Film Genre
This course invites you to study the history of cinema from the perspective of film genres. Whereas in a course on, say, National Cinemas, one might ask how any given film images specific issues related to the problem of nationhood or national identity, in this class we will ask questions primarily relating to how any given genre works, what its characteristics are, how such characteristics guide viewers’ expectations, how such characteristics may or may not have changed across time and across national borders, how genres might function as a marketing tool, and whether the very idea of genre—one we tend to take for granted—ultimately constitutes a viable and productive way of thinking about individual films.
To address these questions, I organized the semester into essentially two main
sections in which we focus on the same six genres (Western, Melodrama, Crime,
Gangster, Film Noir, and Art House): the first half of the semester will focus
on these genres’ “classical” periods, whereas the second half
will address how these genres have, perhaps, mutated, that is, how more contemporary
filmmakers have responded to the classical genres to make them of interest to
new generations of audiences.
Readings:
Films Screened: