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Home , Chick flick, Cloverfield, Genre, Gross out, Historical drama, Revisionist Western

GENRE (what is it?)

The various types of that & filmmakers recognize by their familiar and iconographic and conventions and patterns.

GENRE (where does it come from?) Usually and original story, or concept that is so critically and financially successful that other’s attempt to reproduce similar stories/films. Critical mass builds as more and more films repeat success.

Christian Metz (1931-1993) was a French theorist. He believed that go through a cycle of stages during their life time. These were:

The Four Stages of Genre Development

1. Experimental stage Conventions of Genre are establish through experimentation, trial and error. (Night of the Living Dead)

2. Classic stage Conventions become well established. The specific genre reaches is most success. Rules become establish and well understood and repeated. (Dawn of the Dead)

3. Revisionist (Gianetti) Conventions of genre are reevaluated. Rules and boundaries are subverted, changed, altered to create suspense, surprise, trick audiences. (? World War Z?)

3. stage Conventions are satirized and made fun of (Sean of the Dead? Evil Dead?)

4. Deconstruction stage Conventions of genre are reevaluated. Rules and boundaries are subverted, changed, altered to create suspense, surprise, trick audiences. (28 days later? World War Z?)

FILM GENRES - LIST Films can obviously inhabit or blend more than one genre or sub-genre.

ACTION MOVIES Sub Genres: /Historical/Biblical Movies: (Ben Hur, Gone With the Wind, Lawrence of Arabia) Spy Movies: (James Bond, Salt, Mission: Impossible) Disaster Movies: (Poseidon, Towering Inferno, San Andreas) Movies: (The Dark Knight Trilogy, Hancock, , X-men) Straight action: (, and The Bourne Franchise) Martial Arts Movies: (Enter the Dragon, Drunken Master, Mortal Kombat, ) Movies: (Resident Evil, Tomb Raider, Prince of Persia)

CRIME MOVIES Sub Genres: Whodunnit/Detective Movies: (Lady on a Train, Murder Most Foul) Gangster Movies: (Gangs of New York, City of God, ) Hardboiled Movies/Noir: (The Maltese Falcon, The Big Sleep) Courtroom Movies / Legal Thrillers: (Philadelphia, A Few Good Men, The Verdict) /Detective (Seven, M)

FANTASY Sub Genres: Contemporary Movies: (Hellboy, , Mirrormask, Neverending Story) Movies: (Constantine, , Underworld) Dark/Gothic/Fantasy Movies:(Pan’s Labyrinth, Devil’s Backbone) Movies: (Maleficent, Into the Woods, Jack the Giant Killer, Snow White and The Huntsman) Epic Fantasy Movies: (Lord of the Rings, 300, Chronicles of Narnia, Beowulf) Heroic/Mythological Fantasy Movies: (Jason and the Argonauts, The Dark Crystal, Willow, Immortals) Movies: (Conan the Barbarian, Krull, Masters of the Universe)

WESTERNS Sub Genres: Spaghetti : (Fistful of Dollars and The Good, The Bad, The Ugly) Epic Western: (Once Upon a Time in the West, Red River) /Anti-Hero: ( and the , 3:10 to Yuma,Young Guns, , , ) Marshal Western: (The , ) : (, , Lawman) Western: ( Unchained, , The Quick and the Dead) Empire Western Movies: (There Will Be Blood)

HISTORICAL Sub Genres: Biopic Movies: (Lincoln, The Elephant Man, Ali) Historical Movies: (Titanic, Schindler’s List, Braveheart) Biblical: (Ben Hur, The Ten Commandments, Noah, The Passion of the Christ) Period: (Anna and the King, Sense and Sensibility, Miss Potter) Movies: (, Timequest, Hunter (Alt History/Horror)

ROMANCE Sub Genres: Romantic Drama: (Casablanca, The English Patient, ) Rom-Com:(When Harry Met Sally, Clueless, Love Actually) Movies: Often seen as a derogatory term, the phrase ‘chick flick’ denotes any romance movie perceived to be aimed predominantly towards a female . (, , The Fault in our Stars) Romantic : (Knight and Day, Mr and Mrs Smith)

HORROR Sub Genres: Slasher Movies: (Nightmare on Elm Street, Halloween, ) Splatter Movies: (Braindead, Saw, I Spit on Your Grave) Movies: (Silence of the Lambs, The Shining, Swan) Survival Horror: (28 Days Later, The Crazies, Cube, Saw) Found Footage : (Blair Witch Project, V/H/S, As Above, So Below) Paranormal/Occult Horror: (Paranormal Activity, The Exorcist, Poltergeist) Monster Movies: (, The Creature from the Black Lagoon, , The Thing)

SCI-FI Sub Genres: Hard Sci-Fi :(Jurassic Park, Gravity, Europa Report, Ex Machina) Apocalyptic Sci-Fi: (, Planet of the Apes, 2) Future Noir Movies: (, ) : (, , Serenity) Military Science : (Starship Troopers, Aliens, Edge of Tomorrow) Punk Sci-Fi: (Total Recall, Metropolis, Demolition Man) Speculative Sci-Fi: (Primer, Interstellar, Source Code) Post Apocalyptic: (, Steel Dawn, Road Warrior, A Boy and His Dog) /A.I: (I Robot, Chappie, Robocop, A.I. , Ex Machina, Transcendence, Terminator)

COMEDY Sub Genres: Buddy: Road: Fish out of Water: : Clown: Animal: Coming of Age: Fairy Tale: (The Princess Bride)

WAR Action Combat: Aerial Combat, Aviation: War Specific: Civil War, WWI, WWII, Vietnam, Afghanistan-Iraq Anti-War Prison Camp/Escape: (A Man Escape, The Great Escape, Victory) Military /Prisoner of War (POW) Propaganda Resistance War-Spy Submarine (Das , U571) War Romance

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