Genre Essay

essay

1. Types of films are commonly referred to as genres. The word genre is originally French and
simply means kind or type. Genre groups films, which share similar filmic qualities and themes,
into various subsections according to the type of film they are associated as. Various film genres
are recognisable by the way they are presented and patterned or the way that they portray a
certain emotion or feeling, as those of humour or horror. There is no distinct way by which we
can define genre. Some films incorporate various aspects of different genres, thus we cannot
define exactly what kind of text-book definition genre it is and being that all people are different,
a comedy to one person may be a complete bore to the next. In a sense, certain films portray
their genre as a subjective opinion. Film genre, in the modern filmic world today, is also very
reliant on the actors that star in the feature. Automatically we, as viewers, would associate
brawn and large stature with an action film, but occasional films tend to meld these characters
into completely different subgenre, giving the film a very hybrid, generic feel to it. Genres are
ways of providing films with the intended associations. It is a convention in which people can
refer to initially grasp the notion of a film, for the vast publicity system that exists around
filmmaking, genres are a simple way to characterize film. In fact, reviewers are often central in
gathering and crystallizing notions about genres. Genres are helpful in the general public as they
give spectrum to different people and their different tastes. It also accommodates for any mood
one may be in if they wanted to watch a film. It characterizes the films and sorts them into place
for the viewer’s pleasure, At all levels of the filmmaking and film-viewing processes, then, genres
help assure that most members of society share at least some general notions about the many
films that compete for our attention. Most genres share specific genre conventions. Stereotypical
plots or certain predictable characters are expected to appear during a film of a desired genre.
These are the conventions which group films into subgenres. Other than visual and audio
conventions, those concerning mise-en-scene, cinematography, sound, lighting and editing,
genres often also make boundaries around the type of thematic notions that are presented within
films. Interweaving and altering certain genres, film producers create hybrids of genres that are
incorporate mixture of different filmic techniques implemented by different genres. These
subgenres, as with conventional genres are not always effective.
In this research paper I'll be presenting and demonstrating in theory reading and looking at the
development of genre filmmaking, In my case it's going to be War genre. To achieve the positive
outcome I am going to research war films codes and conventions, the past and present of the
genre and how the genre changed over the years. Film genres derive from literary genres in the
first instance. However, film genres must constantly evolve and mutate, spawning sub-genres,
otherwise they will inevitably stagnate and become very repetitive. There are only a finite
number of plots, after all, and telling a similar story over and over again within the same set of
genre paradigms gets very dull. Subgenres can develop in response to a movie that pushes
genre paradigms, and is successful, or in response to external socio-historic factors, and can
cross traditional genre boundaries. For instance, the recent global economic meltdown has
created a whole subgenre of movies about recession, from Sam Raimi's Drag Me To
Hell (horror), to Michael Moore's Capitalism: A Love Story (documentary) to Oliver Stone's Wall
Street: Money Never Sleeps.

2. Thenumbers.com suggests that the main 10 top genres since 2000, are:
1. Comedy 2. Adventure 3. Action
4. Drama 5. Thriller/Suspense 6. Romantic Comedy
7. Horror 8. Musical 9. Documentary
10. Black Comedy


