SOC 202 Lecture Notes - Lecture 11: Jacques Lacan, Film Noir, Snowpiercer
17 Jul 2016
School
Department
Course
Professor
Document Summary
The idea of a genre goes back to the ancient greeks. Studios produced one film each week per year. Studios were modeled on factories, using assembly line techniques and strict division labour: each studio had its own back lot, wardrobe department, props and contract actors, as many as 20 writers would work on a single film. Exposition: dramatic question or conflict is revealed. Climax: conflict reaches maximum tension, protagonist defeats antagonist. Familiarity: allows audiences to enjoy small variations in expected conventions. Originality: pleasure comes from how the film treats the formulaic story materials. Themes: all film genres treat some form of threat violent or otherwise - to the social order. : in genre films the social order must be restored at the end of the film. Combines the horror and science fiction genres. Genres are easily identifiable based on their iconography (complex of symbols and situations): star personas, narrative conventions, archetypal characters, settings and situations, costuming, props.
