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
cinemafocus.eu
Nosferatu il vampiro/Nosferatu: A Symphony of
Horror/ Nosferatu, eine Symphonie des Grauens
(di/by Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau,
Germania/Germany 1922)
King Kong (di/by Merian C. Cooper and Ernest
B. Schoedsack, USA 1933)
Più di recente, in periodi critici simili, i generi
cinematografici hanno aiutato gli spettatori a
distogliere la loro ansia dai problemi sociali ed
economici reali spostando le loro paure su cause
alternative, come hanno cercato di fare i
cosiddetti "film catastrofici": gli anni '70 hanno
visto la produzione di film come L'avventura del
Poseidon (di Ronald Neame, USA 1972),
L'inferno di cristallo (si veda il trailer in basso a
sinistra) e persino il primo blockbuster di
Spielberg, Lo squalo (USA 1975) - ma gli anni
'70 sono stati anche il periodo che ha visto la
guerra del Vietnam, lo scandalo Watergate, la
crisi petrolifera e la recessione economica. Chi
credeva nella funzione alienante dei generi
cinematografici aveva motivo di suggerire che i
pericoli reali fossero sostituiti ed esorcizzati da
pericoli fittizi e lontanissimi, rafforzando così
l'ideologia dei valori sociali dominanti.
Whright (Nota 6) si spinge fino a suggerire che
alcuni dei generi cinematografici più popolari
(in particolare a Hollywood) assolvono tutti a
questa funzione, presentando una visione
semplificata della realtà dove i problemi
vengono risolti in modo superficiale in modo da
lasciare il pubblico "esorcizzato " e soddisfatto
di quello che è solo un altro modo per voltare le
spalle ai problemi "veri". Così i film di
fantascienza traducono i problemi posti
dall'"Altro" in forze aliene; i western mostrano
come la violenza possa portare all'uso della
forza per raggiungere l'ordine legale; e i film di
gangster dimostrano che il "gangster", cioè un
fuorilegge che cerca di salire la scala sociale con
la violenza, è in definitiva un eroe tragico,
destinato al fallimento e forse alla morte, poiché
il successo cercato al di fuori della propria
classe sociale non porta alcuna ricompensa.
Questa visione ideologica viene nascosta
More recently, in similar critical periods film
genres have helped viewers divert their anxiety
from actual social and economic problems by
displacing their fears to alternative causes, as the
so-called disaster movies tried to do: the 1970s
saw the production of films like The Poseidon
adventure (by Ronald Neame, USA 1972), The
towering inferno (watch the trailer below left)
and even the early Spielberg blockbuster Jaws
(USA 1975) - but the 1970s were also the time
that saw the Vietnam War, the Watergate
scandal, the oil crisis and an economic recession.
Those who believe in the alienating function of
film genres had reasons to suggest that real
dangers were replaced and exorcised by
fictitious, far-removed dangers, thus reinforcing
the ideology of the dominant social values.
Whright (Note 6) goes so far as to suggest that
some of the most popular (Hollywood) film
genres all fulfil this function, by presenting a
simplified view of reality where problems are
solved in a superficial way so as to leave the
audience "exorcised" and satisfied with what is
just another way of turning one's back to the
"real" problems. Thus science-fiction films
dissolve the problems posed by "the Other" into
alien forces; westerns show how violence can
lead to the use of force to achieve legal order;
and gangster films demonstrate that the
"gangster", i.e. an outlaw who tries to climb the
social ladder with violence, is ultimately a tragic
hero, destined to failure and possibly death, since
success sought outside one's own social class
brings no reward. This ideological view is hidden
by replacing the real social causes of this human
condition with psychological causes, so that the
gangster's tragic figure is often presented as a
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