Hello, everyone, and welcome to Ministry of Cinema's web series, "Film Genres and Hollywood."
I'm Bradley Weatherholt and I'll be your host on this journey into genre filmmaking.
In this series, we will discuss what genres are, what they mean, and why they are important
to the history of Hollywood.
To do this, we have chosen five prominent genres over the last 100 years of cinema.
These genres are: the Western, Crime or gangster films, War films, Comedies,
and Science Fiction films.
In each episode of this series, we focus on one of those specific genres.
But before we do, we must first ask, "What is a genre?"
The word genre comes from a French word meaning "kind" or "type."
Before it was applied to film, genre played a crucial role in literary theory.
It wasn't until about 1910, when Hollywood's film production began to outpace demand
that genres became important to differentiate films.
This differenciation marks the rise of cinema, and though genre filmmaking took place all
over the world, it was Hollywood that was able to exploit this the most.
So, what does genre filmmaking mean for today? What roles does it play?
Well, genres primarily influence three facets of industrialized film.
First: production. Second: distribution. And third: consumption, or viewership of that film.
Beginning with production, genres provide a frameword for production decisions.
Generic standards give production teams an easy template for rapid turnover of quality products.
Screenwriters have an easy time developing characters that follow certain stereotypes.
Casting directors can quickly find actors, who fit well defined body and personality types.
These conveniences quickly became necessities, since studio financing relied on the audience's
predictability in accepting these genre films.
Distributors can lump audiences based upon what movies they liked or what movies they've
seen in the past.
For instance, if audiences turned up in great numbers to a previous Western film the distributor
has a basis to predict what the audience turnout might be for the next Western film.
And finally, genres make it easy for audiences to select what movie they want to go see.
Audiences are more likely to go see the movie that's part of a genre they are familiar with.
This bias toward genres they like, or genres they have seen in the past, makes it easy
for studios to guage which films will be successful and guage which films are worthy of greenlighting.
For a genre to become familiar to an audience, it must have a standard set of conventions
and rules.
These establish a language for the genre.
For instnace, the Western communicates in a language of cowboys, Indians, and wild frontiers.
Not only are genres of great interest to studios, genres are also an important element of film theory.
Generic conventions, according to some anthropologists, satisfy society's desire for ritual.
This repeated imagery, emotion, and ritual provides a solution to the contradictions
that everyone faces in real life.
Other theorists argue that generic films are instruments of ideology.
Instead of watching a film with a service fee, the audience is actually lured into accepting
an agenda of a vested interest group.
At its most obvious, for example, War films might paint a propagandistic message.
Or even more subtly, Westerns may validate the attrocities of Manifest Destiny.
At any rate, genres satisfy many roles for cinema.
For the studio, it saves time and money.
For distributors, it provides an easily marketable film to the audience.
For the audience, it eases the decision-making process when selecting a film to watch.
And for culture, genres provide us with rituals as old as society.
The history of Hollywood's genres fascinates us and we hope it will inspire the same fascination within you.
If you appreciate our work, please subscribe.
And as always, thanks for watching.
I'll see you in the next episode.