Lecture 6 – Genres and codes

A genre is a form used to categorise literature, film and cultural products in general. It is a categorisation, a grouping, a type of production. Each genre has certain characteristics which differentiate it form others. Each employs different codes – that is it has different starting points and assumptions, different perspectives and aims and different rationales and themes. Each genre operates in its conceptual universe which is defined by its historical time and place. And each appeals to a different audience. Both creating and satisfying different tastes. Reproducing ideas, reinforcing social norms and values (rarely challenging them – in the case of avant garde productions) and expressing innate desires. Audience called to identify with the protagonist and participate mentally in the story development.

Screening: The cowboy

Westerns:

A major defining genre of the American film industry, referring and glorifying the conquest of the frontier, the expansion of American culture. The Great train robbery, establishing the genre and its success

The plot is the usually a variation of a classic simple goal of maintaining law and order

action story in the wild west, normally rooted in archetypal dichotomies of conflict between

good and bad, virtue and vice, hero and villain, new arrivals versus native Americans (portrayed as sub-human savages) humanity versus nature, civilisation versus wilderness or lawlessness,

settler versus nomad, the rugged individualist versus the community, the cultivated East versus the rough West etc 

The hero of a western usually meets his opposite “double”, a mirror of his own evil side that he has to destroy. Heroes are often local lawmen or enforcement officers, ranchers, army officers, cowboys, territorial marshals or a skilled, fast draw gunfighter. Masculinity, integrity and principle, courage, morality and honour, self sufficiency and autonomy, toughness and fearlessness, expert physical skills (roping, gun play, horse riding, pioneering abilities etc) are the basic qualities of the hero who is brave and stands against strong evil forces and wins. Patriarchal frame - women portrayed as subsidiary weak and sweat creatures that often constitute trophies of and for the male hero. 

Gangster films:

developed around the sinister actions of criminals, bank robbers, underworld figures, groups operating outside the law, stealing and murdering their way through life. Also categorised as film noir or detective-mystery because of obvious similarities. Including also serial killer films.

Inspired by real life crime boss Al Capone. Dark lighting, tragic end, police triumph.

Revived in the 1970s with Godfather film opening up new codes and conventions for the genre. Gangsters now portrayed as humans, focus on their internal relations, less black and white oppositions, more diversified and complex stories, a different code of morality, also showing police corruption, a more positive private character of the gangsters.

Musicals:

Several songs sung by the characters are interwoven into the narrative. Music is not subsidiary, but instrumental and central in the unfolding of the story. Songs used to advance the plot as well as develop the film's characters. Films centred on combination of music, dance, song or choreography. The musical film as a natural development of the stage musical, but with much more lavish use of background scenery. Many theatrical elements present: performers often treat their song and dance numbers as if there is a live audience watching. In a sense, the spectators become akin a real time audience as the performers look directly into the camera and performs to it, inviting the spectators to join in and participate.

Horror/thriller films

Films that focus and work upon the psychological state of the audience. An effort to shock, surprise, scare and puzzle the spectators. Tension and climax, music very important in creating the climate. Fear and adrenalin, mystery and danger as key conditions and themes. The unexpected event, vulnerability and resistance, futility and weakness, superior power as main conventions. Darkness and revulsion, passion and despair as key codes.

At the same time in Europe social awareness films first in the context of the neo-realist movement and then in the context of the alternative cinema started to develop. Action, war and science fiction films, soap-operas and social drama are effectively post 1970s phenomena.

Check also wikipedia for each genre

In addition think through the codes and conventions for comedies, science fiction films, action and war films and try to think about the films we have watched in class and those you have watched in the last 5 years. Link the attributes/themes/styles of each genre to one film you have watched from that category.

Lecture 7 – Neorealism and its impact

The key significance of the II WW in the shaping of the world and our perception of it. Grounding us to reality of death, poverty and desperation. Class divisions, the difficult conditions of everyday life, the objective reality of limited resources and demoralisation. The movement started in Italy and is characterised by focusing on the working class, filmed in long takes on locations, frequently using non-actors for secondary and sometimes primary roles.

Ideological characteristics:

- a new democratic spirit with emphasis on the values of ordinary people

- a compassionate point of view and a refusal to make easy moral judgments

- a preoccupation with Italy's fascist past and the aftermath of wartime devastation

- a blending of Christian and Marxist humanism – solidarity

- an emphasis on emotions rather than abstract ideas

Stylistic characteristics:

- showing things as they are, not as they seem, nor as the bourgeois world would prefer them to appear

- revealing the everyday rather than the exceptional. Scripts inspired by concrete events. A view of history and society from below, the perspective of the common people

- portraying the individual but as part of society (focusing on one's relationship to the real social environment and not his/her romantic dreams or fantasy role models)

- documentary visual style and use of non professional actors

- external filming instead of studio sites

- conversational speech and everyday dialect instead of literary and formal dialogue

- simplicity in editing and camera-work opting for a style-less style

Bicycle thieves, 1948: by De Sica aiming to present the working classes on the screen and show how people lived. Narrative is fictional but has documentary features as the protagonists are non professionals. Leading actor is a factory worker, shooting on outside location in Rome and injecting a sense of realism in cinema. Costed only 18 000 pounds sterling. Populism in its glorification of the poor? Naivety in its conception of the camera as an open window to the world? The death of cinema in its demythologising attempt? Or progressive avant-garde movement challenging the social, cultural and aesthetic establishment?