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35 Cards in this Set
- Front
- Back
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genre |
a distinct classification/category into which a great number of works are grouped because they have distinct, common properties and characteristics |
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similar elements in content among films of a particular genre |
plot, story, structures, conflicts, settings, themes, types of players, subjects, types of music, mood, atmosphere |
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Form vs. Content |
Form - how you use the formal structures Content - everything within the form (i.e. characters, plot, etc.) |
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ingredients of a genre |
myths, conventions, iconography |
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basic genres |
tragedy, comedy, melodrama |
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tragedy |
an image of man going beyond his bounds man trying to realize his potential man unlimited, heroic, breaking limits the effect of tragedy is fear and pity, not uplift |
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comedy |
man limited; fallible; opposite of tragedy a stylization/exaggeration of plot and character helps create distance so you can laugh the most intellectual of the 3 basic genres |
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melodrama |
man in action; situations larger than life, but relatable and typical of real life, focus on feeling more than thinking; exaggerates for subjectivity so you feel the characters subforms: interior melodrama and exterior melodrama |
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Conditions for and Causes of Genre |
Financial and Aesthetic |
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Financial |
manufacturers standardize molds that appeal to consumers; genres provide selling elements; genre compensates for a film's uniqueness in order to sell it; allows for the quantity of films made each year; allows the studios to recycle props and sets, so they save money by minimizing cost; genre is both assurance and insurance for what the consumer is going to buy |
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Aesthetic |
repetition breeds quality; genre creates an economy of storytelling; global sensibility |
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Implication of Genre |
genre as comforter, confirmer, insiller of hope; genre as "sugarcoating the pill"; genre as cultural myth; genre as ritual |
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Classical period |
1929-1945 formation of genres |
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Postclassical Period |
1946-1962 beginning of genre experimentation Cinema is transitioning from classical to modernist, those classical films are still being made |
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Modernist Period |
1963-1976 Thematically: self-conscious engagement with social and moral values Formally: experimentation with formal structures of the art form/medium |
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Postmodern Period |
Late 1970s on An Aesthetic Sensibility A reaction to modernism, but also a continuation of modernism |
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Conditions and Causes for Genre Experimentation (Postclassical) |
Cultural Change; increased sophistication of consumers and film makers; Leisure Activities; New Technology; Censorship loosening; new modes of production; the influence of European and Asian films |
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Types of Genre Experimentation (Postclassical) |
Topical Accomodation Hybridization Genre as Vehicle Parody Nostalgia Remythologization Demythologization |
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Impications of Genre Experimentation (Postclassical) |
A. you had to know the genres in order for departures to be effective B. Genre experimentation becomes even more prominent in the modernist and post-modernist periods |
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Modernist Period - Thematic |
1. self consciously engages with social norms/values/the status quo in order to subvert it 2. The film knows and questions these norms; and the audience knows it 3. The Myth of Modernism 4. Thematics of Modernism |
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The Myth of Modernism |
journey for meaning. This myth is added to the myths of the particular genre; it subsumes the genre myths (a structure of all modernist films) |
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Thematics of Modernism |
journeys - both literal and figurative; heterogeneous world vs. the homogeneous world of classicism; many truth/relative truths; situational ethics/morality instead of natural laws; meaning comes from the self, not institutions or work; chance and happenstance are the fabric of existence rather than cause and effect; difficulty in communication |
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Modernist Period - Formal |
1. Self-consciously experimenting with genre, design, qualities of the medium 2. questioning the art form and the genre 3. 3 types of intertextuality |
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3 types of intertextuality |
film intertextuality Non-filmic intertextuality extra-filmic intertextuality |
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film intertextuality |
using materials, structures, conventions, from other films |
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non-filmic intertextuality |
a movie going outside itself into the signifying practices of other aesthetic discourses |
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extra-filmic intertextuality |
using structures from non-aesthetic areas |
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implications of modernism |
a. distinction b/w high art and low/popular culture b. film caught up to the other arts, which made it part of the intellectual culture c. too self-conscious to tell us much about the culture; popular genre films are more indicative of their time d. the viewer has to work harder; challenges perceptions |
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Characteristics of postmoderism |
-tenuous hold on reality -erasure of the distinction b/w high & low culture -pastiche -representations of representations/nostalgia for past texts not realities -depthlessness/loss of feeling -schizophrenic experience -cynicism |
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tenuous hold on reality (postmodernism) |
the aesthetic does not have a strong regard for reality |
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The erasure of the distinction b/w high and low culture (postmodernism) |
modernism distinguished elite/high culture from low culture but postmodernism collapses the distinction |
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Pastiche (postmodernism) |
imitating the formal strategies or content of previous texts with no added meaning or sense of satire/parody |
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Representations of Representations/Nostalgia for Past Texts not Realities (postmodernism) |
recreating the past not based on experience but on the surfaces/representations of the past |
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depthlessness/loss of feeling (postmodernism) |
lack of originality; the feeling that everything has been done before, so it becomes all about style |
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Schizophrenic Experience |
collage; fractured, confused experience; illogical juxtapositions |
