CIN240H1 Study Guide - Spring 2018, Comprehensive Midterm Notes - Cinema Of The United States, Warner Bros., Los Angeles
CIN240H1
MIDTERM EXAM
STUDY GUIDE
Fall 2018
Tuesday, May 16, 2017
CIN240H1
LECTURE 1: The Crime Film
Genre: What is a film genre?
- Genre films are commercial feature films that through repetition and variation of themes, etc.
tell familiar stories of familiar characters in certain situations (audience plays an integral
function because genres create an expectation – it is transactional)
- Crucial to establishing the system of cinema – and its commercial success
- Through the task of categorizing, there is the problem of HOW TO be either DESCRIPTIVE or
PRESCRIPTIVE
Descriptive = describes the aspects of what puts the film in the genre
- Crime film has had a foothold as a genre for decades (lasting through other film trends such as
the Western of the Musical)
- Crime Film is the category that connects Film Noir, Detective Film, etc. (although apparently,
Crime Film is not really a genre because it is a genre that encompasses many genres)
- the “problem of the crime film” → Rafter and Leitch’s books will be referenced in investigating
the “problem” as they are crucial in investigating Crime Film
- Rafter
Crime films don’t constitute a genre like Western and War films
It is an umbrella term that encompasses many smaller groupings; “boxes within boxes”
“Films that focus primarily on crime and its consequences”, although this definition
leads to problems because there is a huge volume of these types of film → thus, crime
television shows, comedies, TV movies, Westerns, Slasher/horror movies, etc. will not
be considered under this explanation
Crime Films provide an escape, participation in the pursuit of justice, the hero/criminal
narrative, watching others suffer, inspirational portrayals of the underdog, access to
places the public can’t access, the encouragement of resistance of authority and the
Criminal Justice System; provides a moral narrative through a cinematic framework,
protagonist typologies, etc.
treats the Crime Film like a genre through the argument of the DOUBLE MOVEMENT
→ happy hypocrisy - on one hand criticizing some aspect of society (Ex. police
brutality, the menace of crime) while on the other hand reinforcing order at the end, the
overhaul making further rebellion unnecessary (Ex. in Escape From Alcatraz how the
audience wants to sympathize with the prisoners and want them free as they follow their
story, but they don’t suggest challenging the prison system)
- Leitch
Crime Films = combination of the “crime” genres of film
Ex. a movie about both the gangster typology and the prison system
There are 3 problems in the Crime Film
(1) Paradox of the definition of crime
(2) Distinguishing Crime Films from Thrillers and enduring moral dilemmas
(3) The murky intersection of the Crime characters
Leads to the CONDRADICTORY DOUBLE PROJECT (like Double Movement) →
distinctions amongst the three roles of avenging JUSTICE FIGURE, VICTIM,
CRIMINAL, and exploring the relations among those three roles
The Detective (Detection and the Film Medium)
- Detective Genre & Literary Origins
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Tuesday, May 16, 2017
Detective story is a generic object
Todorov →detective fiction has norms → to develop them is to disappoint them, to
improve upon it is to write literature and not detective fiction
- Todorov – 3 TYPES OF DETECTIVE STORIES
(1) Classic Detective (Whodunnit)
Ex. Agatha Christie’s Hercule Poirot, “Sherlock Holmes”
• There are two stories – that of the crime and that of the investigation (and the first
has to happen before the second)
• The detective is always immune
• slow apprenticeship involving the examination of clue after clue, lead after lead
• the first story (the crime) tells what really happened, then the second story (the
investigation) tells how the reader came to know about it – the investigation has no
importance in itself, just serves as a mediator between the audience and the crime
• Also comparable to the distinction between story and plot → story = everything that
happened in chronological order, plot = how it is presented to us (withholding
information is part of how it is plotted
Ex. Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie is broken down into a plot of
12 parts, which makes up the story and then the first story of the crime is actually
presented right at the ends, once it has been put together through the
investigation/second story
(2) Thriller (Serie Noir)
Ex. Asphalt Jungle, heist story – not about presentation, but milieu (specific characters and
themes, etc.)
• Fuses the two types of stories from (1)
• Narrative coincides with the action, not all past events are recounted, the audience is
not even sure if the narrator will make it through to the end
• Two different forms of interest – cause to effect (suspense – what will happen next)
• Often a world of professionals, different reasons for committing crime
(3) Suspense (less of a distinction from Thriller)
• Keeps the mystery of the Whodunnit and the two-story distinction between the past
and the present, but in this case the audience is interested not only in what happened,
but in what will happen next – point of departure, main interest is derived from the
second story/the one taking place in the present
- Relation to Photography and Film
First consumer camera called “The Detective”, created by the Eastman Dryplate
Company (later Kodak) – meant for detective work
The “Shure Shot” Detective Camera (the term “Detective Camera” caught on – could
take snapshots, requires little setup, could shoot without arousing suspicion (often
disguised as packages, etc.)
By the mid-20th century, the movies maneuvered between the above three types of
detective stories that had been developed in print
Detective and the movies were a concurrent product of the 19th-century (marked by what
we now call modernity – perceptual/environmental, technology, urbanism,
infrastructure, mass production, etc.)
These stories now demanded a new rationalism
Photograph supplied a means of gaining a grad on the fugitive’s physicality
Became the first modern investigative clue
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
