Film Genre Notes

Genre is a way to classify media products into groups. It tells the potential audience what to expect. The definition of genre is type or sort and was used over two thousand years ago by Aristotle and other people in Ancient Greece to put poetry and drama into certain categories. In Ancient Greece the quality of a play was judge on how well it fit the genre. The two types of genres that they classed their plays in were dramas and comedies which are really popular film genres today.

 

 

In films early days it was regarded as a mass produced popular entertainment which was not really worthy of the same treatment as other literacy products. The word genre seemed more appropriate to high cultured literature. However as more films were being mass produced as well as the success of cinema meant that some simple form of differentiation between films would be helpful in marketing new releases. Major studios then began to adopt the term genre to help classify their films. By categorizing their films in advance it could help to calculate roughly their budget for the film because they would roughly know how many people would watch the finished product. So by having genre as a form of classification it allowed the film industry to both be distinguished and conform to the same thing from other competitor studios. There are now many types of genres compared to the two genres in Ancient Greek times. Some film studios are now known for specialising in certain film genres, for example MGM became known for Musicals and Universal Studios became known for horror.

 

 

 

Later in about the 1960’s film critics began using the word genre as a way of judging the quality of films; Robert Warshow described the gangster as “a tragic hero”. Films can be classed into genres through the similar types of conventions in visual imagery, plot, character, setting modes of narrative, music and stars. For example a western genre would have a bar setting with swing doors, cowboys, tumble weed and more. The main problem in film genres is repetition, that most films will have familiar setting and story lines. However by having a sufficient difference between each film it can encourage more people to go and watch the new film. As the film industry grows the genre categories have increased to classify the films. As more films are created they can overlap into other genres which can then appeal to more people.