MAIN FILM GENRES

Main Film Genres

Films were not really subjected to genre analysis by film historians until the 1970s. All films have at least one major genre, although there are a number of films that are considered crossbreeds or hybrids with three or four overlapping genre (or sub-genre) types that identify them.In film theory, genre refers to the method of film categorization based on similarities in the narrative elements from which films are constructed.Besides the basic distinction in genre between fiction and documentary, film genres can be categorized in several ways.

Action (Disaster)

Stories whose central struggle plays out mainly through a clash of physical forces.The films with usually exciting stories,new experiences or exotic locales often paired with the action film genre.

For eg. 48Hours,Face/Off,Die Hard,Air Force One,Jurassic Park,Lethal Weapon,Return of the Jedi (also Science Fiction),Speed (also a Thriller),Titanic (also a Love story),The Terminator,True Lies,Twister

Adventure

Stories whose central struggle plays out mainly through encounters with new “worlds.”

For e.g. Apollo 13,The Deep,Get Shorty (extraordinary blend of Gangster, Love, and Crime with a twist),Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (also an Action picture),Little Big Man (Also Epic/Myth),Lawrence of Arabia,Quest For Fire,Rain Man,Robinson Crusoe

Comedy

Comedies are light-hearted plots consistently and deliberately designed to amuse and provoke laughter (with one-liners, jokes, etc.) by exaggerating the situation, the language, action, relationships and characters.There are different kinds of forms of comedy such as,slapstick, screwball, spoofs and parodies, romantic comedies, black comedy (dark satirical comedy), and more.

For e.g. Ace Ventura, Pet Detective (also Adventure – the name gives it away),Analyze This,Annie Hall,Bowfinger,French Kiss,Honey, I Shrunk the Kids (also Fantasy),My Best Friend’s Wedding,Nine to Five,Shakespeare in Love,The Spy Who Shagged Me,

When Harry Met Sally,Working Girl (also Love Story)

Coming-of-Age Drama

Stories whose central struggle is about the hero finding his or her place in the world.

For e.g. American BeautyAmerican Graffiti,The Breakfast Club,The Graduate,The Last Picture Show, The Lion King,My Brilliant Career,The Paper Chase,Pretty In Pink,Rebel Without a Cause,Risky Business,Saturday Night Fever,Splendor in the Grass,Top Gun (also Action),The Water Boy (also Comedy).

Crime

Stories whose central struggle is about catching a criminal.The films are films are developed around the sinister actions of criminals or mobsters, particularly bankrobbers, underworld figures, or ruthless hoodlums who operate outside the law, stealing and murdering their way through life.

For e.g. 48 Hours,Basic Instinct,Fargo,French Connection,Ghost (also Love and Thriller),L.A.Confidential,Patriot Games,Pulp Fiction (Also Black Comedy, Bends the Genre a lot),The Sting,The Untouchables

Detective Story/Courtroom Drama

Stories whose central struggle is to find out what really happened and thus to expose the truth.

For e.g. Caine Mutiny,Chinatown,Death and the Maiden,A Few Good Men,The General’s Daughter,Inherit the Wind,The Maltese Falcon,Philadelphia,Rear Window,A Time to Kill,The Verdict,Vertigo

Epic/Myth

Stories whose central struggle plays out in the midst of a clash of great forces or in the sweep of great historical change.Epics include costume dramas, historical dramas, war films, medieval romps, or ‘period pictures’ that often cover a large expanse of time set against a vast, panoramic backdrop.

For e.g. Apocalypse Now,The Birth of a Nation,Bridge on the River Kwai,Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid,Gandhi,The Godfather,Gone With the Wind,The Grapes of Wrath,Lawrence of Arabia (also Adventure),Star Wars,The Ten Commandments

Fantasy

Stories which are animated, or whose central struggle plays out in two worlds – the “real” world and an imaginary world.

For e.g. A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court,Alice in Wonderland,Antz,Big Ghostbusters,Heaven Can Wait,Mary Poppins,The Mask,Peter Pan,Snow White,Toy Story,The Wizard of Oz,Who Killed Roger Rabbit?

Gangster

Stories whose central struggle is between a criminal and society. A cautionary tale, rooted in a main character who commits crimes (This genre is often blended with Film Noir). For e.g. Badlands,Bonnie and Clyde,Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid,Dead End,Dead Man Walking, The Godfather (also Epic/Myth),Goodfellas,La Femme Nikita,M.,Out of Sight (also Love Story),Sling Blade,The Usual Suspects.

Horror

Stories whose central struggle focuses on escaping from and eventually defeating a Monster (either human or non-human).Horror films feature a wide range of styles, from the earliest silent Nosferatu classic, to today’s CGI monsters and deranged humans. They are often combined with science fiction when the menace or monster is related to a corruption of technology, or when Earth is threatened by aliens.There are many sub-genres of horror: slasher, teen terror, serial killers, satanic, Dracula, Frankenstein, etc.

