Liam Burke
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- May 2016
- ISBN:
- 9781628462036
- eISBN:
- 9781626745193
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University Press of Mississippi
- DOI:
- 10.14325/mississippi/9781628462036.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, Comics Studies
In the summer of 2000 X-Men surpassed all box office expectations and ushered in an era of unprecedented production of comic book film adaptations. This trend, now in its second decade, has blossomed ...
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In the summer of 2000 X-Men surpassed all box office expectations and ushered in an era of unprecedented production of comic book film adaptations. This trend, now in its second decade, has blossomed into Hollywood's leading genre. From superheroes to Spartan warriors, The Comic Book Film Adaptation offers the first dedicated study to examine how comic books moved from the fringes of popular culture to the center of mainstream film production. Through in-depth analysis, industry interviews, and audience research, this book charts the cause-and-effect of this influential trend. It considers the cultural traumas, business demands, and digital possibilities that Hollywood faced at the dawn of the twenty-first century. The industry managed to meet these challenges by exploiting comics and their existing audiences. However, studios were caught off-guard when these comic book fans, empowered by digital media, began to influence the success of adaptations. Nonetheless, filmmakers soon developed strategies to take advantage of this intense fanbase, while codifying the trend into a more lucrative genre, the comic book movie, which appealed to an even wider audience. Central to this vibrant trend is a comic aesthetic in which filmmakers utilize digital filmmaking technologies to engage with the language and conventions of comics like never before. The Comic Book Film Adaptation explores this unique moment in which cinema is stimulated, challenged, and enriched by the once-dismissed medium of comics.Less
In the summer of 2000 X-Men surpassed all box office expectations and ushered in an era of unprecedented production of comic book film adaptations. This trend, now in its second decade, has blossomed into Hollywood's leading genre. From superheroes to Spartan warriors, The Comic Book Film Adaptation offers the first dedicated study to examine how comic books moved from the fringes of popular culture to the center of mainstream film production. Through in-depth analysis, industry interviews, and audience research, this book charts the cause-and-effect of this influential trend. It considers the cultural traumas, business demands, and digital possibilities that Hollywood faced at the dawn of the twenty-first century. The industry managed to meet these challenges by exploiting comics and their existing audiences. However, studios were caught off-guard when these comic book fans, empowered by digital media, began to influence the success of adaptations. Nonetheless, filmmakers soon developed strategies to take advantage of this intense fanbase, while codifying the trend into a more lucrative genre, the comic book movie, which appealed to an even wider audience. Central to this vibrant trend is a comic aesthetic in which filmmakers utilize digital filmmaking technologies to engage with the language and conventions of comics like never before. The Comic Book Film Adaptation explores this unique moment in which cinema is stimulated, challenged, and enriched by the once-dismissed medium of comics.
Stephen Teo
- Published in print:
- 1993
- Published Online:
- September 2011
- ISBN:
- 9789622098398
- eISBN:
- 9789882206823
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Hong Kong University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5790/hongkong/9789622098398.003.0007
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
This chapter reviews Johnnie To's enunciating role as an auteur of genre film through the convention of the happy ending, as a method of drawing certain conclusions about To's achievements to date. ...
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This chapter reviews Johnnie To's enunciating role as an auteur of genre film through the convention of the happy ending, as a method of drawing certain conclusions about To's achievements to date. The happy ending is an ironic way of ending this epilogue, as will be made clear, but since To's career is ongoing and likely to contain more revelations and surprises, this chapter cannot make conclusions about his career as such, but about the way his films have ended — as a means to indicate To's contributions to genre and the art of cinema. To's ability to unsettle our perception of genre as a world of pleasure and closure is all part of his vision of Hong Kong on the road to Avici, but his action cinema carries a dialectical weight — fatalism carries meaning and redemption, thus the destiny of his films is something else entirely. The final action in the action films of Johnnie To is the act of inducing thought.Less
This chapter reviews Johnnie To's enunciating role as an auteur of genre film through the convention of the happy ending, as a method of drawing certain conclusions about To's achievements to date. The happy ending is an ironic way of ending this epilogue, as will be made clear, but since To's career is ongoing and likely to contain more revelations and surprises, this chapter cannot make conclusions about his career as such, but about the way his films have ended — as a means to indicate To's contributions to genre and the art of cinema. To's ability to unsettle our perception of genre as a world of pleasure and closure is all part of his vision of Hong Kong on the road to Avici, but his action cinema carries a dialectical weight — fatalism carries meaning and redemption, thus the destiny of his films is something else entirely. The final action in the action films of Johnnie To is the act of inducing thought.