The genre of the war film has been the subject of exhaustive study in Britain and America,
because of the specificity and significance of its production in relation to World War II. In Britain,
the presentation of the war during and after the conflict has formed an integral part of several
authoritative studies of wider British film history. War narratives have been valued and
interpreted as both manifestations and articulations of stylistic and thematic continuities in British
filmmaking: the dedication to realism in fictional as well documentary film; the fortnight portrayal
of class and regional difference; the celebration of social unity; and the designation of the
reticence and self sacrifice as pervasive and admirable national characteristics. Both as a
representation of the ongoing conflict, and as a eulogizing reflection upon war experience after
its end, the wartime and war-depicting cinema has been seen as the high water mark for
aesthetic accomplishment and cultural authenticity in British filmmaking. However, critical
responses to the British war cinema have concentrated on its creation and assertion of images
of Brutishness rather than simple spectacles of combat. By contrast, the World War II combat
film has been identified and endorsed as an exclusively American type. Subsequently the format
of the standard American war film has been applied to an contrasted with representations and
experience of other wars. In his extensive consideration of the convergence between Hollywood
cinema and American history and culture, John Belton offers a broader reading of the war genre,
allowing the incorporation of films treatments from the silent period to the present. Within the
context of Hollywood production, Belton reads the war film as a genre like any other, with its own
conventions and appeals, and with the spectacle of combat functioning as an equivalent to the
textual emphasis upon song and dance routines in musical. While it may appear to be highly
conservative genre in re-asserting societal values and roles in the definition and defense of
national principles, Belton sees the war film as an extreme and peripheral Hollywood product,
which highlights the structural and ideological precepts of Hollywood narrative trough its
repeated transgression of them. Belton identifies four consistent areas of concern within the war
film, which reflects its divergence from the formal and ideological staples of narrative cinema: the
suspension of civilian mortality within the environment of war; the primacy of group and goals
over personal motivations, with individualism being characterized as an indulgence; rivalry and
oedipal conflicts between men in predominantly male groups, which lead to the peripheralisation
of woman, the potential for homo-eroticism in the representation of military hierarchies, and the
valuation of woman as tokens of homo-social exchange; and the representation of problems on
the home front, in the separation of the family members and the difficulties of reintegration
experienced by returning veterans. These common narrative clusters unite disparate war films,

3. The Big Parade (King Vidor, 1925) and South Pacific (Joshua Logan, 1958) to The Deer Hunter
(Michael Cimino, 1978), across pro and anti-war stances and the boundaries of other genres
such as comedy and musical.
In concentrating exclusively on Americans films of and about World War II, other commentators
have identified additional areas of formal and intuitional importance. Kathryn Kane's evaluation
emphasizes the substantial similarities between the war film and the classical western, by
nothing the orientation of their themes around range of binary oppositions, which in some cases
are shared by both genres. The oppositions of war versus peace, civilization versus savagery,
which characterize the East in contrast to the West and distinguished settlers from indigenous
peoples in the western, are paralleled by the war films frequent incorporation of peacetime
scenes in flashbacks, and its differentiation between the innate brutality of the forces of the
totalitarian Axis, and the inherent decency of soldiers of the allied democracies. However, where
the landscape of the Western can represent the antipathy of an untamed wilderness, an
untapped potential for progressive settlement and civilization, or an idyllic retreat of freedom, the
territory over which war is fought is seen to lack any intrinsic value, and rather servers as a
vacant arena for contest between ideologies embodied by the combatants themselves. The
similarity of the war film to the standard format of Hollywood narrative is emphasized by its linear
progression and its insistence on characterization being expressed through action, rather
rationalized via dialogue. In examining the production profile of the American war film, Thomas
Schatz traces a symbiotic relationship between popular entertainment and contemporary
newsreel filmmaking during World War II. He discerns the influence of documentary filmmaking
and viewing in the emergence of a consistent and increasingly realistic treatment of the war from
1943 onwards, replacing a pre-and early war pattern of espionage thrillers and home front
dramas with unsentimental, down beat representations of combat. In contrast to Belton's
boarder examination of the war film in American cinema, the formal and institutional analysis of
World War II cinema undertaken by Kane and Schatz underlines the pragmatism within
Hollywood's propaganda role, in assimilating and capitalizing upon the currency of wartime
documentary filmmaking, and in rendering war narratives within the idiom and imagery of
existent genres. In comparison with Belton's labeling of the war as an 'excessive' or 'extreme'
form in American cinema which highlights the norms of conventional cinema transgression,
Kane's and Schatz evaluation reveals flexibility belying conservatism, in institutional opportunism
and formal dynamism combined with continuities of genre film production. War films of World
War II epitomize generic filmmaking of the classical period as much as they respond to
particularities of war audiences, or of the war itself. This accumulation of critical commentary
provides an informative contextualization of the war film in Britain and America, but lacks a clear
delineation of its conventions, evolution and iconography.
By narrowing the focus of textual analysis to a smaller field of films, a more detailed mapping of
the conventions of war becomes impossible. In attempting this enquiry into a clearly demarked
group, Jeanie Basinger's critical commentary on the characteristics and development of the
American war film remains the definitive categorization of the genre. Basigner's focus does not
rest upon the representation of World War II, or the wider war genre within American cinema, but
on the emergence of a specific sub-genre, the World War II combat film, which epitomizes the
filmic treatment of armed conflict. In her evaluation, the 'hardcore' combat film, composed mostly