For e.g. Alien,The Blair Witch Project,Friday the Thirteenth,Halloween,I Know What You Did Last Summer,It’s Alive,King Kong,Nightmare on Elm Street,Psycho,Scream,Tremors

Love (Romance)

Stories whose central struggle is between two people who each want to win or keep the love of the other.

For e.g. Annie Hall,As Good As It Gets,Casablanca (also Epic/Myth),Ghost,The Graduate,It Happened One Night,Mickey Blue Eyes,Notting Hill,Pretty Woman,Roman Holiday,The Way We Were, Wuthering Heights

Science Fiction

Stories whose central struggle is generated from the technology and tools of a

scientifically imaginable world.Sci-fi films are often quasi-scientific, visionary and imaginative – complete with heroes, aliens, distant planets, impossible quests, improbable settings, fantastic places, great dark and shadowy villains, futuristic technology, unknown and unknowable forces, and extraordinary monsters (’things or creatures from space’), either created by mad scientists or by nuclear havoc.

For e.g. 2001 A Space Odyssey,Back to the Future,Blade Runner (also Crime),ET: The Extra Terrestrial,The Fifth Element,Gattaca,The Sixth Sense,Stargate,Star Wars (and all the sequels or prequels),The Terminator,Twelve Monkeys

Social Drama

Stories whose central struggle is between a Champion and a problem or injustice in society. Usually the Champion has a personal stake in the outcome of the struggle.

For e.g. A Civil Action,Dead Man Walking,Dr Strangelove,Grapes of Wrath,Kramer Vs Kramer,Network,Philadelphia (also Courtroom Drama),Schindler’s List,To Kill a Mockingbird

Thriller

Stories whose central struggle pits an innocent hero against a lethal enemy who is out to kill him or her.

For e.g. The Net,No Way Out,North by Northwest (also Love Story),Sleeping With the Enemy,Night of the Hunter,Three Days of the Condor,Wait Until Dark,Witness (also Love Story)

Musicals (Dance) Films

Musical/dance films are cinematic forms that emphasize full-scale scores or song and dance routines in a significant way (usually with a musical or dance performance integrated as part of the film narrative), or they are films that are centered on combinations of music, dance, song or choreography.

For e.g. Annie,Grease,Moulin Rouge!,Newsies,Oliver!,Rent,Singin In the Rain ,The King and I,The Wizard of Oz ,An american in paris

War (Anti-War) Films

War films acknowledge the horror and heartbreak of war, letting the actual combat fighting (against nations or humankind) on land, sea, or in the air provide the primary plot or background for the action of the film.They often take a denunciatory approach toward warfare. They may include POW tales, stories of military operations, and training.

For e.g. A Bridge Too Far,Apocalypse Now Redux,The Bridge On The River Kwai,The Wooden Horse,Saving Private Ryan,Come And See,The Black Book,Full Metal Jacket

Westerns

Westerns are the major defining genre of the American film industry,They are one of

the oldest, most enduring genres with very recognizable plots, elements, and characters (six-guns, horses, dusty towns and trails, cowboys, Indians, etc.).

For e.g. High Noon,Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Stagecoach,Shane,The Wild Bunch,The Searchers,Unforgiven,Cat Ballou,The Magnificent Seven,True Grit,The Ox-Bow Incident

FOR MORE INFORMATION ON IT,YOU CAN ALSO VISIT SITES LIKE WIKIPEDIA.ORG AND FILMSITE.ORG ETC.

GRAPES OF WRATH

Directed By John Ford
Released on January 24,1940

The Grapes of Wrath is the 1939 John Ford movie based upon the John Steinbeck(the Pulitzer Prize and the Nobel Prize for Literature) novel by the same name.Set During the Great Depression On the screen, the film honestly and realistically recreates the socio-economic impact of the Great Depression and a mid-30s drought upon one representative family - the Joads. Its theme of an oppressed people's epic move to a new home parallels the Biblical story of Exodus. Their family name, Joad, also evokes the Biblical character of Job.

It is a sympathetic look at the fate of the farmers who fled the Dust Bowl for brighter futures in California, but encountered there instead the same class system and prejudices that had impoverished them back home.

