What is this “genre” thing people keep talking about?

What is this “genre” thing people keep talking about?

Jun 08

Action. Adventure. Comedy. What do these words mean? Crime. Drama. Epic/historical. Horror. Who decided that what criteria would demarcate these styles? Musical. Thriller. Science fiction. War. Western.  Since when did a film’s target audience and target genre feed back into the production of the film itself?

When you browse your local video store, you’ll find the DVDs organised into strictly segregated shelves according to their genre. Die Hard is on the Action shelf, Close Encounters Of The Third Kind is on the Sci-Fi shelf, There’s Something About Mary is on the Comedy shelf. That’s all well and good. But where does Jaws go?

Jaws is a monster mystery movie, a movie that scares you by showing mauled bodies and giant, nightmarish beasts; it’s also a movie about humans and their relationships and interactions, and there are even a few sparse jokes thrown in for good measure. It echoes Moby-Dick in its men-on-a-boat style, and brings to mind the old Western archetypes: the sheriff, the doctor and the outlaw band together to rid the community of a potentially ruinous problem.

So Jaws is a monster-mystery-thriller-action-comedy-Western-adventure-drama. But what shelf is it on? I’m pretty sure it’s on the Thriller shelf at my local; god only knows why.

The point I’m making is that movies are rarely about just one thing, and the ones that are are usually relatively shallow or generic. So why do we insist on classifying the movies we watch according to some preconceived ideals of setting, tone, content, themes and characters?

A lot of the currently prominent film genres got their start in literature. Comedy has its roots in Ancient Greek plays, later deconstructed and recombined by William Shakespeare into a more Anglo-centric “comedy of manners” style; horror reaches back to folk tales of yore, myths of hideous beasts, whispered tales of possession, and religious superstition, greatly aided by 19^th Century novels like Dracula and Frankenstein.

Science fiction has its roots in late 19^th / early 20^th Century works by the likes of HG Wells and Jules Verne, and takes further inspiration from the scientific explosion of the 20^th Century; drama films, and particularly melodrama films, hark back to the Ancient Greek tragedies, designed to elicit sadness and tears from an audience; Sherlock Holmes novels and rampant criminality throughout the United States’ first few centuries inspired the crime, noir and Western genres; while musicals are holdovers from a bygone era of stage and theatre.

Action stands alone as being one of the few purely cinematic genres. The advent of editing, in combination with stunts, music, and the sheer energy of film, gave rise to the set-piece, and to a whole genre of films driven almost solely by action set-pieces.

Truly great films often transcend their genre; Jaws is just one example. Star Wars is a regurgitated mess of Western archetypes, Greek tragedy, high fantasy, and serialised space opera, yet it always winds up on the Science-Fiction shelf, much to the chagrin of SF fans.

Gone With The Wind deals with war, romance, drama, tragedy, and takes a historical setting, but it always winds up on the Classics shelf (a useless genre if ever there was one). The Godfather is a historical epic dealing with crime, death, revenge, family relationships, love, and the nature of violence, but it usually winds up under the catch-all Crime. The Shawshank Redemption is a slow-boiling character study, and a tale of loss, friendship, and redemption, while also taking a very close look at the reality of the American prison system, dealing with institutionalisation, corruption and (briefly) false justice. So why is it on the Drama shelf?

Because the vast majority of films produced in Hollywood are pushed through cookie-cutters into pre-determined shapes. It’s easier to market a film to someone if you can compare it to a film they already saw, and enjoyed, rather than saying “It’s unlike anything you’ve ever seen before in your entire life!”

A recent example is Prince Of Persia: The Sands Of Time, whose marketing dropped Jerry Bruckheimer’s name while reminding viewers of his relationship with Pirates Of The Caribbean. Notice they avoided mentioning that Bruckheimer also produced adventure films (National Treasure), action films (Transformers, Con Air), crime flicks (Bad Boys) and bad films (all of the above); they specifically mentioned Pirates so that you’d subconsciously link Prince Of Persia to swashbuckling, fun characters, over-the-top production design and a supernatural element linked to the whimsical and romantic story.

Prince Of Persia was conceived to cash in on the success of Pirates by following the same blueprint. Prince failed spectacularly, for various reasons; most importantly, it should have been a creative gamble, instead of a safe business plan.

This example is played out ad nauseum across Hollywood. Die Hard gave way to a never-ending raft of tough macho blokes shooting and punching their way through hordes of foreigners. Star Wars and Close Encounters saw a resurgence of science fiction in the 80s, some of which were good, most of which were inept. There’s Something About Mary kick-started the teen-comedy gross-out, where perennially hilarious bodily functions are combined with comedies of error and manners to create the prevalent comedic genre of the noughties.

So what’s the remedy to this constant pre-production pigeon-holing? After all, the studios wield all the power. If 20^th Century Fox wants three superhero comic-book films a year, that’s exactly what it’ll get. If Universal wants two romantic comedies and an espionage flick by winter 2011, then you can expect a couple of chick-flicks and a new Bourne reboot to hit screens pretty soon. What’s missing from this equation?

Creative honesty. If you really want to tell a story about something, or someone, you don’t care about genres. You might be mindful of other artists who have tread similar ground before you, and you might accept or reject some of their ideas and techniques. You might be vaguely mindful of the type of demographic who will eventually buy your product, and look at the kind of stuff they’re buying to gauge what they’ll be interested in.

But ultimately, filmmakers need to make films for themselves, and studios need to stop regurgitating the same guff purely for the sake of profit, and have faith in talented filmmakers to do the right thing and bring them money with creativity, originality and honesty. That’s why non-genre-defined flicks are often better than even the best cookie-cutter genre films.

The article is done now, but here are some more examples for you anyway, just in case you don’t believe me:

American Beauty – postmodern comedy, satire, with narrative voice-over and dream sequences; dealing with everyday characters in everyday settings. On the Drama shelf.

Schindler’s List – a war film, a character study, a melodrama, and a historical epic. On the Drama shelf (because of all the Oscar nominations?).

Fight Club – a postmodern comedy, satire, and mystery, with a heavy narrative style, serving as a damning exploration of consumerism and the American Way. On the Thriller shelf (because of the twist ending?).

Starship Troopers – a heady examination of the political and moral nature of war, a rollicking sci-fi yarn heavy with symbolism, violence and vicious satire. On the Action shelf (because the violence is cartoony?).

Watchmen – a strongly sci-fi slanted tale of vigilantism and the nature of humanity, with scenes of graphic and disturbing violence, some romance, and overtones of rape and prejudice. On the Action shelf (because that’s where all the comic-book movies go, right?).

Pirates Of The Caribbean – a supernatural adventure film. On the Action shelf (because there are explosions and people dying in it, right?).

Jurassic Park – a thrilling exploration of the moral and physical implications of cloning extinct animals; an adventure with elements of horror. On the Action shelf (because there are guns in it, right?).

Unforgiven – a complex and dark character study set in 19^th Century America, with strong performances and heavy elements of drama. On the Western shelf.

Any other examples you can think of? Or am I completely off track; is the concept of “genre” vital to the conception and production of big-budget films?