The silent feature: 1910–27

The silent feature: 1910–27

Pre-World War I U.S. cinema
Multiple-reel films had appeared in the United States as early as 1907, when Adolph Zukor distributed Pathé's three-reel Passion Play; but when Vitagraph produced the five-reel The Life of Moses in 1909, the Patents Company forced it to be released in serial fashion at the rate of one reel a week. The multiple-reel film—which came to be called a “feature,” in the vaudevillian sense of a headline attraction—achieved general acceptance with the smashing success of Louis Mercanton's three-and-one-half-reel Les Amours de la Reine Elizabeth (Queen Elizabeth, 1912), which starred Sarah Bernhardt and was imported by Adolph Zukor (who founded the independent Famous Players production company with its profits). In 1912 Enrico Guazzoni's nine-reel Italian super-spectacle Quo Vadis? was road-shown in legitimate theatres across the nation at a top admission price of one dollar, and the feature craze was on.

At first, there were difficulties in distributing features, because the exchanges associated with both the Patents Company and the independents were geared toward cheaply made one-reel shorts. Owing to their more elaborate production values, features had relatively higher negative costs. This was a disadvantage to distributors, who charged a uniform price per foot. By 1914, however, several national feature-distribution alliances that correlated pricing with a film's negative cost and box-office receipts were organized. These new exchanges demonstrated the economic advantage of multiple-reel films over shorts. Exhibitors quickly learned that features could command higher admission prices and longer runs; single title packages were also cheaper and easier to advertise than programs of multiple titles. As for manufacturing, producers found that the higher expenditure for features was readily amortized by high volume sales to distributors, who in turn were eager to share in the higher admission returns from the theatres. The whole industry soon reorganized itself around the economics of the multiple-reel film, and the effects of this restructuring did much to give motion pictures their characteristic modern form.

Feature films, for example, made motion pictures respectable for the middle class by providing a format that was analogous to that of the legitimate theatre and was suitable for the adaptation of middle-class novels and plays. This new audience had more demanding standards than the older lower-class one, and producers readily increased their budgets to provide high technical quality and elaborate productions. The new viewers also had a more refined sense of comfort, which exhibitors quickly accommodated by replacing their storefronts with large, elegantly appointed new theatres in the major urban centres (one of the first was Mitchell L. Marks's 3,300-seat Strand, which opened in the Broadway district of Manhattan in 1914). Known as “dream palaces” because of the fantastic luxuriance of their interiors, these houses had to show features rather than a program of shorts to attract large audiences at premium prices. By 1916 there were more than 21,000 movie palaces in the United States. Their advent marked the end of the nickelodeon era and foretold the rise of the Hollywood studio system, which dominated urban exhibition from the 1920s to the 1950s. Before the new studio-based monopoly could be established, however, the patents-based monopoly of the MPPC had to expire, and this it did as a result of its own basic assumptions in about 1914.

As conceived by Edison, the basic operating principle of the Trust was to control the industry through patents pooling and licensing, an idea logical enough in theory but difficult to practice in the context of a dynamically changing marketplace. Specifically, the Trust's failure to anticipate the independents' widespread and aggressive resistance to its policies cost it a fortune in patent-infringement litigation. Furthermore, the Trust badly underestimated the importance of the feature film, permitting the independents to claim this popular new product as entirely their own. Another issue that the MPPC misjudged was the power of the marketing strategy known as the “star system.” Borrowed from the theatre industry, this system involves the creation and management of publicity about key performers, or stars, to stimulate demand for their films. Trust company producers used this kind of publicity after 1910, when Carl Laemmle of Independent Motion Pictures (IMP) promoted Florence Lawrence into national stardom through a series of media stunts in St. Louis, Mo., but they never exploited the technique as forcefully or as imaginatively as the independents. Finally, and most decisively, in August 1912 the U.S. Justice Department brought suit against the MPPC for “restraint of trade” in violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act. Delayed by countersuits and by World War I, the government's case was finally won and the MPPC formally dissolved in 1918, although it had been functionally inoperative since 1914.

The rise and fall of the Patents Company was concurrent with the industry's move to southern California. As a result of the nickelodeon boom, exhibitors had begun to require as many as 20 to 30 new films per week, and it became necessary to put production on a systematic year-round schedule. Because most films were still shot outdoors in available light, such schedules could not be maintained in the vicinity of New York City or Chicago, where the industry had originally located itself in order to take advantage of trained theatrical labour pools. As early as 1907, production companies, such as Selig Polyscope, began to dispatch production units to warmer climates during winter. It was soon clear that what producers required was a new industrial centre—one with warm weather, a temperate climate, a variety of scenery, and other qualities (such as access to acting talent) essential to their highly unconventional form of manufacturing.

Various companies experimented with location shooting in Jacksonville, Fla., in San Antonio, Texas, in Santa Fe, N.M., and even in Cuba, but the ultimate site of the American film industry was a Los Angeles suburb (originally a small industrial town) called Hollywood. It is generally thought that Hollywood's distance from the MPPC's headquarters in New York City made it attractive to the independents, but Patents Company members such as Selig, Kalem, Biograph, and Essanay had also established facilities there by 1911 in response to a number of the region's attractions. These included the temperate climate required for year-round production (the U.S. Weather Bureau estimated that an average of 320 days per year were sunny and/or clear); a wide range of topography within a 50-mile radius of Hollywood, including mountains, valleys, forests, lakes, islands, seacoast, and desert; the status of Los Angeles as a professional theatrical centre; the existence of a low tax base; and the presence of cheap and plentiful labour and land. This latter factor enabled the newly arrived production companies to buy up tens of thousands of acres of prime real estate on which to locate their studios, standing sets, and backlots.