Torben Grodal
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- May 2009
- ISBN:
- 9780195371314
- eISBN:
- 9780199870585
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195371314.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, Film, Media, and Cultural Studies
This book provides analysis of how human biology, as well as human culture, determines the ways films are made and experienced. This new approach is called “bioculturalism.” The book shows how ...
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This book provides analysis of how human biology, as well as human culture, determines the ways films are made and experienced. This new approach is called “bioculturalism.” The book shows how important formats, such as films for children, romantic films, pornography, fantasy films, horror films, and sad melodramas, appeal to an array of different emotions that have been ingrained in the human embodied brain by the evolutionary process. The book also discusses how these biological dispositions are molded by culture. It explains why certain themes and emotions fascinate viewers all over the globe at all times, and how different cultures invest their own values and tastes in the universal themes.The book further uses the breakthroughs of modern brain science to explain central features of film aesthetics and to construct a general model of aesthetic experience, the PECMA flow model, which explains how the flow of information and emotions in the embodied brain provides a series of aesthetic experiences. The combination of film theory, cognitive psychology, neurology, and evolutionary theory provides explanations for why narrative forms are appealing and how and why art films use different mental mechanisms than those that support mainstream narrative films, as well as how film evokes images of inner, spiritual life and feelings of realism.Embodied Visions provides a new synthesis in film and media studies and aesthetics that combines cultural history with the long history of the evolution of our embodied brains.Less
This book provides analysis of how human biology, as well as human culture, determines the ways films are made and experienced. This new approach is called “bioculturalism.” The book shows how important formats, such as films for children, romantic films, pornography, fantasy films, horror films, and sad melodramas, appeal to an array of different emotions that have been ingrained in the human embodied brain by the evolutionary process. The book also discusses how these biological dispositions are molded by culture. It explains why certain themes and emotions fascinate viewers all over the globe at all times, and how different cultures invest their own values and tastes in the universal themes.The book further uses the breakthroughs of modern brain science to explain central features of film aesthetics and to construct a general model of aesthetic experience, the PECMA flow model, which explains how the flow of information and emotions in the embodied brain provides a series of aesthetic experiences. The combination of film theory, cognitive psychology, neurology, and evolutionary theory provides explanations for why narrative forms are appealing and how and why art films use different mental mechanisms than those that support mainstream narrative films, as well as how film evokes images of inner, spiritual life and feelings of realism.Embodied Visions provides a new synthesis in film and media studies and aesthetics that combines cultural history with the long history of the evolution of our embodied brains.
Christine Cornea
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- September 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780748624652
- eISBN:
- 9780748671106
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748624652.003.0001
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
The science fiction film genre is separate from the irrational or unconscious meanderings of the human mind. In line with this, this book regularly pertains to examples of the genre that can found on ...
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The science fiction film genre is separate from the irrational or unconscious meanderings of the human mind. In line with this, this book regularly pertains to examples of the genre that can found on television, in books, comics, video games and even fine art, as part of the project to locate the films within a wider cultural context. Science fiction has surely adopted material from both the musical and horror film. The genre of science fiction film allows the kind of debate witnessed among critics, writers and aficionados of the written novels. The chapter then looks at what might be called proto-science fiction films. These films came before the science fiction film which boom in the 1950s. It is shown that Metropolis had a huge impact on science fiction. The interwar films evidently address the political and social unrest of their times. Until the 1950s, the science fiction feature film genre actually started in America.Less
The science fiction film genre is separate from the irrational or unconscious meanderings of the human mind. In line with this, this book regularly pertains to examples of the genre that can found on television, in books, comics, video games and even fine art, as part of the project to locate the films within a wider cultural context. Science fiction has surely adopted material from both the musical and horror film. The genre of science fiction film allows the kind of debate witnessed among critics, writers and aficionados of the written novels. The chapter then looks at what might be called proto-science fiction films. These films came before the science fiction film which boom in the 1950s. It is shown that Metropolis had a huge impact on science fiction. The interwar films evidently address the political and social unrest of their times. Until the 1950s, the science fiction feature film genre actually started in America.
Mitsuyo Wada-Marciano
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- November 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780824831820
- eISBN:
- 9780824868772
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Hawai'i Press
- DOI:
- 10.21313/hawaii/9780824831820.003.0003
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Asian Studies
This chapter examines the Japanese film genre known as “middle-class film” (shoshimin eiga), a formative genre in the classical Japanese cinema of the 1920s and 1930s. It first considers genre ...
