Script for video post:
Carolyn Miller, 1984 - " the number of genres in any society depends on the complexity and the diversity of any society"
The term genre is French for 'kind' or 'class'. I think the genres that my film fits into are relationship drama, existential drama and docu- drama, it is also a romance although because its about a breakup it is challenging the traditional ideologies.
Themes don't really help to focus what genre something is: David Bordwell, 1989 - "any theme may appear in any genre". The themes that are prominent in my piece are relationships, life events and human triumph.
Bordwell's listed categories that become genres. Ones that apply to my film are period, style, narrative, purpose, audience and subject and theme.
Robert Stam 11 years later made another list, some if these also apply to mine which are story content, budget bases and artistic status. Stam said that genres are no different from other sorts of groupings.
Stam also stated that there was a problem with generic labels - "subject matter is the weakest criterion of generic grouping because it fails to account how the subject is treated." My piece may have monolithic definitions as it fits into many genre categories.
In 1985, Andrew Tudor wrote about the empiricist dilemma. This is where you may try to define a genre using a body of text, but won't be able to identify the texts without a definition for the genre. This is a continuous circle like the analogy of chicken and the egg.
The way genres are combined tells you the genre of the film. So because two of my themes are relationship and life events this tells me that my film fits into the Drama genre.
Steve Neale - "genre are instances of repetition and difference". The repetition in the drama genre that I have used is having spoken words over the top of the shots e.g. The Lovely Bones. The difference is that the shots are continuously changing to things that are not noticeably to do with the dialogue.
Tzvetan Todorov, 1985 - "any instances of genre will be necessarily different". So every film will approach a genre differently.
Films have family resemblance based on similarities between texts in a genre. For example editing, music, parodies and pastiches, directors and actors.
It is also argued that there is a hierarchy of genres, for example news programmes could be considered higher up the hierarchy because they have greater influence over the media's definition of reality. Whereas Soaps could be considered lower down the scale as their purpose is entertainment of an audience. Films with anecdotes claim themselves to be higher up, as even after they have finished leave you with something more to take away.
Andrew Tudor showed how a sub-genre could be created. Tudor said that innovation within a genre leaded to differences which make it become a mould-breaker, this then creates the sub-genre for the text within its genre. Innovation and therefore differences in my piece are the dialogue of narration of a break up over the continuously changing shots, this creates its individual sub-genre of narrated-romance-drama.
It is also argued that there is a hierarchy of genres, for example news programmes could be considered higher up the hierarchy because they have greater influence over the media's definition of reality. Whereas Soaps could be considered lower down the scale as their purpose is entertainment of an audience. Films with anecdotes claim themselves to be higher up, as even after they have finished leave you with something more to take away.
Andrew Tudor showed how a sub-genre could be created. Tudor said that innovation within a genre leaded to differences which make it become a mould-breaker, this then creates the sub-genre for the text within its genre. Innovation and therefore differences in my piece are the dialogue of narration of a break up over the continuously changing shots, this creates its individual sub-genre of narrated-romance-drama.
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