By 1915 approximately 15,000 workers were employed by the motion-picture industry in Hollywood, and more than 60 percent of American production was centred there. In that same year, the trade journal Variety reported that capital investment in American motion pictures—the business of artisanal craftsmen and fairground operators only a decade before—had exceeded $500,000,000. The most powerful companies in the new film capital were the independents, who were flush with cash from their conversion to feature production. These included the Famous Players-Lasky Corporation (later Paramount Pictures, c. 1927), which was formed by a merger of Adolph Zukor's Famous Players Company, Jesse L. Lasky's Feature Play Company, and the Paramount distribution exchange in 1916; Universal Pictures, founded by Carl Laemmle in 1912 by merging IMP with Powers, Rex, Nestor, Champion, and Bison; Goldwyn Picture Corporation, founded in 1916 by Samuel Goldfish (later Goldwyn) and Edgar Selwyn; Metro Picture Corporation and Louis B. Mayer Pictures, founded by Louis B. Mayer in 1915 and 1917, respectively; and the Fox Film Corporation (later 20th Century-Fox, 1935), founded by William Fox in 1915. After World War I, these companies were joined by Loew's, Inc. (parent corporation of MGM, by merger of Metro, Goldwyn, and Mayer companies cited above, 1924), a national exhibition chain organized by Marcus Loew and Nicholas Schenck in 1919; First National Pictures, Inc., a circuit of independent exhibitors who established their own production facilities at Burbank, Calif., in 1922; Warner Bros. Pictures, Inc., founded by Harry, Albert, Samuel, and Jack Warner in 1923; and Columbia Pictures, Inc., incorporated in 1924 by Harry and Jack Cohn.

These organizations became the backbone of the Hollywood studio system, and the men who controlled them shared several important traits. They were all independent exhibitors and distributors who had outwitted the Trust and earned their success by manipulating finances in the post-nickelodeon feature boom, merging production companies, organizing national distribution networks, and ultimately acquiring vast theatre chains. They saw their business as basically a retailing operation modeled on the practice of chain stores such as Woolworth's and Sears. Not incidentally, these men were all first- or second-generation Jewish immigrants from eastern Europe, most of them with little formal education, while the audience they served was 90 percent Protestant and Catholic. This circumstance would become an issue during the 1920s, when the movies became a mass medium that was part of the life of every American citizen and when Hollywood became the chief purveyor of American culture to the world.

Pre-World War I European cinema
Before World War I European cinema was dominated by France and Italy. At Pathé Frères, director-general Ferdinand Zecca perfected the course comique, a uniquely Gallic version of the chase film, which inspired Mack Sennett's Keystone Kops, while the immensely popular Max Linder created a comic persona that would deeply influence the work of Charlie Chaplin. The episodic crime film was pioneered by Victorin Jasset in the “Nick Carter” series, produced for the small Éclair Company, but it remained for Gaumont's Louis Feuillade to bring the genre to aesthetic perfection in the extremely successful serials Fantômas (1913–14), Les Vampires (1915–16), and Judex (1916).

Another influential phenomenon to appear from prewar France was the film d'art movement. It began with L'Assassinat du duc de Guise (1908), directed by Charles Le Bargy and André Calmettes of the Comédie Française for the Société Film d'Art, which was formed for the express purpose of transferring prestigious stage plays starring famous performers to the screen. L'Assassinat's success inspired other companies to make similar films, which came to be known as films d'art. These films were long on intellectual pedigree and short on narrative sophistication. The directors simply filmed theatrical productions in toto, without adaptation. Their brief popularity nevertheless created a context for the lengthy treatment of serious material in motion pictures and was directly instrumental in the rise of the feature.

No country, however, was more responsible for the popularity of the feature than Italy. The Italian cinema's lavishly produced costume spectacles brought it international prominence in the years before the war. The prototypes of the genre, by virtue of their epic material and lengths, were the Cines company's six-reel Gli ultimi giorni di Pompei (The Last Days of Pompei), directed by Luigi Maggi in 1908, and its 10-reel remake, directed by Ernesto Pasquali in 1913; but it was Cines' nine-reel Quo vadis? (1912), with its huge three-dimensional sets of ancient Rome and 5,000 extras, that established the standard for the super-spectacle and briefly conquered the world market for Italian motion pictures. Its successor, the Italia company's 12-reel Cabiria (1914), was even more extravagant in its historical reconstruction of the Second Punic War, from the burning of the Roman fleet at Syracuse to Hannibal crossing the Alps and the sack of Carthage. The Italian superspectacle stimulated public demand for features and influenced such important directors as Cecil B. deMille, Ernst Lubitsch, and especially D.W. Griffith.