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This chapter examines the Japanese film genre known as “middle-class film” (shoshimin eiga), a formative genre in the classical Japanese cinema of the 1920s and 1930s. It first considers genre criticism as a strategy for national cinema studies, as well as an elaboration of genre’s specific historical construction in Japanese cinema. It then explores how the middle-class film genre established connections with an audience of the urban middle class and how idiosyncratically the Japanese film industry employed genres apart from Hollywood in the cinematic modes of that period. It also discusses the politics of genre in Japan’s national cinema and the creation of a modern national subject in two films by Ozu Yasujiro: Tokyo Chorus (Tokyo no gassho, 1931) and I Was Born, But… Finally, the chapter explains how notions of Japanese genre have been molded in cross-cultural misunderstandings within Western film scholarship, along with the culturally specific use of genre appropriation in Japan.Less
This chapter examines the Japanese film genre known as “middle-class film” (shoshimin eiga), a formative genre in the classical Japanese cinema of the 1920s and 1930s. It first considers genre criticism as a strategy for national cinema studies, as well as an elaboration of genre’s specific historical construction in Japanese cinema. It then explores how the middle-class film genre established connections with an audience of the urban middle class and how idiosyncratically the Japanese film industry employed genres apart from Hollywood in the cinematic modes of that period. It also discusses the politics of genre in Japan’s national cinema and the creation of a modern national subject in two films by Ozu Yasujiro: Tokyo Chorus (Tokyo no gassho, 1931) and I Was Born, But… Finally, the chapter explains how notions of Japanese genre have been molded in cross-cultural misunderstandings within Western film scholarship, along with the culturally specific use of genre appropriation in Japan.
G. Andrew Stuckey
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- September 2018
- ISBN:
- 9789888390816
- eISBN:
- 9789888455133
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Hong Kong University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5790/hongkong/9789888390816.003.0001
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
The “Introduction” describes the theoretical and practical understanding of what metacinema is and does in the context of Chinese filmmaking. Metacinema is a kind of textual reflexivity that ...
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The “Introduction” describes the theoretical and practical understanding of what metacinema is and does in the context of Chinese filmmaking. Metacinema is a kind of textual reflexivity that foregrounds the mechanisms involved in the creation or reception of a film. Consideration of metacinema reveals a discourse on film arising from the films themselves. A key, but often overlooked, metacinematic category is genre: collective semiotic codes adopted, adapted, updated, or subverted that allow another vantage on the ways films influence each other. In the context of Chinese cinemas, this discourse ricochets amongst and between the industries of Hong Kong, Taiwan, and the PRC. Further, focus on film audiences within films allows us to theorize the personal and social effects film watching has on viewers. The films provide models for ways of being in the world that characters within the films, and by analogy audiences in the real world, adopt, update, and subvert in their own lives.Less
The “Introduction” describes the theoretical and practical understanding of what metacinema is and does in the context of Chinese filmmaking. Metacinema is a kind of textual reflexivity that foregrounds the mechanisms involved in the creation or reception of a film. Consideration of metacinema reveals a discourse on film arising from the films themselves. A key, but often overlooked, metacinematic category is genre: collective semiotic codes adopted, adapted, updated, or subverted that allow another vantage on the ways films influence each other. In the context of Chinese cinemas, this discourse ricochets amongst and between the industries of Hong Kong, Taiwan, and the PRC. Further, focus on film audiences within films allows us to theorize the personal and social effects film watching has on viewers. The films provide models for ways of being in the world that characters within the films, and by analogy audiences in the real world, adopt, update, and subvert in their own lives.
Leger Grindon
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- March 2014
- ISBN:
- 9781604739886
- eISBN:
- 9781604739893
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Mississippi
- DOI:
- 10.14325/mississippi/9781604739886.003.0002
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
This chapter discusses the history of the American boxing film from the coming of sound to the end of the twentieth century. It characterizes the chief cycles of film production in order to explain ...
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This chapter discusses the history of the American boxing film from the coming of sound to the end of the twentieth century. It characterizes the chief cycles of film production in order to explain the cinematic influences, film industry practices, and social trends that shaped the evolution of the genre.Less
This chapter discusses the history of the American boxing film from the coming of sound to the end of the twentieth century. It characterizes the chief cycles of film production in order to explain the cinematic influences, film industry practices, and social trends that shaped the evolution of the genre.
Bryan Turnock
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- February 2021
- ISBN:
- 9781911325895
- eISBN:
- 9781800342460
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3828/liverpool/9781911325895.003.0001
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
This introductory chapter provides an overview of horror cinema. Since its inception, horror has been one of the most universally derided and dismissed of film genres. Yet at the same time it has ...
