Background Research: Genre Theory

In Rich Altman's (cinematics professor) book, "Film/Genre" Rich talks about what he calls the "Semantic/Syntactic approach". Using this approach you need to consider genre in two ways:

 

 

Semantic

Conventions of the genre which communicate to the audience, such as characters, mise-en-scene, location, props etc. For example, in western films you would typically expect guns, hats and native Americans but in space sci-fi film you would expect to see laser-guns, space ships and maybe even computer generated aliens. In both of these genres we can stereotypically expect intense action, suspense and a major climax in the film.

 

Syntactic:

This approach considers the relationship between elements such as location, props and music, and the structure of narratives in the genre. For example a rom-com will typically have two characters who gradually get closer and closer to each other until they date at the end of the film after a series of hilarious events.

 

Rich Altman says "...a pragmatic approach to genre is to consider institutions and audiences."

 

Institutions:

This involves considering genre as a mode of production. Film studios will produce films categorised by genres, and will gtry to use diverse genres or many different genres to maintain varied audience interest as well as engaging many different types of audience. Some genres come in and out of fashion due to the percieved audience response as so more or less films may be made of that genre. For example there are less productions of western films in modern society compared to twenty years ago when western films would have appealed to older generations who would have lived at the end of that era.

 

Audiences:

Some audiences will percieve some genres differently due to their experiences. For example, some people may prefer gore-horror as others may enjoy watching shock-horror; these are sub-genres generated by audience perception and as a result institutions realise certain sub-genres are more effective than others. This causes new genres to evolv and change.