmgoers find and watch their favorite movies because films can be categorized according
to genre
-Audiences have grown so accustomed to what these categories represent that genres play a
significant role in shaping audience expectations
-Origin of genre traced back to Aristotle, who defined drama according to three types: epic
poetry, tragedy, and comedy
-Genre became useful tool for classifying works of art
-Film scholar Rick Altman declares that genre categories in film are continuation of literary
classification methods
-Some scholars have argued that genres possess deep connection to history and cultural
mythologies
-Genre labels function as marketing tool within commercial film industry
-important to distinguish between various definitions of genre when using the term
What Makes a Genre?
-A genre is a group of films that share a set of narrative, stylistic, and thematic rules or
conventions
-Narrative conventions (subject matter, narrative, form, plot events and characters) help to
define a genre, as do visual and sound elements
What Defines a Genre?
-Genres elicit specific emotional responses (e.g., the audience should experience fear watching a
horror film)
-Genres contain specific cultural attributes and ideas: monster as symbol of repressed desire,
monster humanized as a serial killer or psychotic
The Difficulty of Defining Genre
-Genres change and evolve: often in response to wider cultural concerns, possible to identify
subgenres (smaller clusters of films in which additional conventions come in play)
-Compounding difficulty of defining genre is that some films fuse conventions of two or more
genres into one hybrid
-Despite difficulty of precise definition, idea of genre remains relevant because filmmakers use
ideas associated with genre (working with and against viewer expectations)
-Films and studies by film scholars are marketed according to genre categories
Major American Film Genres: The Western, Film Noir, The Action Film, Science Fiction, The Musical
Major American Film Genres
1. The Western
-quintessential Hollywood genre
-falls in one of two categories: a male hero helps restore law and order to a community
find more resources at oneclass.com
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Document Summary
Most filmgoers find and watch their favorite movies because films can be categorized according to genre. Audiences have grown so accustomed to what these categories represent that genres play a significant role in shaping audience expectations. Origin of genre traced back to aristotle, who defined drama according to three types: epic poetry, tragedy, and comedy. Genre became useful tool for classifying works of art. Film scholar rick altman declares that genre categories in film are continuation of literary classification methods. Some scholars have argued that genres possess deep connection to history and cultural mythologies. Genre labels function as marketing tool within commercial film industry important to distinguish between various definitions of genre when using the term. A genre is a group of films that share a set of narrative, stylistic, and thematic rules or conventions. Narrative conventions (subject matter, narrative, form, plot events and characters) help to define a genre, as do visual and sound elements.