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This introductory chapter provides an overview of horror cinema. Since its inception, horror has been one of the most universally derided and dismissed of film genres. Yet at the same time it has consistently been one of the most enduring and commercially popular. While there have been periods where it seemed to have reached a dead end, it has always managed to re-invent itself and rise again. Today, horror cinema is experiencing something of a renaissance, enjoying box-office success and even critical acclaim. The chapter discusses the concept of film genre and traces the history of horror. As with other genres, over time horror developed codes and conventions that became typically associated with what one would now term a traditional horror film. Since the arrival of the 'modern' horror film in the early 1960s, the genre has displayed a degree of freedom from many of its more traditional conventions.Less
This introductory chapter provides an overview of horror cinema. Since its inception, horror has been one of the most universally derided and dismissed of film genres. Yet at the same time it has consistently been one of the most enduring and commercially popular. While there have been periods where it seemed to have reached a dead end, it has always managed to re-invent itself and rise again. Today, horror cinema is experiencing something of a renaissance, enjoying box-office success and even critical acclaim. The chapter discusses the concept of film genre and traces the history of horror. As with other genres, over time horror developed codes and conventions that became typically associated with what one would now term a traditional horror film. Since the arrival of the 'modern' horror film in the early 1960s, the genre has displayed a degree of freedom from many of its more traditional conventions.
Leger Grindon
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- March 2014
- ISBN:
- 9781604739886
- eISBN:
- 9781604739893
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Mississippi
- DOI:
- 10.14325/mississippi/9781604739886.003.0001
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
This chapter defines the boxing film genre and describes its conventions, including animating conflicts, model plot, major characters and settings, boxing’s mise-en-scène, and the viewer’s typical ...
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This chapter defines the boxing film genre and describes its conventions, including animating conflicts, model plot, major characters and settings, boxing’s mise-en-scène, and the viewer’s typical emotional response, followed by a consideration of genre history. It concludes with a discussion of the goals of genre criticism and an outline of this book.Less
This chapter defines the boxing film genre and describes its conventions, including animating conflicts, model plot, major characters and settings, boxing’s mise-en-scène, and the viewer’s typical emotional response, followed by a consideration of genre history. It concludes with a discussion of the goals of genre criticism and an outline of this book.
Tommy Gustafsson and Pietari Kääpä (eds)
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- May 2020
- ISBN:
- 9780748693184
- eISBN:
- 9781474412223
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748693184.001.0001
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
Nordic Genre Film offers a transnational approach to studying contemporary genre production in Nordic cinema. It discusses a range of internationally renowned examples, from Nordic noir such as the ...
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Nordic Genre Film offers a transnational approach to studying contemporary genre production in Nordic cinema. It discusses a range of internationally renowned examples, from Nordic noir such as the television show The Bridge and films like Insomnia (1997) to high concept ‘video generation’ productions such as Iron Sky (2012). Yet, genre, at least in this context, indicates both a complex strategy for domestic and international competition as well as an analytical means to identify the Nordic film cultures’ relationships to international trends. Conceptualizing Nordic genre film as an industrial and cultural phenomenon, other contributions focus on road movies, the horror film, autobiographical films, the quirky comedy, musicals, historical epics and pornography. These are contextualized by discussion of their place in their respective national film and media histories as well as their influence on other Nordic countries and beyond.
By highlighting similarities and differences between the countries, as well as the often diverse production modes of each country, as well as the connections that have historically existed, the book works at the intersections of film and cultural studies and combines industrial perspectives and in depth discussion of specific films, while also offering historical perspectives on each genre as it comes to production, distribution and reception of popular contemporary genre film.Less
Nordic Genre Film offers a transnational approach to studying contemporary genre production in Nordic cinema. It discusses a range of internationally renowned examples, from Nordic noir such as the television show The Bridge and films like Insomnia (1997) to high concept ‘video generation’ productions such as Iron Sky (2012). Yet, genre, at least in this context, indicates both a complex strategy for domestic and international competition as well as an analytical means to identify the Nordic film cultures’ relationships to international trends. Conceptualizing Nordic genre film as an industrial and cultural phenomenon, other contributions focus on road movies, the horror film, autobiographical films, the quirky comedy, musicals, historical epics and pornography. These are contextualized by discussion of their place in their respective national film and media histories as well as their influence on other Nordic countries and beyond.
By highlighting similarities and differences between the countries, as well as the often diverse production modes of each country, as well as the connections that have historically existed, the book works at the intersections of film and cultural studies and combines industrial perspectives and in depth discussion of specific films, while also offering historical perspectives on each genre as it comes to production, distribution and reception of popular contemporary genre film.
