Genre Theory

Steve Neal 

•Belief that genre is in constant flux, changing and evolving.

•Five main stages in film genre

1.The form finding itself (Pyscho)

2.The classic (Halloween)

3.Stretching the genre boundaries (Nightmare on Elm Street)

4.Parody (Scary Movie)

5.Homage (Scream)

Andre Bazin

•Introduced the idea of genre theory in films looking at Westerns in the 1950's.

•He was the first to look at the significant advantages of genre from the point

 of view of the 

institutional perspective (e.g. reuse of sets, props etc; easier to market) 

and as more than simply arbitrary: these originated at production level.  

Robert Stam

•Genre is hard to define, doesn’t really exist and is a concept made up 

by theorists and critics.

•He argues that the four main problems are: extension (the breadth or

narrowness of labels);

normativism (having preconceived ideas of criteria for genre

 membership); monolithic definitions (as if an item belonged to 

only one genre); biologism (a kind of essentialism in which genres are 

seen as evolving through a standardized life cycle). 

Bordwell

•Bordwell concludes that 'one could... argue that no set of necessary and 

sufficient conditions can mark off genres from other sorts of groupings 

in ways that all experts or ordinary film-goers would find acceptable' 

(Bordwell 1989, 147).