Investigating How Genre and Narrative are Established in Ocean's Eleven and The Bone Collector
In order to examine how genre and narrative is established in two
crime films, we conducted a close textual analysis of Ocean’s Eleven
and The Bone Collector to find out the main conventions. The main
conventions of the crime genre are law enforcers, criminals and action
sequence. There are also other signifers such as criminals and etc.
You can find typical iconography in the crime genre; the most obvious
one is a gun. Other iconography in the crime genre includes police
uniform, badges, gadgets, money.
There have been many notable crime films such as Seven (2000),
Paycheck (2004) and The Godfather (1972). The crime genre has perhaps
been most successful in creating hybrid and sub-genres. There is the
heist genre which include films such as The Italian Job also there is
the prison genre with films such as Shawshank Redemption. As well,
Goodfellas and The Godfather are categorised in the Gangster
sub-genre.
Crime is mostly mainstream genre but there are some independent films
such as Knock around Guys (2001) and Layer Cakes (2004). Crime can be
classified as a mainstream genre because of the A-list star that
appears its movie, e.g. Brad Pitt in Seven, and Tom cruise in
Collateral. Another explanation for the genre’s mainstream status is
that studio knew the crime genre was a mainstream genre and produce
them e.g. Collateral was produced by DreamWorks and Paramount. Also
this film have a large appeal of the genre so therefore make sure that
it will attract mainstream audiences. These studios have huge
Hollywood status.
Historic...
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...hereas The Bone
Collector has a more innovative approach to genre, as the director
uses flashbacks to explain the story.
Ocean’s Eleven is the more successful in introducing genre and
narrative because it had a linear structure, therefore it is less
complicated. Ocean’s eleven had successfully created an engaging and
coherent narrative because it uses conventional yet sympathetic
character e.g. Danny Ocean in Ocean’s Eleven.
Also Ocean’s Eleven was more successful because of the clear
establishment of equilibrium, so the audience knows what is happening
in the storyline. The most effective technique was the crime genre
signifier’s e.g. the gadgets, mobile phone and the prison cell,
whereas The Bone Collector uses the signifers to signify the thriller
genre where as Ocean’s Eleven more signifies the crime genre.
The only real way to truly understand a story is to understand all aspects of a story and their meanings. The same goes for movies, as they are all just stories being acted out. In Thomas Foster's book, “How to Read Literature Like a Professor”, Foster explains in detail the numerous ingredients of a story. He discusses almost everything that can be found in any given piece of literature. The devices discussed in Foster's book can be found in most movies as well, including in Quentin Tarantino’s cult classic, “Pulp Fiction”. This movie is a complicated tale that follows numerous characters involved in intertwining stories. Tarantino utilizes many devices to make “Pulp Fiction” into an excellent film. In this essay, I will demonstrate how several literary devices described in Foster's book are put to use in Tarantino’s film, “Pulp Fiction”, including quests, archetypes, food, and violence.
Analysis of the Ways the Director Builds Suspense in the Opening to the Film Jaws
Classic stories remain a classic because they convey a message which appeals to people of multiple generations despite changes in society. King Kong was released in print in 1932, a year prior to its release in Hollywood, as a part of the film’s advance marketing. The public of this generation easily accepted the story’s racist, colonialist, and sexist themes. Today, literary critics such as Cynthia Erb view the novel and film as representation of the early 30s and thus a resource to understand the cultural context of the times. In particular, King Kong provides a window through which a modern audience can understand and interpret racism of the 1930s.
In the classical Western and Noir films, narrative is driven by the action of a male protagonist towards a clearly defined, relatable goal. Any lack of motivation or action on the part of the protagonist problematizes the classical association between masculinity and action. Due to inherent genre expectations, this crisis of action is equivalent to a crisis of masculinity. Because these genres are structured around male action, the crises of action and masculinity impose a crisis of genre. In the absence of traditional narrative elements and character tropes, these films can only identify as members of their genres through saturation with otherwise empty genre symbols. The equivalency between the crises of genre and masculinity frames this symbol saturation as a sort of compensatory masculine posturing.
In Hollywood today, most films can be categorized according to the genre system. There are action films, horror flicks, Westerns, comedies and the likes. On a broader scope, films are often separated into two categories: Hollywood films, and independent or foreign ‘art house’ films. Yet, this outlook, albeit superficial, was how many viewed films. Celebrity-packed blockbusters filled with action and drama, with the use of seamless top-of-the-line digital editing and special effects were considered ‘Hollywood films’. Films where unconventional themes like existentialism or paranoia, often with excessive violence or sex or a combination of both, with obvious attempts to displace its audiences from the film were often attributed with the generic label of ‘foreign’ or ‘art house’ cinema.
An Analysis of How Narrative and Genre Features Create Meaning and Generate Response in the Opening of Martin Scorsese’s Goodfellas
Thomas Schatz in his article Film Genre and the Genre Film puts the formula for a genre quite
The debate over Casablanca and Citizen Kane has been a classic argument between film critics and historians alike because both of these pieces contain great cinematographic value, and are timeless pictures that have managed to captivate audiences well beyond their era. However, the real question at hand is which film is the greatest? Which film transformed the future of American film making? It is these questions that I as many others have, will attempt to answer in the following essay as I explain why I believe Citizen Kane has achieved the status of greatest film ever made.
The Relavence of the Opening Scene of Mission Impossible Two as an Insight to It's Genre
In “The Thematic Paradigm,” University of Florida professor of film studies, Robert Ray, defines two types of heroes pervading American films, the outlaw hero and the official hero. Often the two types are merged in a reconciliatory pattern, he argues. In fact, this
The Fast and Furious franchise has been going on since 2001. Since then there have been seven movies to come out. Fast and Furious 7 may be the last movie in this series. With the actor Paul Walker, Bryan in the movie dead, there may not be any other way to produce another film. With that said, I thought the movie was very good and well thought of when coming to filming the rest of movie without Paul Walker and digitally having his face put in. In some scenes near the end of the movie you can tell that something is off and seems a little weird when looking at Paul’s character but aside from that it was a brilliant job done by the
Friedman, L., Desser, D., Kozloff, S., Nichimson, M., & Prince, S. (2014). An introduction to film genres. New York, London: W.W. Norton & Company.
Moby-Dick is a world famous psychological thriller and adventure novel. However, due to the Herman Melville’s lavish writing style and its esoteric subject, it can be challenging to read and can cause many readers to become quickly disinterested. Consequently, some of the concepts and significant themes in the novel become lost or hidden in the eyes of an inattentive reader. So how are we able to make the tale more appealing to a larger and more diverse audience? Create a twelve part animated series, or miniseries. Animated films appeal to both adults and children due to its appearance and the inviting illusion of playfulness. Yet, behind this facade we are still given opportunities to convey the significant themes present in
And the genre of the film is horror or thriller and it is about a great white shark that hunts in the seas of Amity Island. The film is set around the 4th of July in New Jersey. It may be set 4th of July because is their independence day or their freedom from Great Britain. It may be set on the 4th of July because this day is very important or significant for the whole of America. It is celebrated around the whole of America in various ways to celebrate the American tradition. This also creates tension because if people get killed on this day or maybe Christmas it has a greater effect because often people are unaware or not expecting something like this to happen on a day like that.
Barsam, R. M., Monahan, D., & Gocsik, K. M. (2012). Looking at movies: an introduction to film (4th ed.). New York: W.W. Norton & Co..