4. if not entirely of representations of military actions, appears in 1943, once experience and
newsreel images of the early part of the Pacific War have been digested by filmgoers and
filmmakers. Basinger assembles a robust working model of the combat film through the tracing
of consistent characteristics in films of the late war period, again identifying the precedents of
parallels for the war film in pre existing genre formats.
Basinger contends that twelve films released in 1943 are crucial to the emergence of the combat
film, as they concretize the conventions, themes and narrative concerns of the wartime war film.
Notably , five of the twelve are based on naval subjects, but of these only three receive brief
analysis, and are used to illustrate the pervasiveness of patterns of narrative and
characterization established in films portraying war on land or in the air. Basinger advocates a
hierarchy within combat films, with those depicting infantry combat representing the "truest and
purest" form, followed in order by films about submarines, ships and aircraft. This ranking is
based not only on the quantity and graphicness of combat which the films encompass, but on
factors related to its depiction: the potential for distance from the enemy; space and time
available for reflection by the protagonists on the experience of combat; and the opportunity to
return home for encounters with loved ones. The purest infantry combat films, portraying
isolated, platoon sized groups in near constant action, operations showing flights to and from
action, life on bases and fraternization with civilians, exhibit the most.
The combat films essential group is composed of representatives of the full range of American
communities and ethnicities, with the cross sectional symbolism of the military society in
miniature being heightened by additional modifiers of age, experience and action. Basinger
notes the character types and their suggested narrative functions: the senior officer father figure,
who is killed unexpectedly at an early stage to open the way for true, resourceful, pragmatic hero
to emerge a rival or adversary for the hero within the group, who questions his decisions before
recognizing and accepting his authority; representatives of youth and age, immigrant
communities and minorities, who serve more or less willing subordinates, comic relief and early
casualties in the platoons operational odyssey.

5. War and Anti-War Films
often acknowledge the horror and heartbreak of war, letting the actual combat fighting or conflict
(against nations or humankind) provide the primary plot or background for the action of the film.
Typical elements in the action-oriented war plots include POW camp experiences and escapes,
submarine warfare, espionage, personal heroism, "war is hell" brutalities, air dogfights, tough
trench/infantry experiences, or male-bonding buddy adventures during wartime. Themes
explored in war films include combat, survivor and escape stories, tales of gallant sacrifice and
struggle, studies of the futility and inhumanity of battle, the effects of war on society, and
intelligent and profound explorations of the moral and human issues.
Some war films do balance the soul-searching, tragic consequences and inner turmoil of
combatants or characters with action-packed, dramatic spectacles, enthusiastically illustrating
the excitement and turmoil of warfare. And some 'war' films concentrate on the homefront rather
than on the conflict at the military war-front. But many of them provide decisive criticism of
senseless warfare.
War films have often been used as 'flag-waving' propaganda to inspire national pride and
morale, and to display the nobility of one's own forces while harshly displaying and criticizing the
villainy of the enemy, especially during war or in post-war periods. Jingoistic-type war films
usually do not represent war realistically in their support of nationalistic interests, while avoiding
the reality of the horrors of war. The good guys are portrayed as clashing against the bad guys.
These revisionistic, politically-correct and historically inaccurate films, in such diverse examples
as Sands of Iwo Jima (1949) and The Alamo (1960), would often redefine the facts. War films
can also make political statements - unpopular wars (such as the Vietnam War and the Iraq
War), have generated both supportive and critical films about the conflict (i.e., Robert
Altman's M*A*S*H (1970), Kenneth Branagh's Henry V (1989), and Michael Moore's
documentary Fahrenheit 9/11.

6. In war movies we can often encounter a big use of a wide shot angles. Use of wide shots and
(especially in war movies dealing with air combat or large scale battles) bird's eye view angles.
The wide shots are used to show the “cavalry” or team of good guys marching towards the
camera in a militaristic fashion. The bird’s eye view surveys the battle field below and follows
bombs dropped by air planes and bombers, showing the complete devastation of the cities and
towns attacked. In almost every war movie during the battle scene, the hero of the movie has a
bomb land near him or he becomes very focused. During this time, all diegetic and non-diegetic
sound completely ceases and the hero can hear only the beating of his own heart. During this
time, another convention of war movies occurs. Time slows almost to a standstill, allowing the
hero to look around and survey his immediate surroundings or the entire battle field with the
camera following in with either an over the shoulder shot or first-person angle.


