ABSTRACT
The two meanings of the term genre, as heightened reality or fantasy, as in Star Wars (Genre 1) or the classification of films and TV shows in general. The nature of films in Genre 1. Violence in Genre 1. Sui generis films — Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives. Style. form, content as characteristics of genre, in the cases of Kes, Boyhood, American Honey. The practical filmmaking applications of an understanding of genre, in audience expectations (Roma, Torn Curtain, Funny Games); conflict, friction, tension (Rear Window, North by Northwest); character; pitch, register, tenor; tonality; suspension of disbelief (compare Another Year with Hereditary); the depiction of events (The English Patient), relationship to observing, complicit, or critical cameras (The English Patient, The Irishman); moral universe; tropes and conventions (The Bourne franchise, TV’s Homecoming, You Were Never Really Here), films ignoring tropes (Timbuktu, The Lobster, Hereditary); genre conventions related to the work of Kubrick, Tarantino, Polanski; pay-offs, closed and open endings, related to TV and franchise movies, related to post-modern films (Zodiac, Loveless), the danger of closed endings in realistic drama (Everybody Knows, as opposed to A Separation, About Ellie, or The Salesman); the journey of the protagonist; casting (Fish Tank, American Honey), stars, actors, non-actors; performance, spectrum of this (Rocketman, Paterson, Mission Impossible, Fast and Furious, Harry Potter, Ratcatcher, Capernaum), psychological realism and Genre 1 (Torn Curtain), performance in comedy (Dumb and Dumber, Monsieur Hulot’s Holiday, Mon Oncle), performance in dark comedy (Parasite); production design and the reality–fantasy spectrum, necessary research (Master and Commander, Pirates of the Caribbean), production design and multiple genre (see Gangs of New York, Zama), production design and budget (Ratcatcher, Zero Dark Thirty, Zama, Lincoln); cinematography, adherence to the genre conventions of cinematography — for example in comedy — versus subversion of them (Mon Oncle, Chinatown, Bridesmaids, The Shining), relationship between approach to cinematography and the level of realism (Oldboy, The Kid with a Bike), contrary approaches from a single filmmaker (Hereditary, Midsommar), lighting in Carl Dreyer’s Vampyr; sound design, relationship to realism, effect on the screen of the mind and the function of this within a genre (Three Colors Blue), sound design to convey mood, tone, subliminal messages (Notorious, The Wrong Man); music, to heighten emotion or to distance an audience, whether non-diegetic or diegetic (Roma), appropriate scores for the genre of the film, the different usage of source music (The Kid with a Bike, Marie Antoinette), anachronistic source music (Gangs of New York), music as counterpoint to emotion and tone (Full Metal Jacket, Reservoir Dogs, Zama, Peaky Blinders), music and “indies,” score in TV shows; the intended audience (Bridesmaids, The White Ribbon). The question of multiple genres, of cross-pollination of genres, of hybrid, meta, elevated, retro genre, and “genre bending” (Get Out, Black Panther, Pan’s Labyrinth).