David Carter
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- February 2021
- ISBN:
- 9781911325055
- eISBN:
- 9781800342187
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3828/liverpool/9781911325055.003.0004
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
This chapter discusses the genre of Christopher Nolan's Inception (2010). Nolan changed his mind several times about what kind of film he wanted to make. This led him to view the material at ...
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This chapter discusses the genre of Christopher Nolan's Inception (2010). Nolan changed his mind several times about what kind of film he wanted to make. This led him to view the material at different times in terms of different genres. He has said that he initially imagined developing the general idea as a horror film, and wrote an 80-page treatment about dream-stealers. As he set about writing it he came to view it more as a heist film, though even at this early stage he had reservations about conceiving it in this genre. It is clear that he was starting to envision something with psychological depth. The chapter reflects on the notion of genre in general, how best to identify and describe genres, and then on the characteristics of the heist and sci-fi genres in particular. It also considers the tech noir genre; films commonly identified as tech noir freely explore deeper levels of human psychology.Less
This chapter discusses the genre of Christopher Nolan's Inception (2010). Nolan changed his mind several times about what kind of film he wanted to make. This led him to view the material at different times in terms of different genres. He has said that he initially imagined developing the general idea as a horror film, and wrote an 80-page treatment about dream-stealers. As he set about writing it he came to view it more as a heist film, though even at this early stage he had reservations about conceiving it in this genre. It is clear that he was starting to envision something with psychological depth. The chapter reflects on the notion of genre in general, how best to identify and describe genres, and then on the characteristics of the heist and sci-fi genres in particular. It also considers the tech noir genre; films commonly identified as tech noir freely explore deeper levels of human psychology.
Tom Ryall
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- July 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780719064524
- eISBN:
- 9781781703007
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Manchester University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7228/manchester/9780719064524.003.0017
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
This chapter sheds light on the post-war British film industry and the turn Asquith's career took during these times. He was well established as one of the British cinema's leading directors on the ...
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This chapter sheds light on the post-war British film industry and the turn Asquith's career took during these times. He was well established as one of the British cinema's leading directors on the basis of a diverse output: the middlebrow drama adaptations of Shaw and Rattigan, lowbrow genre films including a comedy thriller and a costume melodrama, patriotic war pictures and documentary dramas. Asquith resumed his directing career with While the Sun Shines (1947), and his next film, The Winslow Boy (1948), was a Rattigan adaptation in which he corraborated with Korda's revived London Films and British Lion. The Importance of Being Earnest, a version of Oscar Wilde's famous play from the 1890s, was his first film in colour. Asquith's genre exercises from the early 1950s, though containing much of interest – innovatory narrative structures, imaginative mise-enscène, lyricism, and poetry, the radical ideological questioning of war – remain little-known films on the periphery of the mainstream British cinema of the time.Less
This chapter sheds light on the post-war British film industry and the turn Asquith's career took during these times. He was well established as one of the British cinema's leading directors on the basis of a diverse output: the middlebrow drama adaptations of Shaw and Rattigan, lowbrow genre films including a comedy thriller and a costume melodrama, patriotic war pictures and documentary dramas. Asquith resumed his directing career with While the Sun Shines (1947), and his next film, The Winslow Boy (1948), was a Rattigan adaptation in which he corraborated with Korda's revived London Films and British Lion. The Importance of Being Earnest, a version of Oscar Wilde's famous play from the 1890s, was his first film in colour. Asquith's genre exercises from the early 1950s, though containing much of interest – innovatory narrative structures, imaginative mise-enscène, lyricism, and poetry, the radical ideological questioning of war – remain little-known films on the periphery of the mainstream British cinema of the time.
Victoria Grace Walden
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- February 2021
- ISBN:
- 9781906733322
- eISBN:
- 9781800342569
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3828/liverpool/9781906733322.003.0004
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
This chapter evaluates Hammer horror as genre films. Hammer is renowned for its horror films, despite its breadth of productions including comedies, war films, action-adventures, and thrillers. Its ...
