What does genre mean in film

Instead, think about a modern film like Inception. Inception holds a place somewhere between action, adventure, and sci-fi. It is no one clear genre; it is a mix of many. Today, most films are. While many movies nowadays are like Inception , combinations of various genre elements, there are also certain films that remain truly loyal to its type.

It takes an awareness to remain so close to a particular genre, in a time where influences are everywhere. It can. It just has to stay very aligned with the general principles of an action flick. Each genre has a stylistic, thematic rubric of sorts. For example, lots of your cheap gore horror films are exactly that: gory horror. But even in mainstream cinema, as I said, there is still a market for genre films. Studios continue to market films as particular genres for a clear reason. People who enjoy watching funny movies want to know when something is a comedy.

People who enjoy watching action movies enjoy watching stuff getting blown up and people punching each other in their necks and stuff. You know what your getting with a genre-marketed blockbuster. The Raid knows exactly what it is. No frills, just cold hard action. A classic example of a rom-com, Love Actually is actually about love nailed it. And its narrative functions like a comedy. Love Actually is written by one of the dudes who revolutionised the genre, Richard Curtis.

The Hurt Locker is set during the Iraq War, centring around a Sergeant recently assigned to an army bomb squad. This is a unique take on the fantasy genre, but a fantasy film through and through. A must watch. It tells the story of a mole and an undercover cop investigating a Boston gang trying to identify each other. Alrighty, one last time for the people in the back. A genre movie is a pure example of its genre.

It may feature various influences, but at its core, it categorises within the generally agreed upon rubric of that genre. It can be broad, e.

Or it can be more niche, e. And there you have it: genre films. You must be logged in to post a comment. This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed. Terms and Conditions - Privacy Policy.

And fails. What is a Genre Film? Josh Ben-Moshe January 8, GIQUE out with us and share. Share on facebook. Share on twitter. Share on linkedin. Jack was told by his wife, Suzie, not to volunteer for any extra missions so he could come home alive to his family when the war is over. Of course, this is not going to be true because a war movie has to have a daring mission. After being in Europe for about a year and losing many battles, Jack becomes frustrated because he knows the war is not going to end soon.

Suzie dreads each day because of the emptiness in her life without Jack. To her, each day never appears to end. She is stressed because she has a continuous challenge to make ends meet. Jack and seven other men are given a chance to go on a dangerous mission to blow up a German stronghold and capture a high-ranking German officer. These men are asked to go on this mission because of their intelligence and personalities.

If they succeed in this mission, the war will likely be over quicker than expected, because of the information they will receive from this German officer. Jack remembers that his wife told him never to volunteer, but he knows he only has once choice.

He volunteers. Suzie gets a feeling of foreboding and is suddenly afraid something bad is going to happen. She starts to become distant to her friends and even her children. Jack goes on the mission. Everything is timed perfectly. The fortress is blown up and the German officer is captured.

However, the trip back to the Allied lines did not go as planned. Half the men are killed, Jack is wounded, and the German officer is killed. The Christmas holidays are near, and Suzie is persuaded to take the children to church. As the service begins, Jack walks into the church and joins Suzie and the children. The story ends happily, but with a cost. In order to give the story a more realistic feel, the protagonist is not totally successful with what he had set out to do.

The spy genre sounds like it could cross over to the previous genres already discussed. But only the setting and the plot can be standard. The setting could be the same as the war, Western, or crime genres, but it does not make it a war, Western, or crime genre. You have to remember that the story makes the genre because it controls everything else. In the spy genre, the main character generally works under an assumed identity in order to find something or destroy something of harm controlled by a nemesis.

As in past genres, the plot is the inner conflict of the protagonist. In this situation, he or she has a strong inner conflict to succeed at what he or she is assigned to act upon. Thus, if the movie has any of the aforementioned characteristics but takes place during World War II, the movie is primarily a spy movie rather than a war movie.

Remember, the setting does not determine the genre but the story does. The story is interconnected to the characters and the plot. The setting helps add the must-needed background and specificity to the movie, but it is not as interconnected as the other three genres. In recent times, a male of the strong virile type plays the protagonist spy. So, we will demonstrate that this does not always have to be that way in a movie. We will take a woman, named Suzie, who is the spy protagonist.

We will set the example during World War II. Unlike Jack in the war genre discussion, Suzie is chosen because of her background in languages and her photographic memory, giving her the ability to memorize lists of facts immediately. She is requested to go behind enemy lines as a civilian and obtain data that will debilitate the enemy thus giving the Allies the advantage and shortening the war by possibly years.

In order to be able to do this, and to prepare her mentally for the task, she is set to train for three weeks with an Army officer named Jack. Jack is very skeptical that Suzie will be able to pull the task off. Jack states that it is not because she is a woman, but the movie viewers know that her being a woman is exactly the reason. Jack begins a rigorous training program just to say that he told her so. However, Suzie really masters everything Jack throws at her.

