Genre and science fiction
Destination Moon (1950)
Housekeeping
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View all the films.
Attend tutorials.
Use Course Resources online.
Next week: Dr Strangelove.
Genres: References
• Errol Vieth, 2001, Screening Science, Lanham,
MD: Scarecrow Press, p3—43, 49—91
• Stuart Kaminsky 1974 American film genres
Pflaum Publishing
• Stephen Neale 1980 Genre British Film Institute
• Thomas Schatz 1981 Hollywood genres Sydney:
McGraw Hill
Genre: References 2
• Andrew Tudor 1976 ‘Genre and critical
methodology’ in B Nicolls (ed) Movies and
methods: an anthology Berkeley, Ca: U of
California Press
• Nora Sayre 1982 Running time: Films of the cold
war New York: Dial Press
• Susan Doll & Greg Faller 1986 ‘Blade runner and
genre’ Literature/Film Quarterly vol 14, no 2
• Isaac Asimov 1984 Asimov on science fiction
London: Panther Books
Understanding Genre.
• Schatz: ‘a collective cultural expression’.
• Tudor: ‘common cultural consensus’.
• Doll & Faller: ‘a set of codes that are
recognised and understood by both the
spectator and the filmmaker via this
‘common cultural consensus’.
What is Genre then?
• Simply speaking, genre means ‘type’: it is a way of
classifying things according to notions of commonality, a
grouping of texts that are similar in structure or subject
matter.
• A genre is a set of expectations and combinations of
recognisable social and cultural codes that both construct
and allow a particular ‘reading’ of a cultural form such as a
book, film, TV show, comic, magazine or piece of music.
Three Broad Categories of Film (1)
• Documentary: “purports to present factual
information about the world outside the film” (B
& T [6th edn]: 110; a constructed actuality:
filmmakers often stage events for the camera;
• Animation: involves pixillation, which is the
“frame by frame movement of people and
ordinary objects” (B & T [6th edn] 146); differs
from live-action films at the production level;
doesn’t use continuous filming but is filmed one
frame at a time
Three Broad Categories of Films (2)
Fiction: all the films seen in this course are
types of fiction (with the possible exception
of some snippets of films seen in the first
week); the notion of fiction is linked to the
imagination; fiction films draw on actuality
and work by either referring to events,
places and/or people, or by commenting on
them.
Elements of Genre
• Doll and Faller:
• pretext: subject matter, content,
theme
• text:
style setting, decor lighting
mise-en-scene, editing, music
• semantic:
set of conventions
• syntax: narrative systems
Semantic and Syntactic (1)
• Semantic: all the elements that a text can
draw on such as plot, characters, shots
(camera angles), settings, etc.
• Common and shared
• The ‘building blocks’ of a genre
• Generic iconography
Semantic and Syntactic (2)
• Syntactic or syntax: the selection of elements from the
semantic that make up a genre in terms of relationships,
causality, significance, narrative structure, ideology,
themes.
• The making sense of something
• The structure of the building blocks of a genre
• Context: the social and cultural framing that allows the
film to work itself out
Generic Conventions
• Includes : plot elements
(investigation in mystery
films, revenge in
westerns), themes (loyalty
and obedience in HK
martial arts films), film
techniques (sombre
lighting in horror films;
fast edits and violence in
action films)
• Drawn from the
intersection of the
expectations and
experiences of audiences,
filmmakers and industry
• “reappear in film after
film” (B & T: 96 [6th ed])
Neale on Genre
• ‘Genres are not to be seen as forms of
textual codifications, but as systems of
orientations, expectations and conventions
that circulate between industry, text and
subject’. [19]
One Way of Analysing Genre: Generic
Iconography
• The elements of a genre
that code its type
• Can include actors,
settings, music, language,
clothing, camera angles,
fonts on credits, themes,
story lines
• Can also include
directorial style
(Tarantino, Spielberg,
Hitchcock)
• The “recurring symbolic
elements that carry
meaning from film to
film” (B & T: 96 [6th ed]
• Part of the semantics of
film
Defining a Genre (1)
• The elements of genre are not specific to that genre and are
not excluded from other genres
• “Generic specificity is a question not of particular and
exclusive elements, however defined, but of exclusive and
particular combinations and articulations of elements, of
the exclusive and particular weight given in any one genre
to elements which in fact it shares with other genres”
(Neale 22-23)
Defining Genre (2)
• There are no ‘pure’ genre
films: they are all hybrids
• Star Wars: contains elements
of sci-fi, the western,
romance, fairy-tale,
adventure
Several ways that genres can be
defined:
• subject matter (sci-fi: the
relationship between humans
and technology; westerns:
life on a frontier, not just
‘dusty’ places)
• Presentation style: the
musical
• Emotional effect: comedy,
thriller
How does a genre change?
• ‘If each text within a genre were, literally,
the same, there would simply not be enough
difference to generate either meaning or
pleasure. Hence there would be no
audience. Difference is absolutely essential
to the economy of genre.’
• Stephen Neale 1980 Genre British Film
Institute, 50.
Intertextuality
• “Any text is constructed as a mosaic of
quotations; any text is the absorption and
transformation of another.”
– Kristeva, Julia 1980 Desire in language
New York: Columbia University Press,
p66
Genre: The Western
• A lone rider, sitting easily in the saddle of his dust horse,
travels across the plains toward a small, new town with
muddy streets and lively saloons. He wears a tattered,
wide-brimmed hat, a loose-hanging vest, a bandanna
around his neck, and one gun rests naturally at his side in a
smooth, well-worn holster. Behind him, the empty plains
roll gently until they end abruptly in the rocks and forests
that punctuate the sudden rise of towering mountain peaks.
• Wright W 1975 Six guns and society Berkeley: University of
California Press, 4.
So, what is science fiction?
• “Like the Mormons who convert dead people
retrospectively to Mormonism, we can categorize as
SF any film that even slightly fits the definition of SF.
And we can shove the chosen film, screaming and
protesting, into the box because the definition of SF
is pretty flexible. In this particular situation an sf film
is any film I say is an SF film. Good, I’m glad that’s
settled. So now we can properly begin.”
• John Brosnan 1991 The primal screen: a history of science
fiction film Sydney: Macdonald, 1.
Asimov on Science Fiction
• Asimov: Contrasts SF with ‘Realistic fiction’.
• ‘Realistic fiction…deals with events played
against social backgrounds not significantly
different from those that are thought to exist now
or to have existed at some time in the past.
Science fiction and fantasy…deal …with events
played against social backgrounds that do not exist
today and have not existed in the past.’ (15)
Stars: ‘twinkles’ or Monroe
• ‘Stars of “Moon” are the technicians, and
the array of devices should delight the
gadgeteer. The ship itself, the technically
perfect models of earth, moon, and the
heavens, and the space suits and equipment
used by the cast all contribute to the flavour
of authenticity that supports Irving Pichel’s
direction.’ VFR 28 June 1950