Genre film  

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Great Train Robbery (1903) western film A simple example of the inherent meaning of genre in an art form is that of a western film where two men face each other on a dusty and empty road; one dons a black hat, the other white. Independent of any external meaning, there is no way to tell what the situation might mean, but due to the long development of the "western" genre, it is clear to the informed audience that they are watching a gunfight showdown between a good guy and a bad guy.
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Great Train Robbery (1903) western film
A simple example of the inherent meaning of genre in an art form is that of a western film where two men face each other on a dusty and empty road; one dons a black hat, the other white. Independent of any external meaning, there is no way to tell what the situation might mean, but due to the long development of the "western" genre, it is clear to the informed audience that they are watching a gunfight showdown between a good guy and a bad guy.
 This page Genre film is part of the film series.Illustration: screen shot from L'arrivée d'un train en gare de La Ciotat
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This page Genre film is part of the film series.
Illustration: screen shot from L'arrivée d'un train en gare de La Ciotat

"The beginning of the 20th century saw the arrival of film as a new medium. By and large, what people wanted to watch on the screen did not differ from what they expected to see on the stage or read in short stories and novels: the good and the bad things in life (clearly separated from each other); virtue and vice; human prowess and human weakness; sin and redemption; and, probably more than anything else, poetic justice, or iustitia commutativa, as it is called according to Aristotle, with everyone getting what they deserve. In this respect, the cinema has always served as a means of escape from real life, though a temporary one. This escapist function of both literature and film did not change substantially in the course of the 20th century: One still feels uncomfortable if at the end of a film the "bad guy" gets away with all his evil doings, if order is not restored, if justice does not succeed in the end. Subconsciously, an average human feels that if the wicked character is not punished, the film comes too close to reality and makes the person remember, rather than forget his inadequate life."--Sholem Stein

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Much like genre fiction, genre film is a term for films made with the intent of fitting into a specific cinematic genre in order to appeal to the fans of that genre. In contemporary film-producing, genre is an elastic term used to group works sharing similarities of character, theme, and setting—such as mystery, romance, or horror—that have been proven to appeal to particular groups of viewers. Genres continuously evolve, divide, and combine as viewers' tastes change and directors search for fresh ways to tell stories. For a number of reasons, genre film is often regarded as the lower-quality opposite of A-list films. The genres of genre film action film, adventure film, crime film, detective film, erotic film, fantastic film, horror film, mystery film, romance film, science fiction film, thriller film, western film.

As was the case with the French cinephilia of the post-war era, the international cinephilic community that has developed on the Internet often emphasizes films and figures that do not have strong critical or popular recognition, including many directors who work within genre film. These include Abel Ferrara, Bela Tarr, Kiyoshi Kurosawa, Philippe Garrel and Pedro Costa.

See also

Related: B-movies - exploitation film - low budget

Film festivals dedicated to genre cinema: BIFFF

Connotations: bad taste, conventional, kitsch, low culture

Contrast with: mainstream film, auteur theory, art film

By country: Italian genre cinema


See also

genre fiction
  • Genre, the generic term referring to all forms of art and entertainment
  • B movie, a generic film with minimal artistic ambitions




Unless indicated otherwise, the text in this article is either based on Wikipedia article "Genre film" or another language Wikipedia page thereof used under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License; or on research by Jahsonic and friends. See Art and Popular Culture's copyright notice.

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