题目

电影的类型有什么?我要英文的

提问时间：2020-11-07

答案

Film Genres
I INTRODUCTION
Film Genres,categories of film characterized by frequently recurring patterns of form,style,and,particularly,subject matter.There is no clear consensus among film historians and critics on the number of genres,or on the line of demarcation between one genre and another.This must be borne in mind when considering the following list of major genres:Adventure; Biography; Comedy; Drama and Melodrama; Fantasy/Horror/Science Fiction; Gangster/Crime/Spy/Film Noir; Musical; Problem Picture; War; Western.Some commentators would argue that the category 鈥淕angster/Crime/Spy/Film Noir鈥 clearly incorporates two,if not more,distinct genres,as it could be seen to include films as diverse as The Maltese Falcon (John Huston,1941) and Sunset Boulevard (Billy Wilder,1950).Similarly,the old industry category 鈥淲omen's Pics鈥 straddles at least two classifications:Film Noir and Melodrama.Only the Hollywood cinema has been considered.Obviously,genres exist in the popular cinemas of other countries,although,apart from such clear-cut exceptions as samurai films of Japan or kung fu pictures from Hong Kong,the categories applied are normally derived from Hollywood.Clearly there are interesting differences between,say,a British crime film and an American example,but on the whole these have yet to be studied.Differences between genres tend to be identified more in terms of themes,stars,use of costumes,and settings and locations,than in terms of specific aspects of film-making practice such as editing.
II HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE
In the days of the studio production lines,placement of films within genres tended to be part of the thinking of studio executives in their decisions about production and marketing policy,and were reiterated in the trade papers.Thus,notions about many film genres actually preceded explicit critical analysis.While critical accounts of a film genre tend,appropriately,to be descriptive,the same ideas in the mind of a producer or accountant are often prescriptive,based on a notion of what audiences will find acceptable in,say,a Western.
When critics started to analyse Hollywood films in depth,this link with the collective,entertainment,money-making aspect of the production system,rather than its initially unrecognized personal,artistic dimension,contributed to an emphasis on the negative aspects of the genres,for example,the limits their conventions imposed on creativity.However,as Colin McArthur argued in his pioneering genre study Underworld USA (1972):鈥渢he responses of film-makers and audiences to the genres seem to offer a good prime facie case for believing that they are animating rather than neutral,that they carry particular charges of meaning independently of whatever is brought to them by particular directors.鈥滭br/>Certainly,it seems unlikely to be coincidence that much of the finest work of Howard Hawks,John Ford,Anthony Mann,and,more recently Clint Eastwood,has been in the Western genre.Nevertheless,only minor or mediocre directors can be said to be defined by their relationship to a genre,and each of the four cited has inflected the genre in significantly different ways,both stylistically and thematically,as well as having done important work in other genres.
III DEVELOPMENT OF GENRES
Clearly film genres change over time as society,the audience,and the institutions of production change.New stars come along,new themes emerge,new conventions of characterization evolve.The exact nature of these shifts is largely outside the conscious awareness of those responsible for bringing them about,however.The producer,director,writer,and star tend to think in terms of decisions that will make a work more interesting,or generate a more compelling star role,rather than how to modify the genre in response to shifts in society.
Some points relating the development of particular genres to changes in film technology are simple and obvious:there is nothing incongruous about a silent Western,and the genre has been on the screen since The Great Train Robbery (1903,directed by Edwin S.Porter),but the idea of a silent musical is obviously ridiculous,despite the fact that live musical accompaniment ensured that most cinemas were never really silent.Similarly,continually improving techniques for special effects have given new life to the Fantasy/Science Fiction/Horror genre,from 2001:A Space Odyssey (Stanley Kubrick,1968) on through Star Wars (George Lucas,1977),and Close Encounters of the Third Kind (Steven Spielberg,1977) to the cycle of Alien films (Ridley Scott,1979; James Cameron,1986; David Fincher,1992).
Popular films are not a simple reflection of the society that produced them:they are complex texts,systems of discourse certain strands of which bear traces of particular features of the society that generated them.Exactly what mechanisms are involved,however,varies from case to case,and may often be impossible to tease out.Thus,comparisons made between characteristics of the individual genres,or between one era and another,must be provisional and tentative.
For example,in the 1930s,the great period of the gangster film,there were few major Westerns,and those there were came at the start and end of the decade.In the era of classic Hollywood cinema (from the late 1920s to the decline of the studio system around 1960) both these genres regularly involved conflicts between good and evil.
However,perhaps because part of the gangster film's concern was to indicate the social origins of crime,it is typically the gangster's journey the audience follows,and thus there is strong,if only partial,identification with him.His refusal to accept the restrictions of the urban environment,together with the energy of his individualism,made him a dangerously fascinating,possibly sympathetic,character when contrasted with the less colourful representatives of law and order.
Indeed,this patina of charisma has persisted through to the present.It is part of the complex appeal of The Godfather series (Francis Ford Coppola:Part I,1972; Part II,1974; Part III,1990),inviting the audience to collude with the actions of Michael Corleone.In the more pastoral world of the classic Western,on the other hand,the hero may have been a loner,but he normally represented the best values of the community.Moreover,it was his progress the audience followed,and thus it was he with whom it identified.Consequently,he was the one with charisma,rather than the villain,whose ultimate defeat and death were not mourned in the same way as the classic gangster's.
Though attempts to specify precisely where Western and gangster genres fit in an overall account of the generic categories of popular cinema are likely to generate academic controversy,all commentators agree on their existence as genres.This makes them appropriate choices for the accounts of generic difference and change given above.Though much has been left out,this is an example of the kind of analysis that can be made in relation to other genres.