Film Genre

All films are classified by:1. Its makers2. Its marketers, reviewers and the BBFC3. Its consumers

These classifications (horror or thriller?, PG or 18?) have material effects on the ways we encounter, enjoy and understand film.

They shape the status of the film; they determine whether the film gets made and whether the film gets a wide UK release.

This presentation focuses on ‘genre’ and ways of grouping films to create expectations and evoke audience familiarity.

Recommend a film task:

How do you go about telling a friend about a film?

What frames of reference do you use to help your friend understand what the film is like?

The word ‘genre’ is simply a French word for ‘type’ or ‘kind’.

The term has close associations with biology and the classification of plants and animals.

This biological association is useful as it helps us think about how genres change, mutate and produce hybrids.

Audiences often seek the pleasures of the familiar.

We enjoy the ritual and reassurance involved in knowing broadly what ‘might happen’ in a particular film.

What ‘might happen’ in Love Happens?

What are you basing your judgements on?

What ‘might happen’ in Fright Night?

What are you basing your judgements on?

An important development in thinking about film genres has been to put them into the context of audience’s understandings and activities. Genres are no longer seen as sets of fixed elements, constantly repeated.

They are seen as working with ‘repertoires of elements’ or fluid systems of learnt conventions and expectations

Film makers and film spectators are both active on both sides of meaning making.

The film maker can rely on certain kinds of audience familiarity to play with, and the audience can look forward to having their expectations challenged or developed.

These genre conventions and expectations include:

Narrative – how the stories in a genre usually begin and conclude, what kinds of characters are at the centre of the film

Audio-visual codes of signification – aspects of mise-en-scene associated with a specific genre; stars and actors associated with a specific genre (including directors and film production companies)

Ideology and real world values – including perceptions of how realistic the genre is seen to be; and how it taps into the ideological values of the film audience.

Activity:

Get the weekly listings for The Odeon and/or Cinema City

Organise the films on show by genre (including films you consider to be genre hybrids)

What conventions and expectations do you think the films will include?

Organise your ideas under the headings:Narrative Audio-visual codes of significationIdeology and real world values

Have a look at the “Story Types” worksheet. Which of Phil

Parker’s Story Types do your films fall under?