On Genre Theory

My last film review was a partnering with a friend to cover [Rec] and [Rec] 2, two in-your-face, over-the-top zombie films with tons of scares, gore and excitement. Now, feeling that I have to balance my geek side who wets himself over crazy fright-fests with my intelligent, sophisticated film connoisseur and aficionado side, here's a brief treatise on film genre theory.

Back when I was a student at NIU, I founded the NIU Horror Club, a campus group meant for watching and discussing horror films. Stuck within the paradigm of "horror" club, our members would often debate whether a given film that we showed fell within the horror genre. Each member had their own idea, usually based on their tastes and preferences, about what the horror genre was about. In this essay I will attempt to describe what horror, and all the other popular film genres, are "about."

It should come as no surprise that all the films grouped into one genre must have something in common, specifically something at their core that is absolutely vital to the nature of those films. Given the most commonly referred-to genres, and the ways in which they are discussed, I have concluded that there are two major principles that make up a genre: what is seen in the film, and what is felt by the viewer.

Horror is a very diverse genre that has taken many different forms. Films described as horror can portray serial killers; demons and monsters, both terrestrial and otherwise; viruses; murderers; haunted houses; and many other scary things. The scary thing can be clear and obvious, like Jason Voorhees, or more subtle or even unseen, like in The Blair Witch Project. These film are so diverse that they have little in common as far as what is actually seen on the screen. What they do have in common is the feeling of fear that is evoked in the viewer.

Comedy is another film genre along these same lines. Comedy can come from so many distinct places that iconography cannot be used to classify this genre. Instead the experience of laughter and the overall lightheartedness that comes from laughter is what defines a comedy.

Other modern genres of film that are of this type include romance, thriller, and drama films. The feelings of true love are what define a romance film. The excitement and suspense felt by the audience make a thriller. Drama sometimes acts as a left-over bin, meaning a film that doesn't clearly fit into the other groups falls here, but dramas are characterized by strong emotional attachments to a character that may not be specifically related to fear, humor, love or excitement.

All the genres that are defined by what is felt are defined as so because the iconography in those films are so varied. On the other side of the coin, there are film genres that have very similar iconography but varied moods and tones that accompany them.

Science fiction is a genre defined by its iconography of aliens, outer space, spacecrafts, computers, robots, and other things related to modern-day technological advances. These films can take very different tones and evoke very different emotions. 2001: A Space Odyssey is a sci-fi film that's very artistically crafted and awe-inspiring, with subtle themes of humans being replaced by something more intelligent. Alien is a sci-fi film that's very suspenseful, frightening and claustrophobic. This year's Paul has the images of sci-fi but is very much a comedy. This films listed have disparate emotions that they create in viewers, but are similar in the images shown on the screen, which is why they can be grouped into the same genre.

Western is another genre categorized by imagery: The Wild West, revolvers, cowboy hats, horses, tumbleweeds. The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly; True Grit and Blazing Saddles are disparate in the reactions to them, but are similar in the imagery depicted.

Other film genres of this type are action, fantasy, war, crime and musicals. All these genres have lists of imagery and events depicted that allow movie theorists to group them together, whether it be explosions and gunfights, fanciful creatures, battle scenes, bank heists or song and dance numbers. Each film can use its genres imagery to tell different stories with different themes, but they're still part of the same genre.

One thing to keep in mind about genres is that they're almost always approximations. The Matrix, for example, has imagery from sci-fi, action and neo-noir films, making it a difficult film to place into a visual genre. Most DVD stores divide their selection by genre, and store owners and employees have to use their best judgment when placing films like The Matrix and other genre-bending films.

Which brings me to my next reminder that film genres are never mutually exclusive. In fact, to really get an accurate description of what to expect with a film, it really should come with at least one visual and one emotional genre: a "sci-fi/horror" or an "action/thriller." The Matrix does not have to be permanently lumped into one genre when it can so easily be described as several others.

Hopefully this little blurb has provided some of you with a new way of looking at film genres. Possibly I've supplied an interesting rambling about movie stuff. At the very least I feel I've done something intellectual with this little blog of mine. So there.

Oscar's Roundup

The 83rd Academy Awards are this Sunday. As one could reasonably guess from my previous film reviews, I've never been a huge fan of the types of films that tend to dominate the Oscars. In light of that fact, I thought it's be interesting to give my picks of which films I feel are deserving of the Academy's awards.

Having now seen seven of the ten nominees for Best Picture, I have to say that Black Swan is by far the best film of the year. The cinematography and art direction are relentless and amazing, Natalie Portman is nothing short of breathtaking, the sound and visual effects are impeccable, Mila Kunis and Vincent Cassel are wonderful supporters to Portman, and the suspense is nearly unbearable. Sadly, Black Swan is only the seventh most nominated film, receiving snubs in several categories; Vincent Cassel deserved a Best Supporting Actor nomination, and the film should've gotten art direction and sound mix nods, if not won those categories. However, Black Swan still takes home awards for Best Film, Best Actress for Natalie Portman, Best Director for Darren Aronofsky, and best cinematography.

My second favorite film of the year would have to be Inception. It really seems that the Academy and I just don't agree this year, because I felt Inception was also heavily snubbed. No nomination for Leonardo DiCaprio as Best Actor, nothing for director Christopher Nolan, and no nod for Best Editing, which was perhaps the most remarkable part of the film. Inception still manages to earn my vote for Best Direct Screenplay, Sound Mixing and Visual Effects, but deserved a bit more recognition.