Story-Line

The film opens with Tom Joad (Henry Fonda) being released from prison and hitchhiking his way back to his family farm in Oklahoma only to find it deserted. Tom finds an itinerant ex-preacher named Jim Casy (John Carradine) sitting under a tree by the side of the road. Tom remembers that Casy was the preacher who baptized him, but now Casy has "lost the call" and his faith. Casy leads him to find his family at Tom's uncle John's place. His family is happy to see Tom and explain they have made plans to head for California in search of employment as their farm has been foreclosed by the bank. The large Joad family of twelve leaves at daybreak, packing everything into an old and dilapidated modified truck in order to make the long journey to the promised land of California. The trip along Highway 66 is arduous and it soon takes a toll on the Joad family. Weak and elderly Grampa is the first to die on their journey. After he dies, they pull over to the shoulder of the road, unload him, and bury him. Tom writes the circumstances surrounding the death on a page from the Family Bible and places it on the body so that if his remains were ever found his death would not be investigated as a possible homicide. They park in a camp and they meet a man, a returning migrant from California, who laughs at Pa's optimism about conditions in California and who speaks bitterly about his awful experiences in the West. He hints at what the Joads will soon find out for themselves. The family arrives at the first transient migrant campground for workers and find the camp is crowded with other starving, jobless and desperate travelers. Their truck slowly makes its way through the dirt road between the shanty houses and around the camp's hungry-faced inhabitants. Tom says, "Sure don't look none too prosperous."

After some trouble with a "so-called" agitator, the Joads leave the camp in a hurry. The Joads make way to another migrant camp named the Keene Ranch. After doing some work in the fields they discover the high food prices in the company store for meat and other products. The problem is that the store is the only one in the area, by a long shot. Later they find there is a striking group of migrants in the camp and Tom wants to find out all about it. Tom goes to a secret meeting in the dark woods. The meeting is discovered and Casy is killed by one of the guards. Tom tries to defend Casy from the vicious attack and inadvertently kills the attacking guard when he retaliates. During the altercation, Tom suffers a serious facial wound on his cheek and the camp guards realize it won't be difficult to identify him. That evening the family hides Tom under the mattresses of the truck just as guards arrive to question them and search for the killer of the guard. Tom avoids being spotted and the family successfully leaves the Keene Ranch without further incident. At the top of a hill, the car runs out of gas, and they're able to coast into a third type of camp: Farmworkers' Wheat Patch Camp, a clean camp run by the Department of Agriculture. After Tom becomes personally idealized by what he has witnessed in the various camps, he describes how he plans to carry on Casy's mission in the world by fighting for social reform. Tom goes off to seek a new world, and he must leave his family to join the movementcommitted to social justice. Tom Joad says: I'll be all around in the dark. I'll be everywhere. Wherever you can look, wherever there's a fight, so hungry people can eat, I'll be there. Wherever there's a cop beatin' up a guy, I'll be there. I'll be in the way guys yell when they're mad. I'll be in the way kids laugh when they're hungry and they know supper's ready, and when the people are eatin' the stuff they raise and livin' in the houses they build i'll be there too. As the family moves on again, they discuss the fear and difficulties they have had, but recognise that they have come out the other side. Ma joad concludes the film, saying: I ain't never gonna be scared no more. I was, though. For a while it looked as though we was beat. Good and beat. Looked like we didn't have nobody in the whole wide world but enemies. Like nobody was friendly no more. Made me feel kinda bad and scared too, like we was lost and nobody cared.... Rich fellas come up and they die, and their kids ain't no good and they die out, but we keep on coming. We're the people that live. They can't wipe us out, they can't lick us. We'll go on forever, Pa, cos we're the people.

When Ford released The Grapes of Wrath, some people found it depressing and pretentious; why, critics asked, would people struggling through the Great Depression want to go and watch a movie about people like themselves taking it in the teeth? Despite this criticism, The Grapes of Wrath was an extremely popular and critically well-received movie; Ford won the Oscar for Best Director, although Henry Fonda lost out as Best Actor to James Stewart in The Philadelphia Story. And many in the audience found it inspiring, especially the speeches delivered by Fonda and Jane Darwell, as Ma Joad, at the end of the film. Ford, and not Steinbeck, wrote those inspiring speeches; Steinbeck's vision was infinitely darker than Ford's. The Grapes of Wrath made such an indelible impact on the minds of Americans that just a few years later, when Preston Sturges made a funny and moving film which responded to and parodied The Grapes of Wrath, called Sullivan's Travels (1941), everyone recognized the connection.

Academy awards

• Best Supporting Actress, Jane Darwell as Ma Joad.
• Academy Award for Directing, John Ford.

Academy awards nomination

• Best Actor in a Leading Role, Henry Fonda as Tom Joad.
• Best Film Editing, Robert L. Simpson.
• Best Picture, Darryl F. Zanuck and Nunnally Johnson.
• Best Sound Recording, Edmund H. Hansen.
• Best Writing Adapted Screenplay, Nunnally Johnson.

American Film Institute recognition

100 Years...100 Movies #21

100 Years...100 Movies (10th Anniversary) #23

100 Years...100 Cheers #7