Like any other art form, film can be characterized into different groups characterized by style, thematic conventions, presentation, and specific iconographies. In the first half of Chapter 3 of Film Art: An Introduction, the text focuses on these three aspects of analyzing/describing genre: how these elements work together, composing different genres, and keeping each of them distinct from each other. 

Genres are simply a way of easily referring to a type of movie, whether it be something very general like the idea of a “romance” movie, or something more specific like a “2000’s LA teenage coming of age” movie. There are many genres present in film, especially on the international level, and even more sub genres within those genres, all of which can be characterized together by their similar styles. In the book, we focus mainly on four big genres present throughout the history of American filmmaking: The Western, Horror, Musical, and Sports films. Each genre focuses on different goals of what they want to convey to the audience: Horror films are characterized by the use of themes of monsters and violations of real life normality to evoke an emotional response to the audience, Western films are characterized by the specific themes, settings, and characters of frontier life, Musical films sync music/sound into film creating worlds of choreographed dancing and singing, Sports films are followed by conventional themes and plots such as the cinderella story. 

For learning purposes, I decided it would be easiest to practice this concept by finding the most accurate films for each genre. The ones I chose, are seen as pinnacles of their given genres because of how extremely conventional they were. I wanted to find films that extremely accentuated the particular themes/conventions for the given genre, which would make conceptualization of harder examples easier.

Horror: Paranormal Activity (2008) 

This movie follows the handheld camera footage of Micah Solat, documenting the hauntings that he and his fiancé Katie are experiencing in their home. Horror movies contain themes of civilians being horrified by some kind of monster. In the case of Paranormal Activity, the monster is the unknown entity doing the haunting at the couples house, causing them to feel extremely unsafe and spooked. Paranormal activity in general is definitely something that defies what we believe is possible in real life (that’s if you don’t believe in ghosts), however for people who do believe, I think this kind of horror movie is much more effective in the horrifying aspect of this genre because of how much closer it is to real life than other horror stories such as zombies. As a more modern take on the low budget horror films from the 1960’s, I believe this film captures something else I use to characterize traditional American horror films: slightly unbelievable acting, and comical reactions to horrifying events.

side note: Since this first one was made, three more Paranormal Activity sequels followed! It was produced under Blumhouse Productions, who are mainly known for their horror films. This movie doesn’t fall far at all from the horror genre of movies usually made by Blumhouse such as Five Nights At Freddie’s. (I will go deeper into detail about production companies and their specialized genres in my next blog post. :))

Western: Flaming Star (1960) 

Yes, this is an Elvis movie (Yes, It has terrible reviews). Flaming Star is the perfect example of a classic Western film. The story follows a rancher,Pacer Burton (Elvis Presley), the son of a Texan father and a Native American mother. While living on the frontiers of Texas, he begins dealing with the conflicts between the native americans and texans both living on the frontier and finds himself torn between two worlds. Already in this synapsis we see the three biggest themes that characterize a Western film: American Frontiers, Native Americans, and cowboys (ranchers). Aside from these iconographies, the overall plot of the story establishes the common wild frontier vs. civilized law dynamic, with the protagonist stuck between the crossfires. 

Sport: The Bad News Bears (1976)

Baseball, coaches, victory of the underdogs. The Bad News Bears is a story of a kids baseball team coached by Morris Buttermaker. They go from the worst team in all of Southern California, to finally making it to the local championship round. Conflicts of each heated game as they move their way up, reveals something new within the team as they learn to play together and love the game. With most sports movies following the underdogs, we see the classic Cinderella story unravel. The team faces many challenges; their coach Buttermaker is a drunk who doesn’t care about the team, and the kids are all demoralized and not athletically inclined. However, due to their continued perseverance throughout their journey, they work together and make it to the local championship. At the end although they lose, they cheer and celebrate as if they did because they realized the true meaning behind being part of a team, something the winning team was missing. The underdogs overcome their odds to ultimately compete in the championship! 

Musical: Camp Rock (2008)

This movie was made at the peak of the teenage musical era of the 2000’s, following the wake of Highschool Musical (2006). Camp Rock is a musical! Characters sing and dance, seemingly perfectly choreographed yet also spontaneous and non-diagetic music floats into the scene, when characters begin to sing. Additionally, we get the classic romance infused music number between the love interests of the movie (in this case Joe and Demi), an element very common within musicals. Additionally in terms of sub genres, this fits perfectly into the specific sub genre of “high school teenage musical movies”, similar to those of High school Musical, and Teen Beach Movie.