In film theory, genre refers to the primary method of film categorization. A "genre" generally refers to films that share similarities in the narrative elements from which they are constructed. Film theory debates the essence of the cinema and provides conceptual frameworks for analyzing, among other things, the film image, narrative structure, the function of film artists, the relationship of film to reality, and the film spectators position in the cinematic experience. ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ...

Categorizing film genres

Three main types are often used to categorize film genres; setting, mood, and format. The film's location is defined as the setting. The emotional charge carried throughout the film is known as its mood. The film may also have been shot using particular equipment or be presented in a specific manner, or format. Setting is a term in literature and drama usually referring to the time and location in which a story takes place. ... Look up mood in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... This article is about motion pictures. ...

The following are some examples of well-established genres in film. They are often further defined to form subgenres, and can also be combined to form hybrid genres.

Setting

• Crime: places its character within realm of criminal activity.
• Film noir: portrays its principal characters in a nihilistic and existentialist realm or manner.
• Historical: taking place in the past amidst notable historical circumstances.
• Science fiction: a setting or plot defined by the effects of speculative (not yet existing) technology (i.e. future space travel, cyberpunk, time travel).
• Sports: sporting events and locations pertaining to a given sport.
• War: battlefields and locations pertaining to a time of war.
• Westerns: wilderness on the verge of civilization, usually in the American West.

This still from The Big Combo (1955) demonstrates the visual style of film noir at its most extreme. ... Gods death or nonexistence is a quintessential nihilistic concern. ... Existentialism is a philosophical movement emphasizing individualism, individual freedom, and subjectivity. ... The historical drama is a film genre in which stories are based more or less accurately upon historical events and famous persons. ... This article needs additional references or sources for verification. ... The war film is a film genre concerned with warfare, usually about naval, air or land battles, sometimes focusing instead on prisoners of war, covert operations, military training or other related subjects. ... Justus D. Barnes, from The Great Train Robbery The Western is one of the classic American literary and film genres. ...

Mood

• Action: generally involves a moral interplay between "good" and "bad" played out through violence or physical force.
• Adventure: involving danger, risk, and/or chance, often with a high degree of fantasy.
• Comedy: intended to provoke laughter.
• Drama: mainly focuses on character development.
• Fantasy: speculative fiction outside reality (i.e. myth, legend).
• Horror: intended to provoke fear in audience.
• Slasher: A variation of Horror that focuses less on suspense and more on death and gore. Also calledSplatter film.
• Mystery: the progression from the unknown to the known by discovering and solving a series of clues.
• Romance: dwelling on the elements of romantic love.
• Thrillers: intended to provoke excitement and/or nervous tension into audience.

Look up Action film in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... The quintessential adventure film. ... Comedy film is genre of film in which the main emphasis is on humor. ... A drama film is a film that depends mostly on in-depth character development, interaction, and highly emotional themes. ... Fantasy films are films with fantastic themes, usually involving magic, supernatural events, make-believe creatures, or exotic fantasy worlds. ... “Horror Movie” redirects here. ... A self propelled Case Windrower. ... Gore may refer to: Kensington Gore, English theatre slang for stage blood The depiction of graphic violence in film, TV and theatre, especially the realistic depiction of serious physical injuries involving blood, flesh and bone matter (see splatter film) A triangular segment: Gore (road), a triangular point of land often... Poster art for Blood Feast (1963) A splatter film or gore film is a type of horror film that deliberately focuses on graphic portrayals of gore and graphic violence. ... Mystery film is a film genre which uses mystery as an element to the plot. ... While most films have some aspect of romance between characters (at least as a subplot) a romance film can be loosely defined as any film in which the central plot (the premise of the story) revolves around the romantic involvement of the storys protagonists. ... This article primarily discusses philosophical ideologies in relation to the subject of romantic love. ... Thriller films are movies that primarily use action and suspense to engage the audience. ...

Format

• Animation: the rapid display of a sequence of 2-D artwork or model positions in order to create an illusion of movement.
• Live action
• Documentary
• Musical: songs are sung by the characters and interwoven into the narrative.

The bouncing ball animation (below) consists of these 6 frames. ... In film and video, live action refers to works that are acted out by flesh-and-blood actors, as opposed to animation. ... Documentary film is a broad category of visual expression that is based on the attempt, in one fashion or another, to document reality. ... The musical film is a film genre in which several songs sung by the characters are interwoven into the narrative. ...

Target audience

• Children's film: films for young children; as opposed to a family film, no special effort is made to make the film attractive for other audiences.
• Family film: intended to be attractive for people of all ages and suitable for viewing by a young audience. Examples of this are Disney films.
• Adult film: intended to be viewed only by an adult audience, content may include violence, disturbing themes, obscene language, or explicit sexual behavior. Adult film may also be used as a synonym for pornographic film.

A childrens film is a film for young children. ... A family film is a film genre that, like a childrens film, is suitable for young children, but with the difference that a family film has been carefully written, directed, cast and acted so that it will appeal to all members of a typical family (or if not typical... A family film is a film genre that, like a childrens film, is suitable for young children, but with the difference that a family film has been carefully written, directed, cast and acted so that it will appeal to all members of a typical family (or if not typical... Pornographic movies appeared shortly after the creation of the movie technology that made them possible. ... Pornographic films are motion pictures that explicitly depict sexual intercourse and other sexual acts, typically for the purpose of sexual arousal in the viewer. ...

