(Carroll, 2001: 210). Carroll does not clarify who the "producers of Stand By Me" are, those who are given screen credit as producers, according to Hollywood convention, or those who actually had a hand in the artistic production of the film. And if he would prefer the latter, would he be happy with a few producers, say, the director and maybe the screen­writer, or might he not feel compelled to poll all the producers, of the film: the assistant director responsible for monitoring activity on the set or all prop men who might have had occasion to touch the computer? If there is problem enough in identifying the actual pro­ducers of the film, deciding on a protocol to adjudicate different claims for responsibility would be seriously complicated. Would the producers be asked in a group or separately? Could we really expect any producer to confess to an accident? Would unanimous agree­ment be necessary or only agreement by a majority? Carroll's example actually sho"'{s that whatever one thinks of the merit of moderate actual intentionalism as an interpretive protocol for novels and poems, it cannot be applied to motion -pictures with anything approaching the confidence his theory requires.

12. Peter F. Drucker, Concept of the Corporation (New York: John Day, 1946), p. 12.

13. Peter F. Drucker, Managing for Results (1964; rpt., New York: Harper and Row, 1986), vii.

14. Kenneth R. Andrews, The Concept of Corporate Strategy (1971; 3rd edn., Homewood, IL: Irwin, 1987), p. 13.

15. Barry King, "Articulating Stardom," Screen 26, no. 5 (September-October, 1985), p. 31.

16. R. S. Crane, "Towards a More Adequate Criticism of Poetic Structure," in The Languages of Criticism and the Structure of Poetry (Toronto: Toronto University Press, 1953), pp. 141-2.

17. With space, the illustration drawn from Crane could be complemented by a more self­conscious example of corporate theory from 1953: Dowling Productions' remarkable Donovan's Brain. That picture radically departs from its source, Robert Siodmak's novel, and earlier adaptations to explore with unprecedented incisiveness the thematics of the corporate takeover, represented as a scientist's ability to communicate with and be di­rected by the brain of a rapacious corporate executive, which has been extracted from the dying man's body. Donovan's Brain anticipates less the polyvalent Invasion of the Body Snatchers, directed by Don Siegel in 1956 for Walter Wanger Productions than the aggres­sively anti-corporate allegory of The Invasion of the Body Snatchers of 1978, directed by Philip Kaufman in spite ofUnitedArtists and its parent, the Transamerica Corporation.

18. For examples, see the numerous superb essays on the New Hollywood collected in Steve Neale and Murray Smith (eds.), Contemporary Hollywood Cinema (London: Routledge, 1998) and Jon Lewis (ed.), The New American Cinema (Durham: Duke University Press, 1998).

- - -------- - .

PARTS

GENRE: CLASSIFYING STORIES

Ghost Dog, aware of his approaching death, stands face to face with his "retainer," Louie. Already embodying the unlikely and seemingly incompatible generic elements of japanese samurai and American gangster movies, in this scene, Ghost Dog invokes yet another genre. Willingly submitting himself to death by his IJ1aster in this quasi stand-off scenario, he rearticulates a famous Western, saying: "This is high noon."

Final Scene from Jim jarmusch's Ghost Dog: The, Way of the Samurai (1998)

0 ne of the most fundamental insights in film theory is that the film experience ex­tends well beyond the act of watching a film. It begins in advance, with, among other

things, recollections of our previous film experiences, including our likes and dislikes, which then determine what kind of film we are going to watch and, to some extent, how we receive it. We often choose what to watch based on what we know of a particular film genre (meaning "type" or "class")-a set of conventions arid formulas developed and re­peated through film history. Furthermore, the way we understand a film has a great deal to do with the expectations it creates as a genre film. Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai (1998) by jim jarmusch is a film about an African American mafia hit man who has taken the spiritual and philosophical posture of a samurai. The film is a curious bricolage of samurai, gangster, Hong Kong action, and western movies; a collision of different, seemingly incom­patible genres that mirrors the film's narrative about the clash of different cultures in a modern U.S. city. Ghost Dog draws from the image banks of both popular and high culture, from diverse historical and cultural contexts, and it clearly references and rearticulates

441

42 1· PART 5 GENRE: CLASSIFYING STORIE_s __ _

various classic genre films, such as Seven Samurai (19S4), High Noon (1952), and The Godfather (1972). The filni's meaning and hurt1or depend considerably on the viewer's preexistihg knowledge of the conventions or tHese film genres, as does its deconstruction of generic norms and myths. For example, the mafia portrayed in Ghost Dog is tbthpletely debaucHiild and degenerate, contrasting strongly with the largely romantiC a tid luxurious. gangster world shown iri films such as The Godfather and The Untouchables (1987). The godfatHers in Ghos(Dog are aged, bankrupt, , and lonely. Behind with their rent; they watch television cartoons in a nearly c~tatoiiic state.

