Christian Metz theory and the Model of Genre
Development:
Christian
Metz is a French Film theorist who wrote the book ‘Language and Cinema (1974)’
which explored genre’s development and within the book he wrote about the four
phases that genre pass through during their lifetime. These are:
·
The
Experimental
·
The Classic
·
The Parody
·
The Deconstruction
The
Experimental:
A genre
begins in the experimental stage where the foundations and conventions of the
genre are built through an innovative, original work. Often the movement comes
from literature when cinemas find inspiration from literature or represent
novels in film. Example within the horror genre include the films The Cabinet
of Dr Calgari (1919) and Nosferatu (1922) which took their inspiration from
famous literary classics ‘The strange case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde’ by Robert
Louis Stevenson and ‘Dracula’ by Bram Stoker. The films in the experimental
stage are instrumental and exploratory however they still influence genre films
today.
The Classic:
The genre
then produces the classics where the codes and conventions of the genre become
seen as iconic and are the guidelines are set. The inspiration for these
classics continue on from the experimentals as Hollywood turns to Europe for
inspiration for their higher cost, higher production movies such as Dracula and
Frankenstein both produced by Universal in 1931. The conventions established by
these classics are incorporated into modern day productions.
Particularly
post-war and onwards, studios began to experiment with comedic elements and
incorporated them into classic genres. Parodies either mock the conventions of
a genre or mock a particular production itself eg. the movie ‘Shaun of the
Dead’ mocks the film Dawn of the Dead released in 1978. The most well-known or
even iconic examples of parodies are ‘Carry on Screaming’ and ‘Scary Movie’
both made to mock the horror genre and its conventions.
The
Deconstruction:
The
deconstruction is when the classic codes and conventions are unpicked and
different aspects from different genres are combined. As a result of the rules
being effectively broken, sub-genres may form. For example the film ‘SE7EN’ is
an amalgamation of the horror and thriller genres. The conventions of the
horror genre are heavily explored in the opening title sequence of the film and
the main body of film and film narrative explores thriller conventions.
No comments:
Post a Comment