Descriptive approach to film

	Film Noir	Gangster	Horror	Western	War	Sci Fiction	Monster	Auteur
Themes	Mystery and crime (detective: investigation) Flawed hero	Organised crime, family value escalation ambition	Supernatural, terror, evil, badness, redemption, meaning of murder, torture, suffering, chaos, revenge	Crime, injustice, loner, power, the under dog, money and corruption, hero, tyranny, honour, revenge, frustration	War, death, fights, world with out rules, obedience, honour, greed, nationalism, suffering, love vs. duty	Technology turning its back on humans, vision of the future, the unknown	Monsters invading the earth, exploration of unknown places, violence	Depend on the auteur
Mood	Worried, stress, dark feeling, raining, shadows, bleak, melancholic	Happy, which goes down (contrast) dark	Suspense, tension, edge of the seat, horror	Action, adventure, suspense, music	Dark, melancholic	Action, fighting, vengeance, sad, dystopian	Action, fighting, humans vs. monsters, fear, suspense	Depend on the auteur
Setting	Urban, naturalistic, isolation in the city	Houses, rich houses, urban, social events	House (haunted), isolated house graveyard	Rural, desert	Battlefields, outside, trenches, destroyed cities	Deserted places, outer space, future, spaceships	Outdoors, city, places where there are breakable things	Depend on the auteur
Other	Normally black and white Driving to change location mostly	Normally not much diversity of shots	Normally lots of special effects and loud noises	Normally they are set in the US, lots of music	Normally also refer to historical facts, lots of music	Normally high budget, lots of special effects	Normally small duration of shots, formalist, lots of music	Depend on the auteur
Example	The Big Sleep (Dir. Howard Hawkes 1946)	The Godfather (Dir. Francis Coppola 1972)	The Shining (Dir. Stanley Kubrick 1980)	The Magnificent Seven (Dir.John Stueges 1960)	Path of Glory (Dir. Stanley Kubrick 1957)	Metropolis (Dir. Fritz Lang 1927)	King Kong (Dir.Merian Cooper and Earnest Schoedsack 1933)	Rebecca (Dir. Alfred Hitchcock 1940)

GENRE BY DESCRIPTION

In an interview: David Lynch (director of Lost Highway) says, “I don’t like pictures that are one genre only, so [Lost Highway] is a combination of things. It’s a kind of horror film, a kind of thriller, but basically it’s a mystery. That’s what it is. A mystery” (David Lynch, 1997, p. xiii)

What are the problems you have found when you start to group films by using this descriptive approach – what are the strengths and weaknesses of this approach? Does this list take account of the auteur interpretation of film or film-makers such as Hitchcock? Write some notes here to explain your position.

Strength	Weaknesses
ü      Helps classify the films easier ü      Helps find a particular characteristic in a film easier ü      Helps parents control what the children see.	c        Films can be interpreted in different ways c        Films can fit in more than one genre c        By saying a film is one genre it might make some expectancies which do not meet the audiences expectancies.

No, this list does not take in to account the auteur interpretations due to putting together all the films under a genre and saying it’s similar to a lot of other films. When a film is classified as a genre you are eliminating the cast, director, editor, etc. only thinking about the main plot or only pieces of the main plot.

A brief outline of how you would film scenes from Red Riding Hood as if directed by an auteur we have looked at such as Hitchcock or Tarantino or Spielberg

Scene 1: Little red riding hood in her house with her mother. Dark scene in a cottage. Mostly the natural light, that comes through the windows (afternoon about six pm therefore not much light). Avoid showing many shots focused in LRRH face but show mothers face.

Scene 2: LRRH goes through the forest. Forest dark, permit to see mostly shadows, emphasis the movement of the trees and how LRRH disappears inside the forest.

Scene 3: LRRH meets the wolf. Show LRRH looking back because she hears a sound of branches braking, but we can’t see the wolf only a shadow but not very clear. Show facial expressions of LRRH.

Scene 4: Wolf meets grandmother. See the door open, but do not see the wolf. Cut to the grandmothers face when wolf about to appear. Grandmother screams, and then cut to when the wolf is wearing the grandmothers clothes don’t show the faces just show from the side just seeing the closed.

Scene 5: LRRH enters and sees the wolf dressed as the grandmother. Show constantly but with some other shots the LRRH face. Avoid showing the face or anything which would make the wolf identifiable

Scene 6: The hunter opens the door use low angle shots make him seem bigger. Emphasis in the shadows.