However, not only violence made those films so popular. The truth is that these film-makers showed virtually anything that had not yet been shown. Such approach lead to showing nudity, sex, drug use, but also many acts of sexual violence or gore that terrified the audience. Because of this diversity of themes, exploitation cinema is not connected exclusively to any particular genre. This term is more related to certain aesthetics and conventions, such as the use of taboos, the grittiness of the image, but also distance to one's work and its audience. Many of the ideas of exploitation film-makers were simply absurd, something that they realized very well. Their aim was to keep the audience on the edge of their seats by making them actually doubt what they were seeing. Lloyd Kaufman, one of the most influential exploitation directors and the co-founder of Troma Entertainment, said that even though his films are violent, scary or centred around nudity or monsters, they are still enjoyable, because they do not take themselves too seriously. “That’s the key. They’re a lot of fun. A movie like Die Hard, with Bruce Willis, or Under Siege — these are pretty entertaining movies, but they take their violence pretty seriously. Our movies are good natured, tongue-in-cheek, and fun, and I think that is where our success has come.”3 Coming from the maker of Surf Nazis Must Die or Redneck Zombies, these words seem to summarise the exploitation cinema the best.
However, there is another side to exploitation films. Not every person wants to risk and create something new and original. Being innovative means that the audience may not enjoy what one is giving them – either because they do not understand the point or it is simply too unpopular of a t...
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...ual works that also tend to focus around a certain narrative, which in case of video games might be more interactive. The similarities are so great that there are even video games that use an actual footage of actors instead of computer generated characters. Of course, there are also many differences, the main one being the interactivity. In case of video games, the audience is subjected to an illusion that the player can decide what will happen in the story. On the other hand, there have also been some experimental films, during which the audience in the cinema was asked what should happen next and decided upon it by pressing a button. This all makes the border between the film and the video game flexible and unfixed, thus it should be no surprise that many of the practices (both business and artistic) of the film industry were adapted in the world of video games.
Schaefer, Eric. 1999. "Bold! Daring! Shocking! True!": A History of Exploitation Films, 1919-1959. Duke University Press.
In this paper I will offer a structural analysis of the films of Simpson and Bruckheimer. In addition to their spectacle and typically well-crafted action sequences, Simpson/Bruckheimer pictures seem to possess an unconscious understanding of the zeitgeist and other cultural trends. It is this almost innate ability to select scripts that tap into some traditional American values (patriotism, individualism, and the obsession with the “new”) that helps to make their movies blockbusters.
Some would say watching horror movies and being scared out of your wits is a fun way to spend their hard earned money. They go see these movies on average once a week, each time choosing a newer version of a trilogy like “Chucky” or “The evil Dead”. Film making has come a long way over the last few decades, the graphic...
Before the civil rights movement could begin, a few courageous individuals had to guide the way. Dr. Vernon Johns was one of those individuals. Dr. Vernon Johns was a pastor and civil rights activist in the 1920s. Johns became the pastor of Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama in the late 1940s. During his time as a pastor, Johns preached many sermons on how African American people were being treated not only in the community but in society. Johns on multiple occasions upset his community through his ideas on social change. Through a sociologist perspective, many sociological concepts were displayed in The Vernon Johns Story. Some of those concepts included: ascribed status, conflict theory, deviant behavior, alienation, and
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.
Due to a federal antitrust law, production companies and distributors lost power and profits, and independent companies, such as the United Artists Corporation, gained traction. The antitrust law, combined with “the postwar downturn and above all the imperative of competing effectively with television,” led to the implementation of various widescreen formats, 3-D, and Technicolor in order to innovate film and engage the spectator. In doing so, this period imbalanced the emerging power of narrative with the resurgence of spectacle. Widescreen, especially, also contributed to a sense of realism, actively engaging the audience in the visual expanse of cinema. As a result, Some Like It Hot’s mode of spectatorial address, though not as focused on “attraction” as early cinem...
In a society where watching horror movies is considered a social norm, it is less than surprising that the horror industry makes approximately 500 million dollars with the haunted attractions and 400 million dollars at the box office each year, according to Sonya Chudgar’s article “Blood Money: How the Horror Industry Makes a Killing.” Stephen King, a best-selling writer, screenwriter, columnist, producer and director, who is also well-known as a writer of horror fiction, describes the role that horror movies play in the world. He refers to this role as a “dirty job” (King), and suggests that the job is favorable in that horror movies expose us to malevolence and immorality or tense situations in order to suppress our primal instincts of demanding
It is a common mis-conception that films are merely entertainment, and serve no other purpose than to provide for the viewer a two-hour escape from reality. This is a serious under-estimation of the power, purpose, and potential of film, because film, upon reflection, revea...
