Movies have been playing on the television since the early 1900’s. However, humans have been watching plays at the theatre for much longer, establishing a root for the movie culture. In Shakespeare’s time, tragedies were the leading genres in plays. Shakespeare’s plays were a big hit in his time, and laid the foundations for producers to later share his work in film. Most people have a preference to the genre type of movies. Picking a movie can be a difficult task, which is why they have different categories to describe the overall content of the movie. Depending on the mood and setting, one may crave a certain genre over another. One common genre is comedy. Comedy films are favored by many for the relaxed positivity it projects onto the audience. Most comedies are not hard to understand, and are enjoyed by all age groups. There are comedy movies that are aimed towards certain age groups. Comedies aimed at teenagers tend to be more inappropriate and violent, while movies aimed at children are subtle and easier to follow. Most comedies are good selections for family movie nights, as they are appropriate and appeal to most people. Comedies are often mixed in with other genres; producers add comedy to relieve tension and brighten the mood of their movies. Comedies are intended to bring the audience laughter and happiness. Also, some …show more content…
The effects and animations, action movies use tend to be expensive, but is also what the audience loves. Men are more known to like the thrill of the effects and animations. Action movies oftentimes revolve around a main character, giving him heroic characteristics. This gives the audience someone to look up to and idolize, which is normally the main attraction of the film. The characters of these movies play dramatic roles, normally with a life or death
While planning an evening at the cinema, individuals do not discuss the specific guidelines of genre while deciding the film of choice. A reason for seeing a Western is never because the genre has evolved from primarily racist films involving cowboys and Indians to movies that vindicate Indians and work toward demythologizing the old West. Similarly, broad generalizations of genre are constantly used to categorize film. Courtship-Romance Musicals or Rock Operas are often shuffled into the generic class of Musical, while the 1930’s films of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, examples of Courtship-Romance Musicals, are in contrast to such films as Tommy or Jesus Christ Superstar, models of Rock Operas. Genre is the most important tool in deciding taste in film, yet most people never get past discussing whether to watch a Comedy or Drama. Perhaps this tendency is due to mainstream films, which rarely challenge audiences to make decisions about complex genres, as formula films have become an accepted form of entertainment. Cinema must look to Independent film then to help create new forms, specifically in genre. Donnie Darko, an Independent film directed by Richard Kelly, successfully poses questions about hybrid films and complex genres. Donnie Darko transcends the typical conventions of genre to redefine cinema and set a new precedence for independent filmmakers interested in breaking the rules of tradition.
In order to present a specific example of each archetype, I have chosen four films that are exemplary of the overall sub-genre. Tobe Hooper's The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974) tells the story of a van full of traveling teenagers and their run-in with a family of backwoods cannibals. John Carpenter's Halloween (1978) has killer Michael Myers strangling baby-sitters on the night of said movie title. Sean Cunningham's Friday the 13th (1980) looses a hockey-masked psychopath upon a host of unsuspecting camp counselors. Finally, Tobe Hooper's The Funhouse (1981) finds four teens trapped in a carnival with a murderous sideshow freak.
Film and literature are two media forms that are so closely related, that we often forget there is a distinction between them. We often just view the movie as an extension of the book because most movies are based on novels or short stories. Because we are accustomed to this sequence of production, first the novel, then the motion picture, we often find ourselves making value judgments about a movie, based upon our feelings on the novel. It is this overlapping of the creative processes that prevents us from seeing movies as distinct and separate art forms from the novels they are based on.
Movies are a huge part of many Americans’ lives. Everyone has a particular genre that they like the most or a particular actor. There are many genres to choose from such as action, romance, drama, musical, documentary, horror, comedy, and children’s movies. This is always attached with the cliché ‘Everyone’s a critic.’ Movies will only want to be seen if someone else says that the movie is good. They trust that advice so that they will spend anywhere from an hour and a half to three hours watching a motion picture. This form of entertainment is driven by the viewer. Horror movies however, are designed by the same chronology: introduction, conflict climax, resolution. Horror movies also have many actors that do not show up in the sequel. The actors also are very unrecognizable because of the possibility that these actors are killed off in the movie as it progresses. Horror movies cause people to do many things no other type of movie can deliver. Horror movies make viewers jump, they make them scream, and they make the viewers want to cover their eyes. All of these aspects make horror movies a heart-pounding and enjoyable form of entertainment.
Film scholars around the world agree that all genres of film are part of the “genre cycle”. This cycle contains four different stages that a specific genre goes through. These stages are: primitive, classic, revisionist, and parody. Each stage that the genre goes through brings something different to that genre’s meaning and what the audience expects. I believe that looking at the horror genre will be the most beneficial since it has clearly gone through each stage.
