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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 it's ''mood'' . The film may also have been shot using particular equipment or be presented in a specific manner, or ''format''. Setting
Mood
Format
Age
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 Film s 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. 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. 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:
Many genres have built in Audience s and corresponding publications that support them, such as Magazine s 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 . 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." {Link without Title} 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, like 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. SEE ALSO |
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