The concept of genre not ohly structures the experience of filrri audiences, but grou~: ing and classifying fllms by style and story also serves producers and critics. THe generic questions that underpin our choice, and understanding, of a fiirrrire precisely the same

questions that producers need to take into account whenanticipatirig the response to their product. Therefore, genre can forecast and irrlply a ceitain economic predict<lbil.ity or risk. Likewise, attention to those sarhe issues provides film critics with practical tools for analyz­ing a film in ternis of how it conforrris to, negotiates, or subvertS particular generic formulas; as well as how the!ie genE!Hc formulas function in a broader cultural context as myths or cultural ritual~. Genre is thus a conceptual thre~d that ties together and makes continuous seemingly different cohterns: the .frameworks of textual interpretation and critical analysis, the interests of the ihdustty, and the desire~ ~hd expectations of audiences: . . .

Genre is an alitieht approach to classifying diverse arti~tic texts that was revived by eighteenth-century European classicism; much later, cinema offered a unique staging grbund for broader di~cusslons of genre in relation to mass ~ntertainment and media cul­ture. However, it is importilnt to note that genre's Inherent critical disposition-viewing works of art as instances of types-conflicts with the.ae~thetic notion that works of art are authentic anti unique personal expressions. Not surprisingiy then; by the time cinema ar­rived in the 189os, genres wete dl~tredited due to their association with mass-market pub­lishing. This illuminates the disconnect between the slgrilfitance of genre terminology in the film industry and the iacl( of early critical arid scholatly attention to film genre.

Genre terms were used iricreasjngly during the e<lrly years of film production to iden­tify and differentiate films., and as Hollywood's size and influence grew throughout the 1920s, generic c<ltegoriEis took on even bigger import~nce. As studios struggled to recover from the conversion to sound and soaring production tosts throughout the decade, the pressure for a standardized product was extreme; and generic conventions became a com­mercial netessity. However, it wasn't until after World War II (under the influence of Cahiers du cinema and its editors' reappraisal of Hollywood cinema) that mainstream film critics began to take genre films and genre criticism more seriously. Indeed, the emergence of genre criticism in the late 1960s and early 1g70s tali be understood as a corrective or out­right rejection of auteurisni. Genre critiCism refJses ttie Romantic conception of the artist as unique and exclusive, and assumes a niore liidu~lve method where issues of text and aesthetics intersect with those of industry, history and satiety, culture and audiences. · · Equally important to note are the pitfallsj doubts, and questions that have plagued genre theory throughout film history. While some genres represent established catego­ries of studio productibn (like the western arid the musical), others (such as film nair) were retroactive designations constructed by critics-so do genres simply exist or are they postfacto constructions of cinalysts? Are they based on story content or subject

PART 5 GENRE: CLASSIFYING STORIES j I.

matter (war films), artistic status (art films), mood or style (film nair), or perhaps sexual or racial affiliation (queer cinema, black cinema)? Given the variety of contexts and uses for generic labels and their crosscultural circulation, are such labels obsoJete and hope­lessly provisional? Ghost Dog is certainly a prime example of such problems in genre classification-"urban gangster film," "samurai film," "jim jarmusch film," or "postmod­ern film" are all equally valid descriptions of it. While it references and co-opts specific

gen~e ~lms. and their generic elements, it neither belongs wholly to one of those genres, nor IS 1t a Simple mix of them. Rather, it reassembles its various generic elements into a unique expression-Ghost Dog refuses narrow definitions of genre and subverts pre­scriptive notions of what each genre should do.

In spite of its complications, genre has been a key concept in the development of film

th_eor~. It has been employed persistently in film theory and criticism with significant im- . phcat1ons and has proved to be an important conceptual tool for thinking about cinema on a range of practical and theoretical levels. The selections in Part 5 explore the theoretical develo~ments in genre theory, using the concept of genre to address simultaneously the dynam1cs of the text and the activities of the industry, audiences, and critics. Taken to­gether, the essays reveal the problematic and provisional nature of generic labels as well as their centrality in understanding how cinematic meaning is constructed and received .