Satyajit Ray

Satyajit Ray

Satyajit Ray was India's first internationally recognized film-maker and, several years after his death, still remains the most well-known Indian director on the world stage. Ray has written that he became captivated by the cinema as a young college student, and he was self-taught, his film education consisting largely of repeated viewings of film classics by de Sica, Fellini, John Ford, Orson Welles, and other eminent directors. With the release in 1955 of his first film Pather Panchali ("Song of the Road"), whose financing presented Ray with immense monetary problems, compelling him even to pawn his wife’s jewelry, he brought the neo-realist movement in film to India. Little could anyone have imagined that this first film would launch Ray on one of the most brilliant careers in the history of cinema, leading eventually not only to dozens of international awards, India’s highest honor, and a lifetime achievement Oscar from Hollywood, but the unusual accolade of being voted by members of the British Film Institute as one of the three greatest directors in world cinema.

Satyajit Ray was born into an illustrious family in Calcutta in 1921. His grandfather, Upendra Kishore Ray-Chaudhary, was a publisher, musician and the creator of children’s literature in Bengali. His father, Sukumar Ray, was a noted satirist and India's first writer of nonsense rhymes, akin to the nonsense verse of Edward Lear. Later in life, Satyajit Ray made a documentary of his father's life. His film, Goopy Gyne Bagha Byne, was based on a story published by his grandfather in 1914, but even other films, such as Hirok Rajah Deshe, "The Kingdom of Diamonds", clearly drew upon his interest in children’s poetry and nonsense rhymes.

Pather Panchali, based on a novel by Bibhutibhusan Banerji [Bandopadhyay], documents a family's struggle for existence in the face of a famine and the growth of the boy Apu. Ray later wrote, "I chose Pather Panchali for the qualities that made it a great book; its humanism; its lyricism; and its ring of truth . . . . The script had to retain some of the rambling quality of the novel because that in itself contained a clue to the feel of authenticity; life in a poor Bengali village does ramble." Ray went on to make two more movies on Apu (Aparajito in 1957, followed by Apur Sansar in 1960) to complete his famous Apu trilogy, though he had no thoughts of a trilogy when he embarked on the first film. The latter two movies trace the life of a young man [Apu] in Calcutta, his early marriage to a village girl, his conflict with his father, and their final reconciliation. Contemporaneous with these films were two staggering films, Devi ("The Goddess") and Jalsaghar ("The Music Room"), on the ways of the landed aristocracy in Bengal and its decline. In Devi, an elderly man has a vision that his young daughter-in-law is a goddess, and she is compelled to bear the burden of divinity; when her husband returns home from a trip, he finds his wife installed as a deity. The zeal with which a zamindar pursued his passion for music, though his estate lay crumbling around him, was the subject of Jalsaghar.

Ray's later films treated more contemporary themes like the new urban culture (Nayak in 1966, Pratidwandi in 1970, Seemabaddha in 1971, Jana Aranya in 1975). With his film Shatranj Ke Khiladi ("The Chess Players", 1977), based on a short story by the famous Hindi writer Premchand, Ray broke new ground. Here he ventured into the terrain of mid-nineteenth century India, the expansion of British rule, and what (to use a cliché) might be termed the ‘clash of cultures’. This film made brilliant use of color, animation, and narration; it was also Ray’s maiden attempt at making a non-Bengali feature film. (His only other film in Hindi was Sadgati, produced for Indian television.) To a small extent, Shatranj Ke Khiladi drew him to the attention of the mainstream Indian film-going audience. After Shatranj Ke Khiladi, he returned to themes set in his native state of Bengal, though in Ghare Bhaire ("The Home and the World"), inspired by Tagore’s novel of the same name, Ray returned in part to the theme of British colonial rule. Ray's films were characterized by a low budget, outdoor or locating shooting, authentic settings, detailed historical research, and a superb cast of actors and actresses who rose to eminent distinction under Ray’s direction. The greatest names in Bengali cinema worked for Ray, and Soumitra Chatterji, who appeared in half of Ray’s films, has himself recently been the subject of a long documentary film. Few of his films were commercially successful, and the greater majority were never screened outside Bengal, except at international festivals, in film clubs, and in Bangladesh. The movie he created for children, Goopy Gyne Bagha Byne, was his first market success and soon gained a cult following in Bengal. Ray himself never showed much interest in the popular Hindi cinema.

Satyajit Ray remained a strong presence on the Bengali cultural scene all throughout his life. In 1947 he had founded the Calcutta Film Society with Chidananda Das Gupta. Though in the West he is known only as a film-maker, his reputation in his native Bengal extends to a great many other spheres. Ray was a prolific short story writer, with over a dozen volumes to his credit; and he contributed regularly to the children's journal "Sandesh", which he also edited. The exploits of his fictional character Feluda, first introduced in a series of detective stories, were avidly followed by the public, and the much-beloved Feluda was later featured in a couple of his movies. Ray, who had first worked in the advertising industry, was a major graphic designer, and designed hundreds of book jackets; he also illustrated his own books, besides those of many others. He virtually pioneered, in the Indian context, the genre of science fiction stories, and it is alleged that the script for Steven Speilberg’s immensely successful E.T. was based, though unacknowledged by Speilberg, on a script that Ray had sent to him many years ago. Ray wrote a number of essays on film, some of them collected in a volume entitled Our Films, Their Films, and his films were based on the most meticulous research. He can, not unreasonably, be considered as having chronicled phases of Bengal's history from the late nineteenth century onwards, the life of urban Calcutta, and the rural landscapes of Bengal. It is also remarkable that Ray did much of the work for his own films – the screenplays were almost invariably his own, and he personally supervised, though assisted by an extraordinary crew, virtually every detail of lighting, art direction, and so on. He scored the music for some of his films (though the music for the Apu Trilogy was composed by Ravi Shankar, and for Jalsaghar by the incomparable Vilayat Khan). Not surprisingly, then, his fellow Bengalis at least thought of him as a "Renaissance Man", and he was hailed as the successor of Rabindranath Tagore.