After about a week, Jack sees this and starts to admire her strength and fortitude. Jack makes the training less rigorous because he only trains her to get behind enemy lines, get back to the Allied lines, and how to mentally survive torture. By the end of the three weeks, they begin to fall in love with each other, and Jack feels he should accompany her, but his command says that is impossible.

The time has arrived for Suzie to go. The French underground has managed to get her a clerical job where she can do some travelling including going to Normandy. Rather abruptly, Suzie plans a trip to Normandy.

She studies the land and is able to secretly catch a glimpse of German maps showing where their military strength is in and around Normandy. Suzie rushes and gets the information off to the Allies before she is captured by the Germans. The Germans find her guilty of being a spy and she is executed.

Can you see the difference between this example and the war genre example? Both have the same setting of World War II, but the spy genre example has a non-soldier searching for secret information, while the war genre had a group of soldiers going on a mission that was not secret. The war mission was behind enemy lines and in the war zone where the fighting was occurring. The spy genre does not occur in the war zone where there was fighting. The spy story has a lot less emotion and love between the main characters.

The spy story has more suspense as Suzie is hunting for information. She is becoming involved in several tight situations where she barely misses getting caught by the Nazis.

The war genre story has the one climatic battle that the whole conflict was moving toward. Most of the time these two genres do not become this similar but these two examples make it easier to see the differences in the two genres. Both the adventure and spy genres can have exotic settings. The stories are normally about a person or group of people searching for something. During the journey of searching, dangerous situations are overcome by the main characters.

The protagonist may end up getting involved in fighting to overcome social or moral injustices in the exotic location where he or she has journeyed. The difference between this genre and the spy genre is, once again, the story. The spy genre has a story where something is searched for secretively, and the information itself contains secret information. This story has suspense based on timing and near misses. The protagonist is an adventurer rather than a government employee. Being bigger than life, the adventure genre contains a lot of explosive action throughout the movie.

Remember that the story treatment, character background, and character development are big differentiations and distinctions that separate genres. The plot and the setting are also different between genres, and are reflective of the story and the types of characters. Science fiction is linked to the previous genres of crime, Westerns, war, spy, and adventure by the basic theme. However, the genre elements are totally different. Quite often, science fiction has a setting that takes place in the future.

In this way, if the producer wants to comment on a particular problem in current society, the producer can set the problem in the future. The producer appears critical about the problem but not about the current society. The outcome of that problem, if it continues, shows how the future will look.

For science fiction, we can still stay with the plot of inner conflict, which can always be the plot, because a conflict is needed.

The characters and the story can be the same as any other genre with variations, as we will demonstrate in the example.

In our example, Jack and Suzie, along with several hundred other people, are fed up with the crime and violence that exists where they live. No specific location is mentioned, so it can be anywhere in the world or universe. Researchers in this group toil endlessly to find a new galaxy that is livable for humans. Together they all dream of pioneering and developing this new world so there is no violence and everyone can live in harmony.

The space ships are finally finished and they are sent off. They find and arrive in the new world that is named New Earth. The people set up a colony and draft laws so there is no anarchy. Everything is great for two generations. The people live in harmony and enjoy each day to the utmost. However, one day, someone is found dead and robbed. Everyone is left shocked. Because so much time has passed without violence, the police are unprepared.

But they review the crime scene, and conclude that it was murder. Since they have never investigated a murder, they are unsure what should they do to find the murderer and how should they to go about doing it. They arrive at a procedure and find the murderer. The murder was an accident. The murderer was surprised as everyone else. The people realize a murder or accidental death can always happen, so the society has to be prepared and set up to handle it.

Even though the story is fantastical in many ways, it can still make comments and raise questions about society and morality. Science fiction genre, like any genre, can cross over at some point or points to another genre. This example crossed over to the crime genre.

However, to determine the main genre, review the story, characters, plot, and setting together. In this situation, these elements are most geared toward the science fiction genre. In other words, a fantasy movie has no limits.

The setting could be anywhere at any time with characters who appear and act in any way the script writer wants. The story could be about anything. The plot will be inner conflict. According to Wikipedia, fantasy stays away from scientific and macabre story aspects, so it does not become a piece of science fiction or horror. You can see how all three genres: science fiction, fantasy, and horror are similar but different. A group of misfits are given a task by a wizard to find the perfect person.

They must do this in order to save their friend, who is terminally ill and will die shortly. The wizard tells them that their friend is not terminally ill but under an evil spell that he can break. The characters are Jack, Suzie, and Alec, who are misfits because they are the outcasts from their home village, which is in a fictional country.

The wizard gives them a clue to look where no one has looked or would think of looking. Jack, Suzie, and Alec think that the perfect place to find the perfect person is in a graveyard because nobody would think of looking there. But how would the perfect person appear in a graveyard?