Even though I can't fully approve of The Social Network because of its twisting of the truth, I still must give the film its props. Jesse Eisenberg takes home the Best Actor trophy in a tough choice over James Franco for 127 Hours, and the film also wins for its adapted screenplay, its editing (thanks to Inception's snub), and Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross's impressive score. Also, Andrew Garfield deserved a Supporting Actor nomination for his performance.

Geoffrey Rush takes the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor for The King's Speech, a performance that managed to overshadow his lead actor Colin Firth. King's Speech also wins by default for art direction, with Black Swan snubbed and out of the way. Although the role is arguably more of a lead role, Hailee Steinfeld wins Best Supporting Actress for her performance in True Grit, and the film also takes home the award for Best Costume Design.

Given my love for horror and otherwise contentious films, and given the Academy's continued ignoring of such films with only a couple exceptions, I've accepted that I'll never agree fully with the Academy's choices. But, now that I've expanded my tastes in movies to almost all genres and types, and my love for the art form as a whole has grown, I thought that my tastes would've gotten closer to those of the Academy than they have.

I think this is due to the fact that the Academy gets so hung up on biographical dramas. Or at least fictional dramas with a strong lead character, particularly one who has a strange accent or some other funny way of speaking. The Social Network, The King's Speech, Winter's Bone, 127 Hours, True Grit and The Fighter all fit this bill. It's not that I don't like these films; I often do. It's that they're so character- and actor-driven that they leave little room for things like art direction, cinematography and all the other technical things for which the Academy hands out awards. This is the Academy's pattern, and so now their most-nominated films are somewhat interchangeable, if not with each other than with winners from previous years. Where's the innovation? The controversy? The experimentation?

Two films came out in 2010 that I want to mention that would certainly get some nominations if I were running things. One is Frozen, a suspenseful thriller about three friends stuck on a ski lift. The sheer terror created in this movie from its music, sound effects and camera work is among the most palpable and intense I've ever experienced in a film. Such a visceral reaction from simple things like particularly its sound mix; isn't that something worthy of an award? The other film is The Killer Inside Me, a harrowing film about a Texas sheriff trying to hold at bay his serial killer side. The screenplay is intricate, detailed and thought-provoking, and it's brought to life by a wonderful lead performance by Casey Affleck and terrific neo-noir cinematography.

Alas, these two marvelous films received no recognition from the Academy. Understandable; the Academy stays away from horror like a plague, and Killer Inside Me, although not quite horror, is too dark and violent for the Academy to ever get near. I could list a dozen more great titles from the last few years that got no recognition from the Academy because they were too controversial, violent or experimental. The Academy wants to award the films that are best able to continue and perfect the standard tradition of American filmmaking that has changed very little since the 1930s, and more or less rejects anything too revolutionary.

Despite this vexation, I'm still gonna watch the Oscars this Sunday; it's an industry must. But I will take in the Academy's choices for each category and the entire Oscar experience with the giant grain of salt that it requires.

What I Look for in a Movie: A Mini Manifesto

There is so much diversity in the film industry these days. Each genre has its own set of fans, and each fan expects different things from a movie and gets different things out of them. This allows for divergent ideas on why to sit through a movie, why to say you "liked" it. With this in mind, I thought I'd kick off my blog with this little ditty before diving into any reviews, to give readers an idea of what to expect from me.

For me, movies begin and end with their point. A movie needs to say something relevant and meaningful to me in order for me to really care about it. If a movie exists only as mindless enter-tainment, and doesn't make me think about anything, then I don't really care about it. It doesn't have to say anything exceedingly deep, original or unique; just enough for me to keep chewing on it once the credits have rolled.

There are several ways in which films get their point across. I prefer films that do so in more subtle ways. Films that bludgeon the viewer over the head with their point, show me little skill in storytelling. It is far more difficult and requires more skill to keep the point in tune with the story being told and relate it to the characters involved. The catch-22 is to not make your point so oblique and vague that the audience has to guess at it or make up their own. It's a spectrum, and every film needs to find where in the spectrum it should fall.

The themes in a film need to be emphasized by the technical aspects of film. Lighting, editing, photography, sound, et al are integral parts of the moviegoing experience. Without them the audience might as well be watching a book. These technicals do not have to, and should not, be so grand that they overpower the story; they should only be noticeable enough to be significant in moving the film along. To really get the theme of a movie across in only the way a movie can, these technical aspects cannot be ignored.

If a film fails in a majority of these criteria, is it barely worth watching, if at all. The more criteria where it succeeds, however, the more interesting and worthwhile it becomes. If a film fails in only one or two of these categories, it can be considered a significant achievement in filmmaking. But it's those rare film that come along only ever so often that exceed in every category and simply blows the viewer away. If you've ever cared about a film in a more than superficial way, I guarantee this has happened to you at least once.

I'd like to conclude this rant by reminding everyone that this is only a guideline, and I reserve the right to contradict it at any time. Film is not a science but an art form, and the same with film criticism. There are emotional connections made to each movie that make the experience of witnessing and judging a film unique to each person who sees it. It is possible to like a movie for one reason and dislike another for the same reason. To try to make logic out of this is absurd, and denies the emotional, artistic and abstract qualities of films that make them so powerful.