As Ray moved from one critical success to another, championed by film critics overseas, and showered with awards at Venice, Cannes, Locarno, and Berlin, it became habitual to look upon him as the great hope of Indian cinema. His films were closely studied in film schools, and watched repeatedly by hopeful film-makers. Prominent Indian directors such as Kumar Shahani, Mani Kaul, Adoor Gopalakrishnan, and Shyam Benegal clearly showed the influence of Ray in their work. Yet he was the subject of some intense criticism. In Bengal, particularly in Calcutta, where no respectable intellectual could be other than a Marxist, Ray was charged with being a supreme representative of bourgeois culture. He had himself likened his films to the symphonies of Mozart. It is not merely the case that he had, as some people thought, a disdain for popular culture, since the Marxist aficionados of cinema were themselves not particularly fond of commercial cinema. Their hero was, and remains, Ritwik Ghatak, who made a handful of films, and was the cinematic poet of the partition; and similarly in the work of Mrinal Sen they found a director who was thought to be politically more sensitive. The 1960s and 1970s were a period of great political turmoil, and Ray was accused, as his friend Chidananda Dasgupta has written, of not showing a greater concern for the "Calcutta of the burning trains, communal riots, refugees, unemployment, rising prices and food shortages". No one would have known from Ray’s films that Bengal was the seat of an armed insurrectionary movement. On the other hand, films such as Jalsaghar, with its seemingly loving portrait of a zamindar who was the last specimen of a noble class of people who lived for music and displayed a refined aesthetic sensibility, seemed utterly reactionary.

Some of the earlier criticisms of Ray’s films, however, now seem misplaced and premature. It is now easier to recognize his films as politically nuanced, and Ray never made the mistake of embracing unabashedly the nationalist interpretation of Indian history. Ray tackled the difficult subject of the Bengal famine of 1943, for instance, with great sensitivity, and no one who has viewed Mahanagar or Pratidwandi can describe him as indifferent to the problems and even parodies of urban existence in modern India. But his films lend themselves to another sort of criticism. Ray’s limitations were the limitations, so to speak, of the trajectory of Bengali modernity which he rather unreflectively accepted. He had a tendency, evident as much in an early film like Devi (1960) as in Ganashatru ("An Enemy of the People", after Ibsen’s play of the same title), completed nearly thirty years later, to oppose modernity to tradition, rationality to superstition, and science to faith – and all this in an embarrassingly simplistic fashion, at least on occasion. Ray was unequivocally clear that he stood for science and modernity, and consequently he was incapable, as Ganashatru amply showed, of showing tradition as anything but superstition. Ray belongs to the great tradition of humanism, doubtless ennobling but, in some respects, acutely shortsighted.

Partial Filmography:
Pather Panchali ("Song of the Road", 1955)
Aparijito ("The Unvanquished", 1956)
Paras Pathar ("The Philosopher’s Stone", 1957)
Jalsaghar ("The Music Room", 1958)
Apur Sansar ("The World of Apu", 1960)
Devi ("The Goddess", 1960)
Rabindranath Tagore (documentary, 1961)
Teen Kanya ("Three Daughters", 1961)
Kanchenjunga (1962)
Abhijan
Mahanagar ("The Big City", 1963)
Charulata (1964)
Kapurush-0-Mahapurush ("The Coward and the Holy Man", 1965)
Nayak ("The Hero", 1966)
Chiriakhana (1967)
Goopy Gyne Bagha Byne (1968)
Aranyer Din Ratri ("Days and Nights in the Forest", 1969)
Pratidwandi ("The Adversary", 1970)
Sonar Kela (1975)
Shatranj Ke Khiladi ("The Chess Players", 1977)
Shakha Proshakha (1990)
Agantuk ("The Stranger", 1991)

Further Reading:
Dasgupta, Chidananda. The Cinema of Satyajit Ray. New Delhi: Vikas, 1980.

Hannan, David. "Patriarchal Discourse in some early films of Satyajit Ray." Deep Focus 3, no. 1 (1990):30-57.

Lal, Vinay. "Masculinity and Femininity in The Chess Players: Sexual Moves, Colonial Manoeuvres, and an Indian Game", in Manushi: A Journal of Women and Society, nos. 92-93 (Jan.-April 1996):41-50.

Nandy, Ashis. "Satyajit Ray’s Secret Guide to Exquisite Murders: Creativity, Social Criticism, and the Partitioning of the Self", in his The Savage Frued and Other Essays on Possible and Retrievable Selves (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1995), pp. 237-266.

Ray, Satyajit. The Apu Trilogy: Pather Panchali, Aparajito, Apur Sansar. [Film scripts] Calcutta: Seagull Books, 1985.

Seton, Marie. Portrait of a Director: Satyajit Ray. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1971.

Wood, Robin. The Apu Trilogy. New York: Praeger, 1971.

Montage

Montage

In motion pictures, the editing technique of assembling separate pieces of thematically related film and putting them together into a sequence. With montage, portions of motion pictures can be carefully built up piece by piece by the director, film editor, and visual and sound technicians, who cut and fit each part with the others.