After searching through several cemeteries, they become frustrated because they find nothing unusual and do not know what the wizard was talking about. They finally find a cemetery where they can enter a new world that is built upon their imaginations. Using their imaginations mean, as they discuss a trait or physical appearance, they can build the person using their minds.

What they imagine can become reality. Using their imaginations, they begin to discuss what the perfect person would look like and act. They cannot decide because the traits that they imagined as a perfect person are foreign to them.

Finally, they start talking about themselves, and what they like and do not like. After a lengthy conversation that continues for days, Suzie stands up and yells that she has the answer.

She states they should make three lists of their best physical and mental traits. That will be the perfect person. The perfect person is within them as it is within all people. They compile the perfect person using their imaginations and take it to the wizard. Suzie explains to the wizard with the assistance of Jack and Alec that the perfect person was within them as it is within all people. The wizard states that they found the answer to the clue.

As such, they are also able to break the spell over their friend. The spell is broken, and the four leave and live happily ever after. The setting regarding where the movie takes place can be instrumental in a horror movie. Many times, horror movies take place in a historical area with big, old houses that hold many secrets.

Secrets provide the basis of a story as the house is supposedly haunted because something gruesome happened there many years ago. However, the setting may not be unusual, but it can be a typical small town or city just like the one where you live. The plot, once again, is inner conflict.

The main character, Suzie, inherits the house, and she is determined—to the point of becoming obsessed—to prove that there is no such thing as a haunted house. However, she takes her boyfriend, Jack, with her to the house.

After they become frightened by unearthly occurrences in the house, Jack asks his friend, Alec, to join them at the house to find a solution to what is going on. Alec states that in order to make it a clean, healthy house again, they have to discover the problem and solve it. The three of them enter a room late in the evening and try to contact a spirit to identify the problem.

They find, at one point, that the house was owned by a slave trader or human trafficker. Down in the basement, many bodies were buried. Suzie cannot stand thinking that a relative was a human trafficker and nothing can really be done to solve this problem. The house was owned by an evil man who is suffering in the spirit world because of his past actions. Jack thinks that the only cure to these past heinous actions is to burn the house down, which would cremate the bodies that were buried in the basement and possibly put them at peace.

Suzie does not agree with that action, but Alec agrees with Jack in order to find a cure for the haunting. Possibly, after the burning, Suzie can build a different house. Suzie starts to act in an irrational manner, like she is becoming her past relative, who was the slaver. Alec and Jack burn the house. Suzie becomes completely enraged and has to be restrained until the house is completely burned down.

Once the house has finished burning, Suzie no longer acts like she is possessed. The whole area becomes quiet. Suzie speculates that they just need drive away from it. The three of them drive away. The horror genre brings fear, and fear generally brings thrills and suspense. With a suspenseful scene, people like to scare themselves.

The four elements of the drama genre have to be serious, portray life, tell a story, and the characters have to have an inner conflict that brings out emotions at different times throughout the story. These are all points that we have been discussing with the other genres. The characters and the story are general, like everyday people and situations. Somebody is dying, something has to be obtained, or something has to be accomplished are the three common stories for dramas.

Jack is an accomplished musician, who is going to be playing at Carnegie Hall, and he finds out that he has a fatal illness after passing out during a rehearsal.

Or, Jack lived in the slums and a teacher noticed something in him that could be cultivated. Jack becomes a renowned doctor, scientist, or mathematician. Or, Suzie risks everything to find a cure for a disease that is killing many thousands of people on a Caribbean island.

The viewer often knows what is going to happen but often the characters and their development is what makes a drama interesting. The story is relatively simple, the plot is inner conflict, and the setting is inconsequential because the characters make the movie. Did you find Cyrano de Bergerac to be a drama? Cyrano de Bergerac had a firm foundation in unrequited love, a very romantic element in the story. Action, thriller, suspense-thriller, biography, film noir, neo noir, and mystery are terms that are often referred to as different genres.

However, none of these are genres. They do not contain just the four basic elements of a genre—no matter how much people insist that they do. They contain the genre elements and other elements, like cinematography, that are not part of a genre. Writers, educators, critics, historians, and others have stated that the above terms developed into being named a genre and that they can be accepted as a genre over time. How many of you heard or read the terms action genre, film noir genre, or suspense thriller genre?

Just because they have been referred to by these terms, over the years, does not make them honorary genres. These terms, by themselves, still have the same meaning even if they have been named genres. Most of these terms refer to specific cinematography when shooting the movie, or they refer to the way the movie was edited.

Action, thrillers, and suspense thrillers all have similar types of action in them. Adventure, spy, crime, war, and Westerns could all be action movies or thrillers or suspense thrillers. Action, thrillers, and suspense thrillers do not touch upon the four elements that make up a genre. Film noir and neo noir are predominantly crime movies that have certain cinematography. They overlap both in the construction and production aspects of making a movie.