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This chapter evaluates Hammer horror as genre films. Hammer is renowned for its horror films, despite its breadth of productions including comedies, war films, action-adventures, and thrillers. Its specific brand of horror has often been considered to be a particularly English Gothic, Gothicism with its interest in the liminal, transcending traditional genre categories. It is poignant, then, that Hammer's Gothic style can be seen in some of its non-horror productions. One might question the usefulness of genre for understanding a range of the studio's films, despite the label 'Hammer horror'. Hammer brought something incredibly new to the 1950s cinema screen and it was the studio's juxtaposition of traditional fairy-tale storytelling and a return to a primitive cinema of attraction interested in spectacle and experience which has arguably earned the studio such a prominent place in the history of British film.Less
This chapter evaluates Hammer horror as genre films. Hammer is renowned for its horror films, despite its breadth of productions including comedies, war films, action-adventures, and thrillers. Its specific brand of horror has often been considered to be a particularly English Gothic, Gothicism with its interest in the liminal, transcending traditional genre categories. It is poignant, then, that Hammer's Gothic style can be seen in some of its non-horror productions. One might question the usefulness of genre for understanding a range of the studio's films, despite the label 'Hammer horror'. Hammer brought something incredibly new to the 1950s cinema screen and it was the studio's juxtaposition of traditional fairy-tale storytelling and a return to a primitive cinema of attraction interested in spectacle and experience which has arguably earned the studio such a prominent place in the history of British film.
R. John Williams
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- January 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780300194470
- eISBN:
- 9780300206579
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Yale University Press
- DOI:
- 10.12987/yale/9780300194470.003.0006
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Aesthetics
This chapter examines the “Oriental Detective” genre in Hollywood cinema during the 1930s and 1940s. Whereas most discussions of the Oriental detective genre have tended to focus on whether or not ...
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This chapter examines the “Oriental Detective” genre in Hollywood cinema during the 1930s and 1940s. Whereas most discussions of the Oriental detective genre have tended to focus on whether or not the character reflects a positive or negative stereotype for Asian America, this chapter analyzes a discursive convergence of machine culture, corporate aesthetics, and ethnic and racial stereotyping, pausing to notice not only what the Oriental detective genre says about American racial attitudes during the 1930s and 1940s, but also what it says about the corporate production of film and film culture.Less
This chapter examines the “Oriental Detective” genre in Hollywood cinema during the 1930s and 1940s. Whereas most discussions of the Oriental detective genre have tended to focus on whether or not the character reflects a positive or negative stereotype for Asian America, this chapter analyzes a discursive convergence of machine culture, corporate aesthetics, and ethnic and racial stereotyping, pausing to notice not only what the Oriental detective genre says about American racial attitudes during the 1930s and 1940s, but also what it says about the corporate production of film and film culture.
Leger Grindon
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- March 2014
- ISBN:
- 9781604739886
- eISBN:
- 9781604739893
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Mississippi
- DOI:
- 10.14325/mississippi/9781604739886.003.0008
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
This chapter examines the film, Raging Bull. It reviews the film’s production history and reception, and then analyzes the genre conventions governing plot, character, setting/iconography, ...
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This chapter examines the film, Raging Bull. It reviews the film’s production history and reception, and then analyzes the genre conventions governing plot, character, setting/iconography, mise-en-scène, and its dramatic conflicts to understand how Raging Bull adopts and transforms these practices to achieve its artistry. An awareness of the interaction of genre conventions with cinematic art offers an illuminating perspective on Raging Bull—for many the most stellar achievement of the Hollywood boxing film.Less
This chapter examines the film, Raging Bull. It reviews the film’s production history and reception, and then analyzes the genre conventions governing plot, character, setting/iconography, mise-en-scène, and its dramatic conflicts to understand how Raging Bull adopts and transforms these practices to achieve its artistry. An awareness of the interaction of genre conventions with cinematic art offers an illuminating perspective on Raging Bull—for many the most stellar achievement of the Hollywood boxing film.
Philip L. Simpson
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- March 2014
- ISBN:
- 9781604734539
- eISBN:
- 9781621031048
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Mississippi
- DOI:
- 10.14325/mississippi/9781604734539.003.0008
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
This chapter offers a critical overview of the serial killer film, especially in the light of the subgenre’s intense cultural significance during the 1980s and 1990s and its subsequent descent into ...
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This chapter offers a critical overview of the serial killer film, especially in the light of the subgenre’s intense cultural significance during the 1980s and 1990s and its subsequent descent into relative insignificance after 9/11. While pondering the larger questions of why and how horror film archetypes drift in and out of the culture’s focus of attention, it also demonstrates how the serial killer film, though often pronounced dead, has instead managed to spread throughout a field of cultural production much larger than that of a strictly defined and narrowly circumscribed cinematic genre. The chapter argues that the serial killer has even made a comeback with recent high-profile productions directed by auteurist filmmakers such as Spike Lee (Summer of Sam) and David Fincher (Zodiac).Less
This chapter offers a critical overview of the serial killer film, especially in the light of the subgenre’s intense cultural significance during the 1980s and 1990s and its subsequent descent into relative insignificance after 9/11. While pondering the larger questions of why and how horror film archetypes drift in and out of the culture’s focus of attention, it also demonstrates how the serial killer film, though often pronounced dead, has instead managed to spread throughout a field of cultural production much larger than that of a strictly defined and narrowly circumscribed cinematic genre. The chapter argues that the serial killer has even made a comeback with recent high-profile productions directed by auteurist filmmakers such as Spike Lee (Summer of Sam) and David Fincher (Zodiac).