Visual montage may combine shots to tell a story chronologically or may juxtapose images to produce an impression or to illustrate an association of ideas. An example of the latter occurs in Strike (1924), by the Russian director Sergey Eisenstein, when the scene of workers being cut down by cavalry is followed by a shot of cattle being slaughtered.

Montage may also be applied to the combination of sounds for artistic expression. Dialogue, music, and sound effects may be combined in complex patterns, as in Alfred Hitchcock's Blackmail (1929), in which the word knife is repeated in the thoughts of a frightened girl who believes she has committed murder.

Montage technique developed early in cinema, primarily through the work of the American directors Edwin S. Porter (1870–1941) and D.W. Griffith (1875–1948). It is, however, most commonly associated with the Russian editing techniques, particularly as introduced to American audiences through the montage sequences of Slavko Verkapich in films in the 1930s.

The Firsts of Indian Cinema

The Firsts of Indian Cinema
Milestones from 1896-2000

Though film production commenced in India in 1913, it is necessary to record the progress of the film business from 1896, the historical year when Lumiere Bros' films were exhibited at Watson Hotel in Mumbai. This was the forerunner of the film industry in India; as it held many future technicians spellbound, and went on to encourage the making of the motion picture in India.
1896

First Cinema Show
The first Cinema show in India was arranged by the agents of two French brothers, Louis and August Lumiere, pioneers of the Cinematography in France, at the Watson Hotel in Bombay on July 7, 1896 and the show was Marvel of the Century.

First Cinema Advertisement
The first cinema advertisement in India appeared in the Times of India, Bombay on July 7, 1896, which carried details of the “Living Photographic pictures in life-size reproductions by Messrs Lumiere Brotheres.

1897
First Indian to handle a cine camera
Harishchandra Sakharam Bhatvadekar alias Save Dada was the first Indian to import a Cine-camera from London at a price of 21 guineas and made a topical in 1897. He filmed a wrestling bout between Pundalik and Krishna Nhavi, which was specially arranged at the Hanging Gardens in Bombay.

1898
First Bioscope
Prof. Stevenson brings “first Bioscope” to Calcutta at the Star Theatre. “Panorama of Calcutta”- an early Indian coverage by foreign cameramen.

1899
Harishchandra Sakharam Bhatvadekar ( Save Dada), a photo goods dealer, turns exhibitor and film maker.

1901
First Indian Film
“Return of Wrangler Paranjapee”- first Indian Actually Film shot by Bhatvadekar. Haralal Sen stars working in Bengal by filming extracts from stage-plays.

1902
J.F. Madan (1856-1926) launches his bioscope show in a tent at Calcutta Maidan.

1904
First Cinema show on regular basis
Manek D Sethna, who owned a cinema project, started a touring cinema with the screening of the first film “ Life of Christ” on a regular basis in Bombay in 1904. Abdulally Essofally, enterprising showman, makes the masses movie-conscious, takes up exhibition as a regular business proposition.

1907
First Cinema
The First Cinema hall in India as built by J.F. Madan in Calcutta in 1907 and it was named Elphinstone Picture Palace.

1911
First Mini Feature Film
After filming the Imperial Darbar of 1911, three business partners S.N. Patankar Anantram Parshuram Karandikar and V.P. Divekar who had earlier purchased the cine camera from Save Dada, produced the first mini-feature film (about 1,000 feet) “Savitri” in 1912. Narmada Mande, a young lady from Ahmedabad, K G Gokhale and divekar himself featured in the leading roles of the film, which could not see the screen due to several technical reasons and flaws.

First Theatrical film
Shreepad Sangit Mandali, a professional theatre group of Bombay, was performing a theatre play “pundalik” during 1911 in Bombay. Narayan Govind Chitre alias Nana Bhai Chita of India Press, Bombay sought help from R.P. Tipnis, Manager of Corontion Cinematograph, and decided to picturise the stageplay Pundalik. They took R.G. Torney alias Dada Saheb Torney, along with them to direct the proposed film. M/s Bourne and Shepherd, a British concern, took keen interest in the venture and joined hands with the promoters by providing them a cameraman, Johnson to shoot the film at Mangaldas Wadi in Bombay. The film also named “PUNDALIK” was exhibited on May 18, 1912 at Coronation Cinematography, Bombay.

1912
First Foreign-Returned Indian Cine-Technician
Dadasaheb Phalke was the first foreign returned Indian cine- technician who learned filmcraft from Cecil Hepworth, a prominent producer at Walton in England, for about a week in February 1912, March 1912.

First City of Film Production
Bombay was the first city in India where film production started in 1912

1913
First Indian feature film
RAJA HARISHCHANDRA was the first Indian feature film produced by an Indian, with out any foreign collaboration, Dadasaheb Phalke in 1912. The film was however released on May 3, 1913 at Coronation Cinematograph, Bombay.

First Producer
Dadasaheb Phalke, who released his first film RAJA HARISHCHANDRA ON May 3, 1913, was the first film producer of India.

First “Heroine” of Indian Film
The first heroine for Indian film was not a female but a young boy. Salunke, who acted as Taramati in India's first feature film “Raja Harishchandra”.