Film scholar and gender theorist Linda Williams begins her article “Film Bodies: Genre, Gender and Excess,” with an anecdote about a dispute between herself and her son, regarding what is considered “gross,” (727) in films. It is this anecdote that invites her readers to understand the motivations and implications of films that fall under the category of “body” genre, namely, horror films, melodramas, (henceforth referred to as “weepies”) and pornography. Williams explains that, in regards to excess, the constant attempts at “determining where to draw the line,” (727) has inspired her and other theorists alike to question the inspirations, motivations, and implications of these “body genre” films. After her own research and consideration, Williams explains that she believes there is “value in thinking about the form, function, and system of seemingly gratuitous excesses in these three genres,” (728) and she will attempt to prove that these films are excessive on purpose, in order to inspire a collective physical effect on the audience that cannot be experienced when watching other genres.
Hollywood is an interesting entity, it provides the world with entertainment that is exciting, emotional, unique and so much more. At the same time, however, it’s hard not to see Hollywood as a money grubbing industry, full of sleazy deals, awful movies and it has even produced films completely diluted of originality. One style of filmmaking that often gets this label of unoriginality is remakes, which “While genre films, cycles, and sequels… have found their legitimate place in film theory and criticism, the same cannot be said for the remake, which at least since the fifties, has been treated as a less than respectable Hollywood commercial practice.”
Obviously, one apparent reason that they existed was to provide profit to the film industries. Due to severe wartime, many apprehensive Americans visited cinemas to watch horror films in order to take their minds off of reality (Eggertsen). To some extent, there were that people used scary movies as a way to put themselves into their own horror realm, in others words, to substitute real horror with virtual horror. The film industries would 've taken this factor as an advantage to become wealthy, but there was another concept that promoted horror films even further. According to Tim Dirks, a popular film critic for the award-winning Greatest Films site, horror movies are only just as good as their scare elements and not by other factors, such as technology. On the Greatest Films site, Dirks further explained, "Horror films, when done well and with less reliance on horrifying special effects, can be extremely potent film forms, tapping into our dream states and the horror of the irrational and unknown, and the horror within man himself" (Dirks). Horror movies that are consistent of unique and effective scare elements, as identified by Dirks, already promote themselves to the audience by allowing good feedback and
Video games have come a long way. They have evolved from the simple game of Pong into a complex, multi-platform, multi-genre, multi-billion dollar industry.
Hitherto, filmmakers considered African cinema to be a purely instructional form of art and thus repudiated the idea of African films as entertaining. Early african filmmakers used films for the sole purpose of pursuing political persuasions and instigating national reformation. As such, entertainment was likened to Western Cinema which was deemed an ‘escapist cinema’ as it neglected real-life complexities and thus, decelerated the perception process. (Tcheyuap pp 9). They believed that the superficiality of entertainment films digressed from the ‘mission’ of African filmmaking as an instrument of transformation. However, modern filmmakers are embracing these new genres, techniques and stylistic devices to achieve their own transformational goals.
Feminist theory was derived from the social movement of feminism where political women fight for the right of females in general and argue in depth about the unequality we face today. In the aspect of cinema, feminists notice the fictitious representations of females and also, machismo. In 1974, a book written by Molly Haskell "From Reverence to Rape: The treatment of Women in Movies" argues about how women almost always play only passive roles while men are always awarded with active, heroic roles. Moreover, how women are portrayed in movies are very important as it plays a big role to the audience on how to look at a woman and how to treat her in real life due to the illusionism that cinema offers. These images of women created in the cinema shapes what an ideal woman is. This can be further explained through an article 'Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema' written by a feminist named Laura Mulvey in 1975. She uses psychoanalysis theories by Sigmund Freud to analyze 'Scopophilia' which is the desire to see. This explains how the audience is hooked to the screen when a sexy woman is present. In a bigger picture, where Scopophilia derives from, 'Voyeurism' is also known as feeling visual pleasure when looking at another. Narcissism on the other hand means identifying one's self with the role played. It is not hard to notice that in classical cinema, men often play the active role while the women are always the object of desire for the male leads, displayed as a sexual object and frequently the damsels in distress. Therefore, the obvious imbalance of power in classical cinema shows how men are accountable to moving the narratives along. Subconsciously, narcissism occurs in the audience as they ...
In conclusion, it is worth stating that there are certain characteristics that stand out in a great film. For one, there should be a strong cast and a dominant director. With these two aspects, the standard of a film is greatly increased. Also the musical score and special effects added to a film, can raise the plateau in making it notable. It can also be seen that the criteria for making a film great, has changed over the years. What once made a film stand out in the past, doesn’t make it at present. However, this generally goes to the special effect features. Nevertheless, it can be said overall, that all these characteristics resulted in the creation of a great film, in ground breaking style and as a result, this has helped us define cinema or a film as we know it.