Emily Hughes
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- February 2021
- ISBN:
- 9781906733438
- eISBN:
- 9781800342026
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3828/liverpool/9781906733438.003.0010
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
This chapter studies the genre and narrative of Pedro Almodóvar's Talk to Her (2002). The narrative of Talk to Her flits between a double- and single-stranded plot line, plays with time with ...
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This chapter studies the genre and narrative of Pedro Almodóvar's Talk to Her (2002). The narrative of Talk to Her flits between a double- and single-stranded plot line, plays with time with sometimes careless abandon, and contains coincidences that verge of the ridiculous. But yet, far from alienating the spectator, the narrative of Talk to Her pleasingly draws one in and lures the spectator into a position where they are able to suspend their disbelief, enjoy and engage with the plot. The spectator familiar with Almodóvar's films somewhat expects an unconventional narrative and thus is likely to find it unobtrusive. Meanwhile, like most Almodóvar's films, Talk to Her is hard to classify in terms of genre. Unlike the Hollywood system that relies heavily on either star or genre marketing, the marketing for Almodóvar's films relies heavily on his own status as an award-winning auteur film-maker. Talk to Her is thus not bound by generic convention in the way that many Hollywood films are.Less
This chapter studies the genre and narrative of Pedro Almodóvar's Talk to Her (2002). The narrative of Talk to Her flits between a double- and single-stranded plot line, plays with time with sometimes careless abandon, and contains coincidences that verge of the ridiculous. But yet, far from alienating the spectator, the narrative of Talk to Her pleasingly draws one in and lures the spectator into a position where they are able to suspend their disbelief, enjoy and engage with the plot. The spectator familiar with Almodóvar's films somewhat expects an unconventional narrative and thus is likely to find it unobtrusive. Meanwhile, like most Almodóvar's films, Talk to Her is hard to classify in terms of genre. Unlike the Hollywood system that relies heavily on either star or genre marketing, the marketing for Almodóvar's films relies heavily on his own status as an award-winning auteur film-maker. Talk to Her is thus not bound by generic convention in the way that many Hollywood films are.
Frances Smith
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- May 2020
- ISBN:
- 9781474413091
- eISBN:
- 9781474438452
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9781474413091.001.0001
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
Rethinking the Teen Movie is the first academic monograph to theorise the construction of identity in the Hollywood Teen Movie, one of the most popular, yet academically overlooked film genres. As ...
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Rethinking the Teen Movie is the first academic monograph to theorise the construction of identity in the Hollywood Teen Movie, one of the most popular, yet academically overlooked film genres. As such, the book constitutes a significant intervention in Film Studies, providing a reconsideration of such key tropes as the male juvenile delinquent figure, the makeover and the teen vampire.
Providing detailed case studies of key films from the genre, the book provides an innovative overview of the genre, and its relationship to performativity, intersectionality, post-feminism, and the post-human. Rebel Without a Cause, Grease, Pretty in Pink and Twilight are all considered here in a volume destined to be used widely in undergraduate teaching and academic scholarship alikeLess
Rethinking the Teen Movie is the first academic monograph to theorise the construction of identity in the Hollywood Teen Movie, one of the most popular, yet academically overlooked film genres. As such, the book constitutes a significant intervention in Film Studies, providing a reconsideration of such key tropes as the male juvenile delinquent figure, the makeover and the teen vampire.
Providing detailed case studies of key films from the genre, the book provides an innovative overview of the genre, and its relationship to performativity, intersectionality, post-feminism, and the post-human. Rebel Without a Cause, Grease, Pretty in Pink and Twilight are all considered here in a volume destined to be used widely in undergraduate teaching and academic scholarship alike
Omar Ahmed
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- February 2021
- ISBN:
- 9781911325253
- eISBN:
- 9781800342231
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3828/liverpool/9781911325253.003.0002
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
This introductory chapter provides an overview of Paul Verhoeven's RoboCop (1987). If one were to compile a canon of great science-fiction films, the inclusion of RoboCop would be problematic simply ...