First Female Heroine
Kamala, a Maharashtrian lady, was the first female heroine in an Indian film with her lead role in Dadasaheb Phalke's second film “Bhasmasur Mohini” produced in 1913. Kamala's mother Durgabai also featured in the film.

First Hero
Dattatraya Damodar Dabke was the first hero of an Indian film. He acted as Harishchandra in “Raja Harishchandra” in 1913.

First Artiste playing as both hero & heroine
Salunke, acted as both Ram and Seeta, In Phalke's fifth film” Lanka Dahan” produced in 1917.

First Technician
Dadasaheb Phalke was not only the film producer but also the first director, writer, cameraman, make-up man, editor, art director and cine-laboratorian, with his first film “Raja Harishchandra”.

1914
First Indian feature film shown Abroad
“Raja Harishcnadra” was the first Indian Film which was shown on percentage basis in London in 1914.

1917
First feature film from Bengal
J.F. Madan produced Bengal first, feature film “Nal Damyanti” in 1917. This film had two Italians, namely, Signor and Signora Manelli in the leading roles. A new actress Patience Cooper was also introduced in the film. The film was photographed by cameraman Jyotish Sarkar.

1918
First Act to regulate cinema
The first Act which regulated and controlled the Indian film industry was enacted in 1918 and it was known as Indian Cinematograph Act 1918.

First Indian Serial
S. N. Patankar's “Exile of Shri Rama” was the first Indian Serial.

First Hollywood-trained Indian
Suchet Singh was the first Hollywood-trained Indian who had taken training in cinema technique in America and had worked as an associated under Charlie Chaplin in 1918. He returned by the end of 1918 and formed the Oriental Film Manufacturing Company Ltd. which produced its maiden film “shakuntala” in 1920.

1919
First silent feature film from South India
R. Nataraja Mudaliar of Madras made “ Keechaka Vadham” the first silent feature film from South India.

First Female Child Star
Manadakini, daughter of Dadasaheb Phalke, was the first female child star, who featured as the child Krishna in Phalke's “Kaliya Mardan” produced by Hindustan cinema Film Company in 1919.

First Indian Made Cine-Camera
Anandrao Painter of Kolhapur was the first Indian to make a cine-camera with the help of an old cine-projector and he shot a comic film around 1918. After his death, his brother Baburao Painter produced his first film “Sairandhiri” under the banner of Maharashtra Film Company in 1919 with the help of this Indian camera.

First Film Distributor
Dadasaheb Phalke was distributing his films himself. But this business was first handled in a proper manner by R. G. Torney in 1919 under the name and style of M/s Western Movies.

First title bestowed upon any film personality
Baburao Painter was the first film personality who was bestowed with the title of Cinema Kesari by Lokmanya Tilak in 1919 after seeing his silent film “Sairandhri” produced by Maharashtra Film Company.

1920
First Cinema Poster
Baburao Painter was the first man to advertise his film “Vatsala Haran” through cinema posters as a publicity campaign in 1920.

First Film Censor Board
For the first time Boards of Film Censors were set up in Bombay, Calcutta, Madras and Rangoon in 1920 and later on at Lahore in 1927.

1921
First feature film from South
The first feature film produced in South India was “Bhishma Pratigna” produced by R. Venkiah and R. Prakash of Stars of the East Film Company, Madras in 1921.

First Social Satire
Dhiren Ganguly made “ England Returned”, the first social satire on an Indian obsessed with Western ideas, “Vali Thirumanam” made in Madras by Whittakar, is critically ac claimed and is also a box-office success.

First Artificial Lights
Baburao Painter was the first man in India to use artifical lights while making his film “Sinhagad” in 1921.

1922
First Levy of Entertainment Tax
The first levy of Entertainment Tax was o,[psed om Nemga; om 1922 and later on in Bombay in 1923 at 12 -1/2 percent.

1926
First Lady Director
The first lady director in India was Begum Fatima Sultana (wife of the Nawab of Sachien State), mother of Princess, Zubeida, star of “Alam Ara”. Begum Fatima not only acted but produced and directed several silent films including “Bulbule Paristan” “Goddess of Luck”, “Chandravati” and Milan Dinar”

First Cinema Trade Organisation
The Bombay Cinema and Theatres Trade Association, formed around 1926, was the first cinema trade organization in India. After sometime the Indian Motion Picture Association was also formed in Bombay. The Madras Cinema and Theatre League was formed in Madras in 1929. However, actual trade activities started only after the formation of the Motion Picture Society of India in Bombay in June 1932

1927
First Independent Film Processing Laboratory
The first Independent Film Processing laboratory was setup by Narayanrao Alias Dhanjibhai K. Desai in Bombay in October 1927. It was known as Atmanand Labortory.

First Indian Cinematograph Enquiry Committee
The Govt. of India appointed the first Indian Cinematograph Enquiry Committee on 6 th October 1927. The Indian Cinematograph Committee, set up under the Chairmanship of Dewan Bahudar T. Rangachariar; J.C. Daniel makes first Malayalam film “Vigada Kumaran” “Exceptional Young Man”.

First Double Role
Master Vithal was the first actor who portrayed a double role in a feature film “Prisoner of Love” produced by Sharda Film Company in 1927. The company owned by Nanubhai Desai and Bhogilal K.M. Dave, was founded in 1925.