We begin with ARISTOTLE's Poetics, the classic text of genre studies whose methodol­ogy and generic terms have served as a foundation for many subsequent studies in both literature and film. In particular, Aristotle's definition of tragedy touches on several aspects of genre that became important to genre criticism in film: such as the kinds of events portrayed, the social rank and ethical quality of the characters, narrative struc­ture, and audience effects. Offering a useful method in identifying the qualities an~ limits of each genre, Aristotle's model provides a cornerstone of genre analysis in film and has proved remarkably influential and durable. Yet Aristotle's model deals with "types," which run ~he risk ?f static taxonomy and essentialism, one of the pitfalls of genre theory when applied to cmema. It relies on the ahistorical premise that genre is already "out there" and has .essential qualities that can be revealed through proper analysis, masking the ~roduct1ve role of scholars in the definition of generic categories. More important, m the context of cinema, such a model abstracts genre from industrial and cultural uses of the term, and it does not take into account the complex and continuous evolution of cinematic forms.

~i~en the problems of defining genre using a se~ of theoretical principles, most criti­cal wnt1_ng empl?ys ~ew methods that acknowledge the historical contingency of genre as well as 1ts function 1n a larger social context, even when deploying Aristotle's categories. One such m~thod in genre criticism draws analogies between genre and myth, arguing that genre, hke myth, serves a ritual purpose and has' an organic relation to social con­stiousness. In his 1981 book Hollywood Genres, THOMAS SCHATZ, informed by Levi-Strauss's structur~list rea~ing of myth, defines genres around a set of binary oppositions and argues that the~r _narrative patterns work to resolve specific _cultural tensions, if only temporarily. S~hatz d1v1de~ Hollywood genres into those that attempt to reestablish social order (western, en me, detect1ve) an~ th?se that attempt to establish social integration (musical, comedy, melodrama). He mamtams that the resolution of conflict is the genre film's function as "cultural ritual," although this process happens differently for different genres.

~44 L.~~T 5 GENRE: CLASSIFYING STO~~~------ - --- --------- ··--··--------

Similarly, RICHARD DYER, in "Entertainment and Utopia," is interested in the idea of -genre as cultural myth, focusing on the musical, which was traditionally dismissed as "mere entertainment" rather than seen as a genre performing a culturally significant role. Dyer takes very seriously the idea of entertainment as entertainment, and he examines how the everyday problems of scarcity, ble~kness, and lack of community are addressed through the abundance of energy and th~ utopian sensibility offered by the style, gestures, song, and dance of the musical. The utopian world in musicals, he maintains, is not conveyed through representational codes but rather through the level of sensibility, "the feelings it embodies." It is this utopian sensibility that accounts for the success of the musical, even though the solutions offered by musicals to the real needs of a society are created by the

same society and therefore do not succeed. _ __, · While Schatz and Dyer propose a ritual significance in Hollywood genres, the editors

of the film journals Cahiers du cinema and Screen argued that Hollywood film imposed dominant ideological meanings on audiences, and they saw genre as an ideological tool, rather than a social ritual. j EAN-LOUIS CoMOLll and jEAN NARBONI, the editors of Cahiers in the late 196os and 1970s, draw on the theories of Karl Marx and Louis Althusser to define Hollywood film as a commodity functioning according to the laws of the market, and as a part of the ideological superstructure determined by the capitalist system. They argue that cinema, rather than reproducing reality, reproduces only the world of the dominant ideology. They classify films based on whether they expose cinema's alleged "depiction of reality," and from this point of view, genre is critiqued as being a subset of the broader ideological structure of classical Hollywood narrative, since it binds the viewer to the insti~ tution of cinema as a whole.

Against this view of film genres as a mere symptom of mass production, theorists began to see genre as a result of a complex encounter between the audience's ritual values and the industry's ideological commitments, recognizing that the way audiences use genre to understand a film's internal and external codes is not a fixed process but a continuously changing and fluid one. For RICK ALTMAN, the key to the s~ccess of genre lies not in its reflec­

tion of an audience ideal , nor in its reflection of the dominant ideology of the Hollywood industry. but rather in its ability to carry out both functions simultaneously. Rejecting genre purists (Aristotle), semioticians in search of elements of film language, and myth critics (Schatz), Altman proposes a language-oriented model that is more sensitive to the

historical conditions in which genres circulate and are consumed. "A Semantic/Syntactic/Pragmatic Approach to Genre" is a follow-up to Altman's 1984

article "A Semantic/Syntactic Approach to Film Genre." In the original essay Altman devel­oped an approach that was both "semantic" in its concern with visual iconography and nar­rative content, and "syntactic" in its focus on the structure into which narrative elements are inserted. Altman asserted that films can mix the semantics of one genre with the syntax of another, and that they can dissolve syntactic bonds while leaving semantic patterns in place. In his later essay included here, he expands this semantic/syntactic approach to ac­count for broader historical patterns of generic change and what he calls the "multi-discursive" aspect of gen~e. the fact that it serves diverse audiences differently and represents a site of struggle among multiple users. The "pragmatic" part of his triadic approach thus ad· dresses the "use factor" that subjects the semantic and syntactic factors to further analy­sis based on the uses to which they are put. Ghost Dog is an excellent example of this; the film questions the conventions of gangster genre syntax (the mafia has no influence on the

