Kathrina Glitre
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- July 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780719070785
- eISBN:
- 9781781700990
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Manchester University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7228/manchester/9780719070785.003.0010
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
It is difficult or impossible to define what a romantic comedy is because all Hollywood films (except some war films) have romance and all have comedy. While the pervasive presence of romance and ...
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It is difficult or impossible to define what a romantic comedy is because all Hollywood films (except some war films) have romance and all have comedy. While the pervasive presence of romance and comedy is undeniable, there are different levels of representational convention. All Hollywood genres implicitly belong to the broader traditions of American narrative film; romance and comedy are common narrative conventions, hence their ubiquity. This chapter describes the genre, cycle and critical traditions of Hollywood romantic comedies. On the basis of the dominant concept of a film, particular genres can be characterized not only as the only genres in which given elements, devices and features occur, but also as the ones in which they are dominant, in which they play an overall organizing role. Thus, the formation of a couple takes place in many fictional texts as a narrative convention, but it plays the dominant, organizing role in two genres: romance and romantic comedy.Less
It is difficult or impossible to define what a romantic comedy is because all Hollywood films (except some war films) have romance and all have comedy. While the pervasive presence of romance and comedy is undeniable, there are different levels of representational convention. All Hollywood genres implicitly belong to the broader traditions of American narrative film; romance and comedy are common narrative conventions, hence their ubiquity. This chapter describes the genre, cycle and critical traditions of Hollywood romantic comedies. On the basis of the dominant concept of a film, particular genres can be characterized not only as the only genres in which given elements, devices and features occur, but also as the ones in which they are dominant, in which they play an overall organizing role. Thus, the formation of a couple takes place in many fictional texts as a narrative convention, but it plays the dominant, organizing role in two genres: romance and romantic comedy.
K. J. Donnelly
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- May 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780719095863
- eISBN:
- 9781526121066
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Manchester University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7228/manchester/9780719095863.003.0011
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
Hitchcock and Herrmann had a symbiotic and complementary artistic relationship. However, as this chapter contends, rather than necessarily synergic in their understanding of the unified requirements ...
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Hitchcock and Herrmann had a symbiotic and complementary artistic relationship. However, as this chapter contends, rather than necessarily synergic in their understanding of the unified requirements of drama, sometimes their complementary relationship took on a different character. In Marnie, Herrmann’s music attempted to ameliorate Hitchcock’s dark interests, in an attempt to romanticize Hitchcock’s bleak and grotesque story about a psychologist’s fantasy about possessing a disturbed kleptomaniac killer, which includes a deeply disquieting rape scene. The music moves to make these elements bearable, with a ‘sleight of hand’ that misdirects us from the utter darkness and irredeemable characters and obscene aspects of the film narrative.Less
Hitchcock and Herrmann had a symbiotic and complementary artistic relationship. However, as this chapter contends, rather than necessarily synergic in their understanding of the unified requirements of drama, sometimes their complementary relationship took on a different character. In Marnie, Herrmann’s music attempted to ameliorate Hitchcock’s dark interests, in an attempt to romanticize Hitchcock’s bleak and grotesque story about a psychologist’s fantasy about possessing a disturbed kleptomaniac killer, which includes a deeply disquieting rape scene. The music moves to make these elements bearable, with a ‘sleight of hand’ that misdirects us from the utter darkness and irredeemable characters and obscene aspects of the film narrative.
