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
"Queste teorie, facendo di un principio
determinista la chiave dell'evoluzione dei
generi, relegano al rango del casuale l'intera
storia dei cambiamenti che interessano i
contesti sociali, culturali e politici dei film, le
modificazioni che intervengono sul sistema
economico ed estetico della loro produzione, e
i cambiamenti nella natura del pubblico e le
loro aspettative. Anche se questo modello
potrebbe essere utile per valutare i generi
classici di Hollywood, nonostante la sua
natura sistematizzante, non è molto rilevante
per una comprensione dei generi dopo l'era
dello "studio system" hollywoodiano, o quelli
che sono fiorìti in luoghi diversi da
Hollywood." (Nota 3)
Tanto per tornare ai generi che abbiamo
brevemente esaminato nella discussione di cui
sopra, le parodie dei western furono realizzate
già negli anni Dieci, e una considerazione dei
contesti socio-culturali ci porta ad osservare
che quello che oggi possiamo percepire come
un esempio "classico" come Ombre rosse
potrebbe essere stato percepito dal suo
pubblico contemporaneo come un film che
riciclava e faceva rivivere forme e convenzioni
dei western precedenti.
D'altronde, come abbiamo visto, la stessa
tendenza di un genere (un tempo) "puro" a
sopravvivere inglobando temi che non
facevano parte delle sue caratteristiche
originarie, consente ai generi di sopravvivere,
anche in forme del tutto diverse, contribuendo
a un processo di ibridazione che è uno degli
aspetti principali dell'evoluzione di un genere.
Nel nuovo secolo, ad esempio, il musical è
stato riproposto sotto forma di melodramma in
Dancer in the dark (si veda il video in basso a
sinistra), dove una povera immigrata ceca negli
USA (la musicista islandese Bjork) combatte
la sua imminente cecità per lavorare e
risparmiare denaro per pagare l'operazione di
suo figlio, che potrebbe salvare anche lui dalla
cecità; o sotto forma di commedia/crimine in
Chicago (si veda il video in basso a destra),
dove due ballerine (Renée Zellweger e
Catherine Zeta-Jones) finiscono entrambe in
principle the key to the evolution of genres,
relegate to the ranks of the coincidental the
whole history of changes affecting the social,
cultural, and political contexts of films, the
modifications that occur to the economic and
aesthetic system of their production, and
changes in the nature of audiences and their
expectations. While this model might be useful
for appraising classical Hollywood genres,
despite its systematizing nature, it is not very
relevant to an understanding of genres after the
studio era, or those that flourished in places
other than Hollywood." (Note 3)
Just to return to the genres we have briefly
examined in the above discussion, parodies of
westerns were made even as early as the
1910s, and a consideration of socio-cultural
contexts leads us to observe that what we may
now perceive as a "classic" example like
Stagecoach may have been perceived by its
contemporary audiences as a film which was
recycling and reviving forms and conventions
of earlier westerns.
Besides, as we have seen, the very tendency of
a (once) "pure" genre to survive by
incorporating themes that were not part of its
original features enable genres to survive,
even in quite different forms, contributing to a
process of hybridization which is one of the
major aspects of genre evolution. In the new
century, for example, the musical has been
revived in the form of melodrama in Dancer in
the dark (watch the video below left, where a
poor Czech immigrant in the U.S.A. (Icelandic
musician Bjork) fights her impending blindness
in order to work and save money to pay for her
son's operation, which may save him from
blindness too; or in the form of comedy/crime
in Chicago (watch the video below right),
where two dancers (Renée Zellweger and
Catherine Zeta-Jones) both end up in jail,
charged with murder, with the latter defended
by a brilliant lawyer (Richard Gere).
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