PART 5 GENRE: CLASSIFYING STORIES I 4 • -- ----------------- _ _ _________ .J

commun ity, and the industrial city they live in seems to be in a complete state of decay), and it uses a unique mix of genres to forge a new syntax out of familiar semantic material. Moreover, Ghost Dog's weaving of clashing genre elements into a new syntax constructs a broader discourse about the hybrid nature of the multicultural urban environment por­trayed in t he film and of Ghost Dog himself. This hybridity is a perpetual source of conflict, a conflict t hat rests on the assumption that labels have fixed, rather than fluid and arbi­trarily assigned meaning. The pragmatic approach recognizes such flu idity.

This mapping of generic form against broader social conditions and historical ten­sions is a crucial aspect of Ghost Dog and also a crucial aspect of genre theory, most of which situates the study of genre within the broader intertextual context of cinema, see­ing genre as a complex discursive system involving not just films themselves but also other cultural phenomena. THOMAS ELSAESSER's "Tales of Sound and Fury: Observations on the Family Melodrama" is one of the definitive texts on the subject of melodrama. He traces the evolution of the melodramatic form in several European countries and links this to the rise of the bourgeoisie as a class and to its need for self-representation in a secular world. Reminding us of the historical contingency of generic forms, his study of such Hollywood directors as Douglas Sirk demonstrates how the melodramatic imagina­t ion was adapted to reveal (more than resolve) the inadequacies of mainstream American culture in the 1950s.

For other critics, th is expanded approach means posing the question of film genre not only in terms of aesthetic or industri!ll processes, but also as a broader process of cogni­tion that involves the spectator. This active power of the audience is a crucial aspect of many recent critiques that are interested in genre analysis not in and of itself but insofar as it offers larger insights into the dynamics of social hierarchies and patterns of identifica­tion. CAROL J. CLOVER's femin ist investigation of the horror genre, Men, Women, and Chain Saws, uses the study of genre to raise larger questions about the cinematic apparatus and cinematic identification. The goal of her analysis of the relationship in horror film between viewers (largely young males) to what she terms t he "female victim-heroes" is not so much to define the characteristics of the genre but rather to show how the complexity of this relationship subverts and revises our understanding of the presumably stable and fi xed paradigm of spectatorship and identification. In Ghost Dog, Ghost Dog befriends a Haitian ice cream man. Although they develop a deep bond and communicate easily with each other, the film subtitles their conversations, putting the spectator in the position of an outsider in relation to their friendship-a position that otherwise belongs to the main character in the film. Among other things, th is shows that the process of " reading" and decoding meaning (inherent in ,the question of film genre) goes mucb deeper than using the same language; rather, it is part of a much broader question about cultural cognition and social processes of identification.

Ghost Dog is only one example of a film composed of diverse generic elements reas­sembled in ways that reject singular generic understanding. As such, it points both to the fact that genre is still a significant conceptual and theoretical category, and to the reality that it cannot be seen as a one-dimensional entity. In a manner similar to other contempo­rary films (Moulin Rouge! [2001], Chicago [zooz], Slumdog Millionaire (zooS]), the film not only subverts. generic boundaries but also blatantly quotes, recirculates, and reassembles already familiar generic texts. Ghost Dog's literary references-Frankenstein, Hagakure: The Book of the Samurai, and Du Bois's The Souls of Black Folk-are in dialogue with each other;

the animated cartoons that the film draws from,like Betty Boop, Felix the Cat, and Itchy and Scratchy, converse with its cinematic references, The Godfather and Seven Samurai. Eve·n the music in Ghost Dog melds Asian influences, reggae, jazz, hip hop, and urban sounds. This coexistence of generic elemeqts from popular culture with various generic texts of different historiGal periods and cultural contexts shows how individual generic features, rather than being the property of specific genres, circulate fluidly through popular culture.

In this way, Ghost Dog, as well as most contemporary genre theory, establishes genre not only as a necessary mechanism of film comprehension, but also as a mechanism through which cinema functions by deriving from and assimilating a range of cultural expressions.