The character types in film noir are loners and schemers, but they are reflective of the types of characters in crime movies. Detour is a good example of film noir regarding the characters like Al and Vera. The voice-over narration of the protagonist describing the forward action, using black and white film, and many scenes occurring at night are examples of film noir. But voice-over narration, being in black and white, and a lot of the movie occurring at night does not determine the genre.

The jaded characters, story, and plot of murder defines the movie as a member of the crime genre. The night scenes and voice-over narration are a directorial style. These decisions are characteristics that distinguish it as film noir. Neo noir is the new noir for the later 20th and 21st centuries when most movies are made in color.

The genres could be crime, science fiction, or drama but the cinematography is dark, gritty, and symbolic, similar in many respects to film noir. Mystery refers to the way the story is shaped. Most mysteries are concerned with who stole something or who murdered someone. Most mysteries belong to the crime genre where the story and the editing keep the audience guessing until the final minutes of the movie.

Biography refers to a nonfiction movie that is about a historical or living person. The background, character, and setting of the movie may determine what other genre a biography might belong to.

If the person is a war hero, the movie would be of the war genre; if the person was a criminal or detective, the movie would fit the crime genre, and so forth. Documentary, according to Dictionary. Sheila Curran Bernard, 23 author of Documentary Storytelling , defines documentaries as:. Documentaries bring viewers into new worlds and experiences through the presentation of factual information about real people, places, and events, generally — but not always — portrayed through the use of actual images and artifacts.

We covered a lot of area in discussing different genres. Even though genres are only considered labels for movies, the four elements of a genre are the basis of any movie. Character, story, plot, and setting are how a movie is constructed.

From this construction, the specific theme that is created by the screenwriter and the director can be realized and understood by the viewer.

The other chapters in the construction of a movie go into more detail and dissect these elements in order for a better understanding of the scope of these elements and how the theme of the movie is realized.

With the completion of this chapter, the movies to watch that that are excellent examples of different genres are:. Jack is a school teacher, which is a job he loves. He wants to be the best teacher possible and serve his students well.

Because of his desire to serve his students, he has a disdain for the school administration when they want to cut back on the education process while serving themselves with excessive raises. In addition, Jack had a bad family life when growing up. He is rather cold to his mother because of his upbringing. His mother was domineering to him and his father died at an early age. He wanted to make sure his students were treated better in school than he was at home. Skip to content Part I: Construction.

What People Like the Most about a Movie People will state that a particular movie had a good plot or an intriguing story. Let the Genres Begin We will begin to discuss the different genres, and even the sub-genres, for certain genre types. In addition, as we progress through genres, we want to examine how the genre elements change.

Comedy Genre We begin by discussing one of the most popular, general, and complicated genres—comedy. Slapstick Comedy The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines slapstick as comedy that involves physical action such as falling down or hitting people.

In this example, the setting can remain as a college campus. The above are two demonstrations of satire. Dark Comedy or Black Comedy Dictionary. Screwball Comedy This comedy sub-genre is named after a baseball pitch, the screwball, which was perfected by baseball pitcher Carl Hubbell in the s. Screwball comedy also had the following attributes: The poor and middle class would go to the movies to see the rich get their comeuppance.

This is why movies were one of the few industries of the period that made a profit. People felt a passion of hate toward the upper class because of the mess lower classes assumed the upper class made of the economy.

Many of the most famous movie stars of the period appeared in screwball comedies. People went to the movies to see the elegant clothes, cars, and furniture, so they could wish they had those items.

Romantic Comedy Dictionary. Comedy Conclusion Comedy is varied and complex. Western Genre Because of the similarities between the Western and crime genres, I have included back-to-back discussions of the two genres. Do you see the differences in the stories? Science Fiction Genre Science fiction is linked to the previous genres of crime, Westerns, war, spy, and adventure by the basic theme.

What would a fantasy example be like? You are only limited by your imagination. A wonderful theme can come from any genre. Action, Thriller, Suspense Thriller, Biography, Film Noir, Neo Noir, and Mystery Action, thriller, suspense-thriller, biography, film noir, neo noir, and mystery are terms that are often referred to as different genres.

Documentary Documentary, according to Dictionary. From these two definitions, documentaries are a separate movie entity that is unto itself. Final Thought We covered a lot of area in discussing different genres. Further Viewing With the completion of this chapter, the movies to watch that that are excellent examples of different genres are: It Happened One Night , , directed by Frank Capra, starring Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert.

This is an excellent example of screwball comedy. This is a good example of the war genre. All About Eve , , directed by Joseph L. This is an excellent example of the drama genre. This is an excellent example of the spy genre that became popular as well as the gadgets that came along with it.