This week’s reading takes us away from the harder, technical knowledge of the class of editing, cinematography, and mise-en-scene, and towards more big-picture aspects of film: the film genre. This reading covered some history and logistics behind genres, as well as four of the main genres in American film: the Western, Horror, Musical, and Sports. I thought this was an interesting list–I figured rom-coms would be featured, but I figured wrong. This list was still very interesting to read, and covered in-depth descriptions of each genre type. Here’s a brief re-telling of the genres:
The Western movie is a classic, born at the beginning of the 20th century, not so much later than the birth of film itself. I really liked the beginning of this description, the Western film displays the “conflict between civilized order and the lawless frontier.” Whenever I think about a Western, I consider the rebellious aspect of it a lot. Also, the standoffish nature of it all, with duels and the whole “this town ain’t big enough for the two of us” deal.
Horror movies, as well as the Horror genre, are characterized very distinctly by their subjects, themes, and iconography. Iconography, especially, is prevalent in this genre. The Horror genre immediately elicits images of Jason’s mask from Halloween or the doll from Annabelle. All of these are very iconic examples of iconography.
As a theatre kid, I’m very familiar with the musical genre–both onstage and onscreen. There are two types of musical films: the “backstage musical” and the “straight musical.” The backstage musical contains actors that perform for an audience in their story world, while a straight musical follows a typical narrative, just with singing and dancing throughout as a storytelling mechanism. A good example of a straight musical is Singin’ in the Rain!
The last genre on the list is the sports movie. I haven’t seen many, but the first that comes to mind is a classic from my childhood, The Sandlot. This genre is characterized by not only sports-playing, but by competitions and tournaments and typically containing the big game at the story’s climax. Additionally, this is where the popular underdog narrative often takes place.
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