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This introductory chapter provides an overview of Paul Verhoeven's RoboCop (1987). If one were to compile a canon of great science-fiction films, the inclusion of RoboCop would be problematic simply because of the puerile title. Given the way films are inevitably marketed, made palatable for audiences naturally means film titles are transformed to suit commercial inclinations, often conflicting with the content of a film. In terms of high-concept cinema, the title RoboCop is a moribund simplification of the film's existential core. Yet it is such outward simplicity that fosters a contradiction often lurking in Hollywood-genre films like RoboCop. RoboCop's reputation was an early source of ridicule, such was the fate of many violent films of the 1980s when sanitised by the puritanism of the BBC or ITV. Fortuitously, the critical standing of RoboCop has grown over the years, in no small part aided by the intervention of Criterion, a specialist home video label which was first to re-release the film on Laserdisc and then later on DVD in an unrated directors cut. While the Criterion edition of RoboCop has long been out of print, the film's inclusion in the Criterion library accentuates its merit as a seminal science-fiction film; a key American work of the 1980s, overturning familiar genre trappings while its erudite philosophical address transforms the iconic Frankenstein narrative into an altogether more radical, theological work.Less
This introductory chapter provides an overview of Paul Verhoeven's RoboCop (1987). If one were to compile a canon of great science-fiction films, the inclusion of RoboCop would be problematic simply because of the puerile title. Given the way films are inevitably marketed, made palatable for audiences naturally means film titles are transformed to suit commercial inclinations, often conflicting with the content of a film. In terms of high-concept cinema, the title RoboCop is a moribund simplification of the film's existential core. Yet it is such outward simplicity that fosters a contradiction often lurking in Hollywood-genre films like RoboCop. RoboCop's reputation was an early source of ridicule, such was the fate of many violent films of the 1980s when sanitised by the puritanism of the BBC or ITV. Fortuitously, the critical standing of RoboCop has grown over the years, in no small part aided by the intervention of Criterion, a specialist home video label which was first to re-release the film on Laserdisc and then later on DVD in an unrated directors cut. While the Criterion edition of RoboCop has long been out of print, the film's inclusion in the Criterion library accentuates its merit as a seminal science-fiction film; a key American work of the 1980s, overturning familiar genre trappings while its erudite philosophical address transforms the iconic Frankenstein narrative into an altogether more radical, theological work.
Christine Gledhill (ed.)
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- April 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780252036613
- eISBN:
- 9780252093661
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Illinois Press
- DOI:
- 10.5406/illinois/9780252036613.001.0001
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
This book challenges traditional ways of thinking about the relationship between gender and genre, understanding their meeting as a mutually transformative encounter. Responding to postmodernist ...
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This book challenges traditional ways of thinking about the relationship between gender and genre, understanding their meeting as a mutually transformative encounter. Responding to postmodernist conceptions of genre and postfeminist theories of gender and sexuality, the book moves beyond the limits of representation. Testing new thinking about genre, gender, and sexuality against closely analyzed films, the book explores generic convention as putting into play what our culture makes of us, while finding in genre's repetitions infinite possibilities of cross-generic, cross-gender, cross-sex permutation. At the same time the aesthetic and emotional dimensions of gender and sexuality emerge as elements fueling the dramatic worlds of film genres, producing in the encounter new gendered perceptions, affects, and effects. Recognizing the intensifying transnational context of film production and responding to postcolonial perspectives, the book explores the transformational transactions between gender and genre in the meeting between world-circulating Hollywood generic practices and American independent, European, Indian, and Hong Kong cinemas. Such revised concepts of genre and gender question taken-for-granted relationships between authorship and genre, between center and periphery, and between feminism and generic filmmaking. They consequently rethink the gendering of genres, filmmakers, and their audiences.Less
This book challenges traditional ways of thinking about the relationship between gender and genre, understanding their meeting as a mutually transformative encounter. Responding to postmodernist conceptions of genre and postfeminist theories of gender and sexuality, the book moves beyond the limits of representation. Testing new thinking about genre, gender, and sexuality against closely analyzed films, the book explores generic convention as putting into play what our culture makes of us, while finding in genre's repetitions infinite possibilities of cross-generic, cross-gender, cross-sex permutation. At the same time the aesthetic and emotional dimensions of gender and sexuality emerge as elements fueling the dramatic worlds of film genres, producing in the encounter new gendered perceptions, affects, and effects. Recognizing the intensifying transnational context of film production and responding to postcolonial perspectives, the book explores the transformational transactions between gender and genre in the meeting between world-circulating Hollywood generic practices and American independent, European, Indian, and Hong Kong cinemas. Such revised concepts of genre and gender question taken-for-granted relationships between authorship and genre, between center and periphery, and between feminism and generic filmmaking. They consequently rethink the gendering of genres, filmmakers, and their audiences.