1929
First Talkies Short Production in India
J.F. Madan and J.J. Madan of Madan Theates Ltd., Calcutta had received their sound equipment from America and they started producing as well as exhibiting sound films in India. They released a two reeler sound film in their talkies cinema, Elphinstone Picture Palace, Calcutta, in 1929.

First Talkie Feature Film Shown in India
The first Talkie Feature film shown in India was Universal's “Melody of Love” in English, which celebrated its premiere at Elphinstone Picture Palace in Calcutta in 1929.

1931
First Talkie Shorts released in Bombay
Some talkie shorts produced by Madan Theatres Ltd. , Calcutta and Krishan Film Company, Bombay; were released for the first time in the Lamingrone and Empress Cinemas in Bombay on February 4, 1931.

First Indian Talkie feature film
The first full length talkie feature film produced in India was “ ALAMARA ” Light of the World in Hindustani, produced by Ardeshir M. Irani of Imperial Film Company, Bombay. It was released at the Majestic Cinema, Bombay, on March 14, 1931.

First Talkie from Bengal
The first talkie film from Bengal was “ JAMAI SASTHI ” in Bengali produced by Madan Theatres Ltd. in 1931.

First Tamil Talkie
Sagar Movietone's “ KALIDASS ” was the first Tamil feature film starring T.P. Rajalakshmi and directed by H.M. Reddi. The film with Tamil dialogue and Telugu songs was released in Madras on October 31, 1931.

First Talkie Film Distributor
Talkie film distribution came into existence with the advent of talkie film in 1931. Sagar Movietone, founded by Chimanlal Desai, stated the business of distribution by taking the distribution of India's first Talkies “ALAM ARA ” in 1931.

First Song
“De de khuda ke naam par” was the first song recorded for “Alam Ara” in 1931. it was sung by W.M. Khan under the music direction of Phiroz Shah.

First Music Director
Phiroz Shah Mistry was the first music director of the talkie film “Alam Ara”.

First Advertising Film Company
Niranjan Pal of Publicity/Drammatic Film Co. (1931) was the first Indian to introduce the advertising film production and business in India in 1931.

1932
First Talkie film from Punjab
“ HEER RANJAH ” in Hindi was the first talkie feature film from Punjab. It was produced by Hakim Ram Prasad on Play Art Photophone Company in 1932. This talkie film was censored by the Punjab Board.

First Marathi Film
Prabhat Film Company's “AYODHECHA RAJA” Directed by V.Shantaram in 1932 was the first Marathi film which starred Durga Khote.

First Double Version talkie
“AYODHYECHA RAJA” in Marathi and “Ayodhya Ka Raja” in Hindi were the first double version talkie films produced by Prabhat Film Company in 1932.

First Talkie which celebrated Silver Jubliee
“SHYAMSUNDER” in Marathi, produced by Dadasaheb Torne of Saraswati Cinetone and directed by Bhal G. Pendarkar was the first Indian talkie which celebrated silver jubilee by running for 27 weeks at the West End Cinema in Bombay in 1932.

First Talkie Film on Fidelytone Sound System
Eastern Film's “Shikari” in Hindi was the first talkie film with sound recorded on the Fidelytone Sound System brought into India by a foreign film unit in1932.

First Film With Maximum Songs
Madan Theatres “Indra Sabha” in 1932 is the only film produced so far with a record number of 71 songs. Madan's other three films “ CHATRABAKAVALI ”, “Guru Zarina” and “Bilwamangal” Produced in 1932 had 41, 37 songs respectively, Meenakshi Cinetone's “Pavalakkodi”, produced in 1934, had 50 songs while Angle Film's Tamil hit “Sri Hrishna Leela” in 1934 had 62 songs.

First Film With Background Music
New Theatre's “Chandidas” in Bengali was the first talkie film in which “Background” music was scored by music director R.C. Boral in 1932. Prabhat Film Company's “Amrit Manthan” released at almost the same time also had imaginative background music scored by music director Keshavrao Bhole.

1933
First Air-Conditioned Cinema
First air-conditioned cinema Regal started in Bombay.

First Colour Film
Prabhat Film Company's “Sairandhri” was the first talkie film produced in Multicolour in 1933. However, as the colour quality was not satisfactory Imperial Film Company's “KISAN KANYA ” produced in 1937 is considered as the first colour film. Minerva Movietone's “Jhansi Ki Rani” was the first technically perfect Technicolour film directly shot on 35mm in 1953.

First Film shot in Ellora Caves
Gandharva Cinetone was, the first film company to utilize the famous Ellora Caves in their talkie film “Sati Mahananda” in 1933, written and directed by Baburao Patel.

First Talkie released in England
“Karma” (Fate) in which Devika Rani co-starred with Himansu Rai was an Anglo-Indian co-production and had a premiere of its English version in London in May 1933. The Hindi version of the film was premiered at Bombay on January 27, 1934.

1934
First Talkie shown at Venice Film Festival
The Bengali talkie film “Seeta”, directed by Debaki Bose, was the first Indian talkie film shown at the Venice Film Festival in 1934

First Talkie Produced in South
“Srinivas Kalyanam” in Tamil was the first talkie produced in the South by Srinivas Cinetone and directed by A.Narayanan in Madras in 1934. It featured R.B. Lakshmi Devi in the main role.

First Telugu Film from South
The first Telugu talkie produced by South Indian Technicians entirely in the South, in Madras, was “Seetha Kalyanam” produced by P.V. Das at the Vel Pictures Studio. Starring Rama Tilakam in the main role in 1934.

