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
Esempi di categorie, ampie e ristrette
"Raggruppamento per periodo o paese (film
americani degli anni '30), per regista o star o
produttore o scrittore o studio, per processo
tecnico (film Cinemascope), per ciclo (i film "da
spiaggia"), per serie (i film di 007), per stile
(espressionismo tedesco), per struttura
(narrativa), per ideologia (cinema reaganiano),
per luogo ("film per drive-in"), per scopo (filmati
amatoriali), per pubblico ("teen pictures"), per
argomento o tema (film per famiglie, film di
politica)." (Nota 2)
"Mentre alcuni generi sono basati sul contenuto
della storia (il film di guerra), altri sono presi in
prestito dalla letteratura (commedia,
melodramma) o da altri media (il musical).
Alcuni sono basati sugli attori (i film di Astaire-
Rogers) o basati sul budget (blockbuster), mentre
altri si basano sullo status artistico (il film
d'arte), l'identità razziale (il cinema nero), i
luoghi (il western) o l'orientamento sessuale (il
cinema queer)." (Nota 3)
Examples of categories, broad and narrow
"Grouping by period or country (American
films of the 1930s), by director or star or
producer or writer or studio, by technical
process (Cinemascope films), by cycle (the
'fallen women' films), by series (the 007
movies), by style (German Expressionism), by
structure (narrative), by ideology (Reaganite
cinema), by
venue ('drive-in movies'), by purpose (home
movies), by audience ('teenpix'), by subject or
theme (family film, paranoid-politics
movies)." (Note 2)
"While some genres are based on story content
(the war film), other are borrowed from
literature (comedy, melodrama) or from other
media (the musical). Some are performerbased
(the Astaire-Rogers films) or budgetbased
(blockbusters), while others are based on
artistic status (the art film), racial identity
(Black cinema), location (the Western) or
sexual orientation (Queer cinema)." (Note 3)
"Prima di parlare di sottogeneri specifici,
dovremmo forse parlare solo di tre forme
cinematografiche molto basilari o principali: film
narrativo, film d'avanguardia/sperimentale e film
documentario... La "non-fiction" è collegata a
quei discorsi che fanno affermazioni esplicite
sulla realtà e la "fiction" a discorsi che non lo
fanno, una distinzione tra una modalità assertiva
e una fittizia, in cui lo spettatore tratta il
riferimento dal testo alla realtà in due modi
fondamentalmente diversi.Questa distinzione tra
due modalità è inserita nel nostro quadro
cognitivo ed è correlata alla distinzione tra una
modalità di "fantasia" e una modalità di realtà"
(Nota 4)
"Before we talk about specific subgenres, we
should perhaps talk about only three, very
basic or principal film forms: narrative film,
avant-garde/experimental film, and
documentary film ... Nonfiction is related to
those discourses that make explicit claims
about reality and fiction to discourses that do
not, a distinction between an assertive and a
fictional mode, in which the spectator treats
the reference from text to reality in two
fundamentally different ways. This distinction
between two modes is imbedded in our
cognitive framework and is related
to the distinction between a play mode and a
reality mode" (Note 4)
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