Film genres: features, functions, evolution
This Interactive workshop aims at exploring the origin of genres, their functions in cinema and their evolution, with particular emphasis on the latest developments. We first ask why we need genres at all and examine the variety of classification criteria that can be used. Then we focus on the specific features of genre films, analysing their conventions and their narrative structures. We then explore how different agents (from producers to audiences, from critics to film scholars) have used and still use genres, and highlight their economic, sociocultural and communicative functions. Finally, by taking a historical perspective, we explore how genres have evolved in the course of time and how modern cinema extensively use genre mixing and hybridization, thus pointing to the future of this important but complex category of film analysis. Part of the www.cinemafocus.eu research materials.
This Interactive workshop aims at exploring the origin of genres, their functions in cinema and their evolution, with particular emphasis on the latest developments. We first ask why we need genres at all and examine the variety of classification criteria that can be used. Then we focus on the specific features of genre films, analysing their conventions and their narrative structures. We then explore how different agents (from producers to audiences, from critics to film scholars) have used and still use genres, and highlight their economic, sociocultural and communicative functions. Finally, by taking a historical perspective, we explore how genres have evolved in the course of time and how modern cinema extensively use genre mixing and hybridization, thus pointing to the future of this important but complex category of film analysis. Part of the www.cinemafocus.eu research materials.
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I generi cinematografici: caratteristiche, funzioni, evoluzione
Film genres: features, functions, evolution
"escapista", illusoria che i film generici possono
svolgere, soprattutto in momenti particolari della
storia. Il genere musicale degli anni Trenta, ad
esempio, che proponeva storie d'amore in un
contesto sociale (solitamente) di alto livello,
dove i "problemi" potevano essere risolti
cantando e ballando, portando così alla felicità
della coppia in questione (come nei film di Fred
Astaire e Ginger Rogers), è stato visto come un
potente strumento per allontanare il pubblico
dalla realtà della Grande Depressione e verso un
mondo immaginario e illusorio, un modo per
fuggire dalla realtà quotidiana dei problemi
sociali reali. Allo stesso modo, mostri
appartenenti a tradizioni cinematografiche molto
diverse, da Nosferatu di Murnau, realizzato nel
1922 nel difficile periodo della Repubblica
tedesca di Weimar, a Dracula di Tod Browning
(1931) e King Kong di Cooper e Schoedsack nei
primi anni '30 della Grande Depressione
americana (si vedano i video qui sotto),
sembrano allontanare il pubblico dalla realtà
deprimente dei tempi, spostandolo su un altro
livello immaginario:
"[King Kong]... converte il pericolo sociale (la
crisi) in un pericolo sessuale (la
rappresentazione della crisi coinvolge
esclusivamente una donna - Ann è una ladra
prima di diventare il catalizzatore della
passione amorosa di Kong). Allo stesso tempo,
svuota il tempo storico della sua cultura
effettiva (New York negli anni '30) per
sostituirlo con un mondo mitico e immaginario
(il regno di Kong). Non sorprende che
commentatori e critici abbiano spesso visto
nell'irruzione di King Kong a New York il
ritorno, terrificante e fantasmagorico, del
rimosso – sia psichico (l'Altro, il desiderio,
l'onnipotenza delle pulsioni, ecc.), sia sociale (la
Grande Depressione, i cui effetti sono solo
velocemente mostrati all'inizio del film,
ritornando sotto forma di un mostro che
distrugge tutto al suo passaggio)" (Nota 5)
move audiences away from the realities of the
Great Depression and into an imaginary,
illusionary world, a way to escape from the daily
reality of actual social problems. In the same
vein, monsters belonging to vastly different film
traditions, from Murnau's Nosferatu, made in
1922 in the critical period of the German
Republic of Weimar, to Tod Browning's Dracula
(1931) and Cooper and Schoedsack's King Kong
in the early 1930s American Great Depression
(watch the videos below), seem to transfer the
audience away from the depressing reality of the
times, displacing them to another, imaginary
level:
"[King Kong]... converts social danger (the
crisis) into a sexual danger (the representation of
the crisis exclusively involves a woman – Ann is
a thief before becoming the catalyst for Kong’s
amorous passion). At the same time, it empties
historical time of its actual culture (New York in
the 1930s) in order to replace it with a mythical
and imaginary world (the kingdom of Kong). It is
not surprising that commentators and critics have
often seen in the irruption of King Kong in New
York the return, terrifying and phantasmagorical,
of the repressed – whether psychic (the Other,
desire, the all-powerfulness of impulses, etc.), or
social (the Great Depression, the effects of which
are quickly shown and evacuated at the
beginning of the film, returning in the form of a
monster that destroys everything in its passage)"
(Note 5)
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