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Discuss the use of genre in any two films of your choice. You should consider the use of generic and visual iconography as well any relevant ideological coding. You should also consider the development of study and criticism within your chosen genre.Genre is a term that is used for the labelling of films, to pigeonhole them into types. In this essay the films White Heat (Raoul Walsh, 1949) and Scarface (Brian De Palma, 1983) will be used to show that the gangster movie can be labelled as a genre film, by explaining the many facets that contribute to the term genre. To place any film in this category, different elements need to be fulfilled. The iconographies, both generic and visual must adhere to certain rules, and re-occurring themes are often linked with genre films. The placing of the film in a determinate or in-determinate setting is also to be taken in to account. Whether the story unfolds around the characters or the backdrop the story is set is precise in determining factors. To incorporate the two films White Heat and Scarface this essay will also look at the creation of genre films through economic necessity and its ability to be used along with other elements of film studies as a mass marketing tool, which in turn adds another dimension to the term genre, one that avoids the art of cinema (although present in some cases) as merely a tool of monetary gain.“Hollywood is surely a cinema of genres, a cinema of westerns, gangsters films, musicals, melodramas and thrillers” (Ryall, 1970,pp.327). This is a broad statement that shows how easy it is to apply the label genre to types of film. Genre can be used by people, cinephile or not to easily identify with a type of movie. Much like the auteur theory, genre can be used as a guide for personal tastes. This is genre in its simplest form. Labelling a film a western or in this essays case a gangster film, seems to be too easy. There are many other factors that both contradict and aid the labelling of the genre movie.Genre films can be said to have always been around. There is George Melies A Trip To The Moon (1902) as an early example of science fiction and The Great Train Robbery (Edwin S. Porter, 1903) as an early example of a western. As Hollywood became the focal point of the movie business genre films were exploited, but rather than from an artistic standpoint that the iconography of films represents, from a monetary view of the studio or company that makes the film. “Differences between genres meant different audiences could be identified and catered to. All this made it easier to standardise and stabilise production.” (Cook, Bernink, 1999,pp.137) During the golden age of Hollywood cinema, genre was at the forefront of the pictures being made. The musicals from (Loews) MGM, the horror films of Universal to the gangster films of Warner Bros. These genre pieces were essential to the studios that made them. It enabled them to re-use sets and costumes that cost lots of money to make. “Hollywood’s economic imperative mandates concerted attempts at economy of scale. Only by producing large quantities of similar films could studios justify their enormous investment in real estate, personnel, publicity and technology.” (Ryall, 1970,pp.328) The economic climate of the United States was a governing reason for this. Cinema during the depression era became escapism for the struggling masses, which the film making studios utilised by producing films using this conveyor belt process. The studios overheads were kept low by this reusing of props and sets. They also kept their actors and actresses on contract so actors like Humphrey Bogart, Edward G.Robinson and James Cagney became the faces of the gangster film as Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi did for horror and John Wayne and Jimmy Stewart did for westerns. This typecasting of the ‘star’ helped the genre theory, as actors were intrinsically linked with genre films. This trend continued in film making with actors such as Al Pacino and Robert De Nero being associated with the crime/gangster film in the nineteen seventies and eighties, and today with Jim Carrey and Will Ferrell known primarily as comedic actors. What these actors bring to a role with their generic iconography is already in the subconscious of the viewing audience, thus allowing an awareness and acceptance through the actor’s link to a specific genre film. This can also work for a director by using the preconceptions of the actor’s generic iconography, in playing him/her against type. This is shown in Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo (1958) where Jimmy Stewart’s character starts the film in typical style, as a pillar of society (in this case a policeman), but ends up being shown as an obsessive man forcing a woman to change for his own perverse needs.The two films (White Heat and Scarface) also use the actor’s history in previous films to help with their generic iconography. Pacino was best known for his roles in The Godfather films (Francis Ford Coppola, 1972,1974) and Dog Day Afternoon (Sidney Lumet, 1975) whereas James Cagney was known from films such as The Public Enemy (William A.Wellman, 1931) and Angels with Dirty Faces (Michael Curtiz, 1938). The link to the crime film from both actors allows them to fit neatly and be accepted in their roles.All of the labels that help to decipher which genre a film belongs to are up for interpretation. The most readily available source of decoding a genre film is that of the films visual iconography. It is everything that the audience can see or hear on screen that acts as a signifier to what belongs where, so a film language is created by all of its parts. Iconography plays a large part in deciding a genre, “Since we are dealing with a visual medium we ought surely to look for our defining criteria at what we actually see on the screen.” (Buscombe, 1970,pp.157) This is a point made that cinema being such a visual art needs to aid the process of storytelling by using its own visual language. The iconographic language created can then portray the character or location of the genre film. “Recurrent images including physical attributes and dress of the actors, the settings, the tools of the trade.” (Cook, Bernink, 1999,pp.140) In the film Scarface Tony Montana uses the iconography of the film to portray his progression through his American dream. His clothes change from poorly made, dirty and torn to smart tailored suits to show his status. As in all gangster films the gun is also a visual of the tools of the trade much like the gunslinger