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ARISTOTLE ·· ·· ····· ·· ····· ··· ····· ·· ·· ····· ·· ··· ···· ···· ····· ··· ···· ······· ···· ······· ··

The Origins of Tragedy, Comedy and Epic FROM Poetics

Aristotle (384-322 s.c.E) is often considered the first writer to attempt a systematic classifi­cation of genre. Born in the northern Greek city of Stagira, he was raised as a member of the aristocracy and moved to Athens where he studied in Plato's Academy. After distinguish­ing himself as an educator and a scholar of biology, botany, physics, psychology, politics, and numerous other subjects, Aristotle was invited by King Philip of Macedonia around 343 s.c.E. to tutor his heir, the future Alexander the Great. He iater began his own school in Athens at the Lyceum, where he taught rhetoric,poetics, and metaphysics, and lived

out his last years on the island of Euboea. Alongside the work of his -mentor Plato, Aristotle's writings (of which perhaps only

one-fifth have survived) have become foundational documents in Western philosophy, lit­erary criticism, and narrative arts such as drama and film. Although he apparently never completed a full account of two of the three genres he identifies in the Poetics-comedy and epic poetry-he does provide a systematic analysis of tragedy that theoretically acts as a model for any genre. Based in a· method of categorizing and differentiating kinds of

representation, this early treatise is a cornerstone for alt future studies of genre. To understand the roots of many film genre theories, it is crucial to understand

Aristotle's Poetics and the critical paradigm it estabfishes for understanding dramatic tragedy. Using dramas such <IS Sophocles' Oedipus Rex as primary examples, Aristotle articulates the six distinctive characteristics that he believes all successful tragedies share:

- plot, character, thought, diction, music, and spectacle. Furthermore, for Aristotle, tragedy can be divided into four subgenres: the complex tragedy, the tragedy of suffering, the tragedy of character, and the tragedy of spectacle. Aristotle's rational and programmatic perspective suggestively anticipates the classical Hollywood studio system whose indus­trial formula of generic standardization and differentiation provided the foundation for Hollywood genres. Aristotle's description of plot as the representation of a single action

ARISTOTLE The Origins of Tragedy, Comedy an~~:_j

in which there is a specific kind of.construction that involves specific kinds of incidents (e.g., "te~rifying and pitiable") enacted by specific kinds of characters not only foreshadows t~e class1cal Hollywood narrative with its unified action, reversals, and conciuding resolu­tions but also the generic variations on that narrative.

Aristotle's scientific approach to genre anticipates neoformalist approaches to film

and film genre, a~ ~ell as theories of film practice that aim at defining the specificity of film forms and ~1stinctive characteristics of different film genres. Contemporary schol­ars such as Dav1d Bordwell and Kristin Thompson are prolific proponents of a formalist

ap~roac~ based in Aristotle's principles. Many modern genre studies often suggest an Anstotehan ambition for objectivity.

READING CUES & KEY CONCEPTS

• Consider Aristotle's description of the six categories for tragic form. To what extent are they applicable to discussions of classical film narrative?

• Aristotle's method and_ process work carefully to categorize and differentiate the key features of the dramatiC tragedy. How would a similar method describe a film genre such as comedy, westerns, or musicals?

• A: ~r~ductive as a scientific approach to g~nre can be, what does it seem to omit or mm1m1ze that you would argue is central to a theory of film gehre?

• Key Co?~epts: R~presentation; Plot as the Construction of Action; Tragic Recogmt1on; Trag1c Reversal; Tragic Spectacle

The Origins of Tragedy, Comedy and Epic

The Origins of Poetry Two causes seem to have generated the art of poetry as a whole, and these are natural ones.

(i) Repre~entat~on is_ natural to human beings from childhood. They differ from the other ammals m this: man tends most towards representation and learns his first lessons through representation. . ·

A_lso (ii). everyo~e d~lights i_n representations. An indiCation of this is what hap­pens m fact. we delight m lookmg at the most proficient images of things which in themselves we see with pain, e.g. the shapes ofthe most despised wild animals and of

' corpses. The ca~se ~f this is that learning is most pleasant, not only for philosophers but_ for ~ther~ hk_ewise (but they share in it to a small extent). For this reason they ~ehght m seemg n~ag~s, because it comes about that they learn as they observe, and mfer what ~ach thmg IS, e.g. that this person [represents] that one. For if one has not seen the th~ng [that is represented] before, [its image] will not produce pleasure as a representa9on, but b~cause of its accomplishment, colour, or some other such cause.

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