Criticisms of film genres

What genres are not

There are other methods of dividing films into groups besides genre. For example auteur critics group films according to their directors. Some groupings may be casually described as genres but this definition is questionable. For example, independent films are sometimes discussed as if they are a genre, but in fact independent production does not determine a film's storyline, and they can belong to any genre. The term auteur (French for author) is used to describe film directors (or, more rarely, producers or writers) who are considered to have a distinctive, recognizable vision, because they (a) repeatedly return to the same subject matter, (b) habitually address a particular psychological or moral theme, (c) employ a recurring... An independent film, or indie film, is usually a low-budget film that is produced by a small movie studio. ...

Some have argued that genre needs to be distinguished from film style. A film's style concerns the choices made about cinematography, editing, and sound, and a particular style can be applied to any genre. Whereas film genres identify the manifest content of film, film styles identify the manner by which any given film's genre(s) is/are rendered for the screen. Style may be determined by plot structure, scenic design, lighting, cinematography, acting, and other intentional artistic components of the finished film product. Others argue that this distinction is too simplistic, since some genres are primarily recognizable by their styles. Many historians debate whether film noir truly is a genre rather than a style of film-making often emulated in the period's heyday. ‹ The template below is being considered for deletion. ... Film editing is the connecting of one or more shots to form a sequence, and the subsequent connecting of sequences to form an entire movie. ... Sound is a disturbance of mechanical energy that propagates through matter as a wave. ... This still from The Big Combo (1955) demonstrates the visual style of film noir at its most extreme. ...

Are film genres definable?

A genre is always a vague term with no fixed boundaries. Many works also cross into multiple genres. In this respect film theorist Robert Stam has noted: Film theory debates the essence of the cinema and provides conceptual frameworks for analyzing, among other things, the film image, narrative structure, the function of film artists, the relationship of film to reality, and the film spectators position in the cinematic experience. ...

A number of perennial doubts plague genre theory. Are genres really 'out there' in the world, or are they merely the constructions of analysts? Is there a finite taxonomy of genres or are they in principle infinite? Are genres timeless Platonic essences or ephemeral, time-bound entities? Are genres culture-bound or trans-cultural?... Should genre analysis be descriptive or prescriptive? ....

While some genres are based on story content (the war film), other are borrowed from literature (comedy, melodrama) or from other media (the musical). Some are performer-based (the Astaire-Rogers films) or budget-based (blockbusters), while others are based on artistic status (the art film), racial identity (Black cinema), location (the Western) or sexual orientation.^[1]

Many genres have built-in audiences and corresponding publications that support them, such as magazines and websites. Films that are difficult to categorize into a genre are often less successful. As such, film genres are also useful in areas of marketing, criticism and consumption. An audience is a group of people who participate in an experience or encounter a work of art, literature, theatre, music or academics in any medium. ... This article or section does not adequately cite its references or sources. ... For the magazine, see Marketing (magazine). ... A critic (derived from the ancient Greek word krites meaning a judge) is a person who offers a value judgement or an interpretation. ... In economics, consumption refers to the final use of goods and services to provide utility. ...

Hollywood story consultant John Truby states that "...you have to know how to transcend the forms [genres] so you can give the audience a sense of originality and surprise."^[2] Some screenwriters use genre as a means of determining what kind of plot or content to put into a screenplay. They may study films of specific genres to find examples. This is a way that some screenwriters are able to copy elements of successful movies and pass them off in a new screenplay. It is likely that such screenplays fall short in originality. As Truby says, "Writers know enough to write a genre script but they haven’t twisted the story beats of that genre in such a way that it gives an original face to it".^[3] John Truby is a screenwriter, director and screenwriting teacher. ... Screenwriters, scenarists or script writers, are authors who write the screenplays from which movies and television programs are made. ... Sample from a screenplay, showing dialogue and action descriptions. ...

It makes sense for writers to defy the elements found in past works and come up with something different or opposite to what's been done before. Originality and surprise are the elements that make for good movie stories. For example, spaghetti westerns are known to have turned the western film genre upside down by making the good guy be bad as well as good. Prior to them, westerns had what are now considered genre clichés, such as good guys wearing white hats, bad guys wearing black hats, and the good guy always beating the bad guy in a shootout. The cliché western disappeared after the spaghetti westerns broke the "rules" of the genre. Wikipedia does not yet have an article with this exact name. ... For other uses, see Hero (disambiguation). ...

Sometimes, however, it is up to the public to make decisions how films are defined. For example, a new, English word that describes a film is YUG, which is a genre of films that are really, really bad, making it really, really good. However, genres like Yug are not really effective in ordering films, as people have different opinions towards films, therefore making the difficult situation of placing films into specific genres a lot worse.

References

1. ^ Robert Stam, Queer Cinema, 2000, p.14
2. ^ Truby, John. What's My Genre?. Writers Store. Retrieved on 2007-07-31.
3. ^ Ward, Lewis. Interview: John Truby on Screenwriting and Breaking In. Script Magazine. Retrieved on 2007-07-31.

John Truby is a screenwriter, director and screenwriting teacher. ... Year 2007 (MMVII) is the current year, a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar and the AD/CE era in the. ... is the 212th day of the year (213th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2007 (MMVII) is the current year, a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar and the AD/CE era in the. ... is the 212th day of the year (213th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ...

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to:

Cinema

• Genres of film at the Internet Movie Database