from the western. The lush surroundings Montana finds himself in at the climax of the film are a recurrent theme from the earlier surroundings of the ‘big shot’ gangsters he works for. These recurrent themes and objects do not only stay true to the gangster film, all genre films have their own set of visual iconographies. The horror film may have the darkly lit scary house, or the dark forest, which is now the synonymous backdrop for scary events to take place. Even the re-occurrence of the action or scares taking place at night is iconography used by the horror genre. The western too uses iconography; from the setting of Monument Valley or other baron landscape, to the simplistic white hat equals good, whilst black hat equals bad. The visual iconographies can be inverted also, this allows for tricks to be played on the audience when items or characters they are subconsciously linked with play against type or represent other ideals than expected. In the film The Goonies (Richard Donner, 1985) the character of Sloth is portrayed at first to be a monster. The language created through visual iconography allows the audience to think that Sloth is an evil character through his surroundings (mise en scene), accompanying score and the way he is shown to be bound to protect others, by the finale of the movie Sloth becomes the hero of the film thus dispelling all the preconceived iconographies. His sound motif has changed with him from that of scary, eerie music to that of a fanfare thus making his transformation complete in the eyes of the viewer. The factors of location and character being used to construct a genre brings in another branch of genre study, that of the determinate and indeterminate space. “In a genre of determinate space (Western, gangster, detective, et.al), we have a symbolic arena of action. It represents a cultural realm in which fundamental values are in a state of sustained conflict. In these genres… the contrast itself and its necessary arena are a determinate, a specific social conflict is violently enacted within a familiar locale according to a prescribed system of rules and behavioural codes” (Neale, 1999). The western example is that of a land that needs taming, the arid dry landscape. With the two gangster films it is that of the prison in White Heat and the crime run underground of Miami in Scarface. The main plots of the films revolve around the setting and power struggle of the locations; the characters must fight to gain control of the landscape, thus resolving the films issues.With the iconography of a film being recurrent they are backed up by the themes and ideologies of the films, in their prevelant re-occurrence. The two films White Heat and Scarface have shared ideals and themes. The small timer who grows into bigger things through his work, yet unmoral ethics. The psychopathic killer without regret, the paranoid episodes, in White Heat’s Cody Jarrett’s case over his mother and in Tony Montana’s case the killing of his best friend for sleeping with his sister. The ideology behind the two films is one of the bad guy dies in the end. Both men have reached a pinnacle of their crime careers only for them to be shot down, in Jarrett’s case literally in flames. This ‘happy’ ending is one that was acceptable through the Hays Code, which White Heat had to adhere to. It was acceptable for a man/woman to do bad things as long as he/she got his/her comeuppance. The Hays Code was altered by the MPAA in 1951 therefore Scarface did not have to follow such stringent rules, but De Palma still has his main protagonist killed in the end. This being a gangster film and a re-occurrence of the themes and ideologies established by the previous list of gangster movies, and the ‘bad guy’ being killed, is in itself part of the iconographical make up of the gangster genre.Iconography is used as a signifier to label the film in a genre, but the boundaries of a genre can cross over so a hierarchy is needed if genre is to be applied to a film. The gangster film can have many guises, as can other genre films. “Iconography does not provide a sufficient basis for defining genre. Consider the way the traditional signifiers of the gangster genre are used to ‘dress’ the musical Bugsy Malone (Alan Parker, 1976) or how in Westworld (Michael Crichton, 1973) the iconography of the western is appropriated for a science-fiction movie.” (Nelmes, 1999,pp.168) Bugsy Malone has all the iconography of the gangster film but it is a comedy and a musical. The iconography of guns, cars, nightclubs and even the names of ‘Fat Sam’ and ‘Dandy Dan’ are all prevelant terminologies used in gangster films. The iconography of the gangster film has been used here to aid a story, but it is irrelevant in this case because it is a comedy before it’s a gangster film and a musical before it’s a comedy. Bugsy Malone is an example of the cross over that can be achieved with genre film, which Muddies the water of clear definition.The fact that it is a gangster film can come second to the fact that it is a Warner Bros. Gangster film. “While some genres are based on story content (the war film), others are borrowed from literature (comedy, melodrama) or from other media (the musical). Some are performer based (Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers films) or budget based (blockbusters), while others are based on artistic status (the art film), racial identity (black cinema), location (the western) or sexual orientation (gay and lesbian cinema)” (Stam, 2000,pp.14). The film Blacula (William Crain, 1972) is a remake of Dracula (Tod Browning, 1930) made with an all black-leading cast, but it is not seen as a horror film but as a blaxploitation movie. Pirates of the Caribbean (Gore Verbinski, 2003) could be seen as an action, pirate or Johnny Depp movie, but many view it as a blockbuster. Whilst labelling a film to a genre can seem easy, it can also be problematic. The earliest of moving pictures started the trend, but as technology and storytelling become more advanced, the ways of labelling a movie becomes harder. The boundaries are merging more now and new genres are being produced as a result. In recent years we have had a zombie comedy, Shaun Of The Dead (Edgar Wright, 2004) and a sci-fi romance, Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind (Michel Gondry, 2004). Genre placement for films is a needed element for film studies, and can be both complex and simple depending on how deep you want to look, much like other theories in the family of film/media studies. ................
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