MEDIA 1 |GENRE 14

Genre

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3 forms of Genre

Genre as Taxonomy

Genre as Economic Strategy

Genre as a function of Cognition

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Taxonomythe branch of science concerned with classification, esp. of organisms; systematics

Genre is a mode of classification- the organisation of cultural products (films) into groupsbased on their similarities and commonalities

The act of defining Genre is two fold:(i) describe the differences btw genre’s - westerns, drama, sci-fi, romantic comedy, screwball comedy etc

(ii) finding the similarities shared by members of a genre

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Theoretical Taxonomy

Taxonomy

Peotics - Aristotle epic, comedy, tragedy...

Williamsnarrative, experimental/ avante garde, documentary

“pure categories”

Film

comedy, horror, thriller, war, action, romantic comedy etc SUB-GENRE

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Theoretical Taxonomy - criticising Williams

Taxonomy

1. Defn. is abstracted from the cultural & industrial sense of the term

* William’s codes describe only photographic modes of expression of these “cultural products”

2. Defn does not give a true impression of the complexity of film genre ANIMATION?

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Theoretical Taxonomy - criticising Williams

Taxonomy

* Fiction ‘vs’ Documentary? Is narrative not important to both?

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Genre as Economic Strategy

Taxonomy

Q? What functions does genre perform?

FOCUS: The role genre plays in industrial practices of film making

How does Hollywood organise it’s output?

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Genre as Economic Strategy

Production & promotion are governed organised by the need to:employ familiar ingredients, torecycle previous productsin order to secure maximum profit

Taxonomy

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Genre as Economic Strategy

Hollywood’s generic praxis does 2 things:

(i) guarantee meanings & pleasures

(ii) offset economic risk by providing collateral against innovation & difference

Taxonomy

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Genre as Cognition

What about the audience?

Taxonomy

Audience brings a range of expectations and hypothesis to the cinema

E & H has been developed over time (cinema watching life) through their interaction with film, their SPECTATORSHIP

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Genre as Cognition

Thrfr - The conventions of genre are used as mental processes

Taxonomy

Culler “the operations (ways) of reading (seeing)”

Contract: btw writer & reader to make certain expectations possible i.e. Expect kissing in Casablanca

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Genre as Cognition

Culler - this allows:- compliance (going along with std’s of the form)e.g. fighting in a war epic- deviance (breaking with the form)e.g. the scenic beauty and ‘internal poetry’ of the war epic “Thin red line”

Taxonomy

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