Movies - Cinematic genre

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	Movies - Cinematic genre

In film theory, genre refers to the primary method of film categorization. A "genre" generally refers to films that share similarities in the narrative elements from which they are constructed.

Categorizing film genres

Three main types are often used to categorize film genres; setting, mood, and format. The film's location is defined as the setting. The emotional charge carried throughout the film is known as it's mood . The film may also have been shot using particular equipment or be presented in a specific manner, or format.

Setting

Crime
- places it's character within realm of criminal activity.
Film noir
- portrays it's principal characters in a nihilistic and existentialist realm or manner
Historical - taking place in the past.
Science fiction
- placement of characters in an alternate reality, typically in the future or in space.
Sports
- sporting events and locations pertaining to a given sport.
War
- battlefields and locations pertaining to a time of war
Westerns - colonial period to modern era of the western United States

Mood

Action - generally involves a moral interplay between "good" and "bad" played out through violence or physical force.
Adventure
- involving danger, risk, and/or chance, often with a high degree of fantasy.
Comedy
- intended to provoke laughter.
Drama
- mainly focuses on character development
Fantasy
- speculative fiction outside reality (i.e. myth, legend)
Horror
- intended to provoke fear into audience
Mystery
- the progression from the unknown to the known by discovering and solving a series of clues
Romance
- dwelling on the elements of romantic love
Thrillers - intended to provoke excitement and/or nervous tension into audience

Age

Children's film
- films for young children. As opposed to a family film, no special effort is made to make the film attractive for other audiences.
Family - intended to be attractive for people of all ages and suitable for viewing by a young audience
Adult film - intended to be viewed only by an adult audience. Content may include violence, disturbing themes, obscene language, or explicit sexual behaviour. 'Adult Film' may also be used as a synonym for pornographic film.

Format

Animation - illusion of motion by consecutive display of static images which have been created by hand or on a computer
Biographical
- a biopic is a film that dramatizes the life of an actual person, with varying degrees of basis in fact.
Documentary
- a factual following of an event or person to gain an understanding of a particular point or issue.
Experimental (avant-garde) - created to test audience reaction or to expand the boundaries of film production/story exposition then generally at play.
Musical - a film interspersed with singing by all or some of the characters
Narrative - fictional film driven by the partial or total telling of the story through a "voice-over"
Short - May strive to contain many of the elements of a "full-length" feature, in a shorter time-frame

Criticisms of film genres

What genres are not

There are other methods of dividing films into groups besides genre. For example auteur critics group films according to their directors. Some groupings may be casually described as genres but this definition is questionable. For example, independent films are sometimes discussed as if they are a genre, but in fact independent production does not determine a film's storyline, and they can belong to any genre.

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