There is no master view of a text; widely differing perspectives of texts are created as our values shift over time, reflecting particular ideologies and enriching the understanding of responders. This is especially true for the Shakespearean play, Othello, whose reception has been heavily influenced by shifting values since the Elizabethan-Jacobean period when it was written. The conception of structuralism and feminism has created widely differing critical interpretations of texts that challenge affirmatory interpretations of traditional criticism, providing insights into varying ideological practices and social relationships of the past and present for contemporary responders.
Genre is defined as a specific type of music, film, or writing. How is genre created? Is it through arbitrary critical or historical organization that society sets genre? The answer to ‘how is genre created’ lies in the audience. “Second, as the product of audience and studio interaction, a film genre gradually impresses itself upon the culture until it becomes a familiar, meaningful system that can be named as such” (Casper 274). Genre is conceived once an audience has been exposed to the same ‘type’ of film they are seeing several times. Every time an audience views a certain type of film, the characters and events soon become recognizable. This process is described as iconography. Family melodrama is a genre that uses relationship struggles
Barsam, R. M., Monahan, D., & Gocsik, K. M. (2012). Looking at movies: an introduction to film (4th ed.). New York: W.W. Norton & Co..
Arguably the greatest playwright of his time, perhaps in all of history, William Shakespeare's literary works have had a tremendous impact (see Appendix 2). Reaching into the pop culture of the modern world through movies and quotes used in everyday conversation, Shakespeare's influence is astounding (see Appendix 1). One rarely stops to think, however, about events that had an impact on Shakespeare's life, particularly his writing. The outbreak of the plague, social disparity, political unrest, just a few of the historical happenings that impacted Shakespeare's plays, including Macbeth, Romeo and Juliet, Othello, and Henry IV
Action films contain lots of physical stunts, chase scenes, rescues, fights, humour, destructive disaster (Explosions, floods, fires, natural hazards), escapes, and non-stop action. People expect the stunts when they come to see an action film, because the stunts and fights are what make the film so popular. Action films are normally set in either popular cities or glamorous islands. I watched a film to see if it fitted the expectations of what id expect from a typical action film, the film I watched was twister. Twister doesn't fit the expectations of an action film entirely, it is different to what I would expect from an action film, however it does
to address Viola as if she were male, he says, "Boy, thou hast said to
Romantic tragedy can be a very successful genre to work with for film directors although, in some cases, the making of the film goes haywire somewhere along the line and ends up being a rather catastrophic rendition of a romantic tragedy. When I pursued a study of this genre, I found that there are several factors which can make or break a film, depending on how well these factors are used and to what extent they are thought through and developed. These areas, I discovered, are generally cinematography, special effects and the soundtrack, the plot and narrative drive, the characters and acting, the cultural discourse/s used. Discourses are particularly pertinent to this genre as the subject matter, events and characterisations are largely historical, and therefore, they automatically need to be viewed as cultural artefacts, revealing different attitudes and values to those of the modern viewer. Thus, the director of this genre must work doubly hard in order to encourage viewers to suspend their disbelief and become caught up in the drama unfolding before them. This ‘suspense’ of the viewer is often referred to as verisimilitude, or the illusion of reality. Creating verisimilitude is the one thing that all movie producers strive for and it is fascinating just how they make us believe what we see is real. In this journal I will discuss and compare these elements within two films to decipher how each of the elements should be used in order to make a successful romantic tragedy. The two films that I watched are Wuthering Heights and Tristan & Isolde and these will be compared. My journal will inevitably show that creating a film requires a substantial amount of thought and effort.
Finally in the third stage order is restored again and the play ends in a
In today’s time, films have been so much more than high priced motion pictures. Films are the back bone to our weekends, first dates, and so much more. With that being said, there are large expectations for new movies that come out and the first impression can be the difference in audiences everywhere deeming these films “good” or “bad”. In the article “FX Porn” David Foster Wallace argued that a “good” film follows a strategic cycle, he claimed that this is a well thought out process that has been critiqued to the “T” and is used by many people in the movie industry today. This cycle consists of having likeable actors, simple plots, and lots of advanced editing, per Foster Wallace these are the characteristics that we base our opinions of films off. Forster Wallace says, “What they really are is half a dozen or so isolated, spectacular scenes — scenes comprising maybe twenty or thirty minutes of riveting, sensuous payoff — strung together via another sixty to ninety minutes of flat, dead, and often hilariously insipid narrative.” As a movie watcher, these elements are great pluses to movies, but the standards that we base our opinion on should not be limited to such simple aspects. Audiences are constantly putting films in the
were acted out in the yards of bawdy inns and the great halls of the