This picture is taken from American Sniper scene where the soldier is newly introduced to his
duty in the middle east territories. In this scene the viewer can witness a bird eye view of the
whole demolished city. Not only this shot makes the viewer aware of the surroundings but also
shows how much cover there is and the soldiers may get shot from any direction.

7. When it comes to narrative conventions, war movies usually deploy the simple formula of using:
The special weapon. Each soldier on the good guy’s team is especially proficient in one specific type of
weapon that the audience can identify him with. There are many different types of weapons soldiers can
specialize in, such as; a sniper rifle, heavy machine gun, explosives, rocket launcher, dual or single pistols,
shotgun, flamethrower, light machine gun or even an archaic type weapon like a sword.

Once again I'll use the example of American Sniper. In American Sniper the most iconic thing in the
whole movie is probably the sniper rifle or rather the soldier using the rifle. If it wasn't for the sniper rifle
the movie wouldn't be called American Sniper and the sniper rifle would most likely never occur in the
movie. Following this example, if it wasn't for Omaha beach scene, the Saving Private Ryan would
probably never be this huge of movie as it is now. It is iconic and symbolic scene for Hollywood as well as
regular viewers, when people think of Saving Private Ryan, they think of the Omaha beach Scene.

8. The ethnic guy. Whether they are friend or foe, in a war movie there is a specific person the
audience will be able to identify because of his ethnicity. The token black guy, the Hispanic
Christian or the Italian guy are a few examples of ethnic character stereotypes used in war
movies.
Michael Peña is one of the best examples of how the ethnicity made his role so big. In Fury,
Michael Peña is one of the four men tank crew. At first sight he doesn't seem any different than
the rest of the crew however when we first hear him speak we know that something is not right.
His accent is very different from the rest of the crew and from the start of his dialogue we can
hear his mexican accent. Its wouldn't be such a big deal, however Fury is set in second world
war times where ethnnicity was a huge matter and it depended on how soldiers would treat you,
but because there are only three other crew members he doesn't get much stick. Even in some
parts of the movie we can notice that Brad Pitt is mocking his accent as well as his ethnicity.
"I felt like Shia, Jon and I were there to set the scene of 1945,” Pena says. “That’s why I played
the character as being very old school, especially with the way he talked. His accent was
Mexican American talk from back in the day,”




The cavalry comes over the hill. A convention of war movies is that the good guys face
insurmountable odds but they will still fight to the death to protect their homes and will do so
even against an incredulously big enemy force, it seems our heroes will die. When suddenly,
allied reinforcements arrive and pull the heroes out of hell and drive back and defeat the enemy.
However, the cavalry may not always be a mounted one, there are various forms of
reinforcements: a fresh regiment, a tank unit, air support, a truck load of soldiers, a second
special unit or a boat load of new weapons.

9. Danger close scene from we were soldiers perfectly describes what I mentioned above. Of
particular notice is one scene where Mel Gibson's character has to call air strikes at "danger
close", which is to say, particularly on top of his own soldiers who are at the risk of being
overrun.

10. References
http://www.filmsite.org/genres.html
http://www.screenonline.org.uk/film/id/446108/
https://www.warhistoryonline.com/war-articles/war-films-british-film-industry.html
https://www.historians.org/publications-and-directories/perspectives-on-history/october-
1998/translating-war-the-combat-film-genre-and-saving-private-ryan
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qOF68pJ91_s
http://www.clashmusic.com/features/face-to-face-with-furys-michael-pena
http://www.abc.net.au/religion/articles/2015/02/11/4178104.htm
http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/19992-how-easily-americans-forget-the-physically-and-
psychologically-wounded-veterans-of-the-post-9-11-wars-a-national-shame
http://www.filmsite.org/warfilms4.html
http://www.historytoday.com/michael-paris/american-film-industry-vietnam
http://www.the-numbers.com/market/genres