First Cartoon Film
For the first time a cartoon short was made by Messrs. Ketkar and Raosaheb Oak in 1933. Prabhat Film Company also announced a cartoon film “Jambu Kaka” but on hearing this news R.C. Boral of New Theatres started his own Cartoon film “ON A MOONLIGHT NIGHT” and completed it within one month and released it even before the completion of “Jambu Kaka”. However, “Jambu Kaka” was released at the Majestic Cinema, Bombay, on November 15, 1934 along with “Amrit Manthan”.

First Hindi Talkie to celebrate Silver Jubilee
Prabhat Film company's “Amirt Manthan” was the first talkie in Hindi which celebrated Silver Jubilee at Krishna Talkies, Bombay, by running for 29 weeks at a stretch in 1934.

1935
First Playback
Playback's was introduced in the talkie “ Bhagya Chakra” (Dhoop Chaon) produced by New Theatres in 1935 and Bombay talkie ‘Milan' B/W. Music Director R.C. Boralhad composed the music for the film.

First All India Motion Picture Convention
The first All India Motion Picture convention was held in Bombay on February 20, 1935 under the auspices of the Motion Picture Society of India headed by Mr. B.V. Jadhav.

The Parsi Panchayat took strong objection to Parsi Music Director Saraswati Devi and Chandraprabha (known as Homi Sisters) who acted in JAWANI KI HAWA . Morchas were taken out to prevent the release of the film which finally opened at Imperial Cinema under Police Protection. Parsi members of Bombay Talkies, Board of Directors including Sir Phirozshah Mehta, Sir Cavasji Jehangir & F.E. Dinshaw refused to resign. Thereafter the agitation died down. Bombay Talkies arranged a special show for Pt. Jawaharlal Nehru to see their film ACHHUT KANYA .

1937
First Kannada-Tamil Double Version Film
The first talkie film produced simultaneously in two versions, in Kannada and Tamil, was “PURANDARDAS” by Devi Films in 1937.

First Film without Any Song
Wadia Movietone's “ Naujawan” was the first talkie without any song produced in 1937.

First Colour Film Laboratory
K.B. Ardeshir M Irani of Imperial Film Company established a colour film laboratory for the first time in India in 1937. Imperia's “Kisan Kanya” was the first cine colour film from this laboratory.

IMPPA Formed
Formation of Indian Motion Picture Producers” Association in Bombay

“CHITAMANI” (Tamil), directed by Y.V. Rao and starring M.K. Thilagaraja Bhagavathar and K. Aswathama (13 th March), creates a record for continuous run for more than one year in one cinema house alone.

Debaki Bose gives lyrical and philosophical treatment to the life of a Vaishnative poet in New Theatres ‘ VIDYAPATI'.

1938
First Malayalam Talkie
The first talkie film in Malayalee was “Balan” produced by Modern Theatres Ltd. Salem in 1938. It was directed by Notani.


Formation of South Indian Film Chamber of Commerce in Madras and Indian Motion Picture Distributor's Association in Bombay.

First Camera Crane
Wadia Movietone used the camera crane for the first time in India while producing their films in 1938. The crane was built in their own workshop under the expert care of B.M. Tara.

1939
Silver Jubilee celebrations of the Indian Cinema in Bombay (in May)

First Hindi Talkie from South
“Prem Sagar” produced and directed by K. Subramanyam in 1939 was the first Hindi Talkie produced in the south.

1942
First Film Society
Bombay Film Society was the first film society in India formed in Bombay in 1942.

First Govt. Control over length & Distribution of Raw Film
The Govt. of India restricted the footage of the feature films to 11,000 feet and that of trailers to 400 feet, from May 16, 1942. Further, distribution of raw film was also controlled for the first time from 17 th July 1943 to 15 th Dec. 1945.

1943
Government Control on the distribution of raw film; The Information Films of India and Indian News Parade, set up by Government to produce documentaries and newsreels; Exhibition of Government “approved” films made compulsory under D.I.R. 44 A.

1944
First Talkie Produced in English Language
Wadia Movietone's “The Court Dancer” was the first Indian Talkie which had English dialogue. It was released in USA in 1944. Dadasaheb Phalke, father of Indian Cinema, passes away on 16 th Feb. 1944.

1947
Bombay Talkies ‘KISMAT', made in 1943, creates an all time record for the longest continuous run of more than three and a half years at a single cinema ROXY in Calcutta.

1948
First Ballet Film
Screen and Stage Production Madras “Kalpana” directed by Uday Shankar in 1948 was the first ballet film in India. It had dialogue by Amrit Lal Nagar and Lyrics by Sumitra Nandan Pant.

1949
First 16mm colour feature film
Bhavnani Productions ‘Rangeen Zamana” produced and directed by M. Bhavnani in 1948 (released as “Ajit” in 1949) was the first colour feature film produced on Kodachrome and blown up to 35mm.

First Time “A” and “U” Classification
The Indian Cinematograph Act 1918 was amended in December 1949 by which time censorship was made a Central subject for the first time and two types of categories “A” and “U” were prescribed for certification of films.

1950
First Film With “A” certificate
Akash Chitra's “Hanste Aansu” was the first Hindi feature film in 1950 which was is sued an “A” Certificate (Film suitable for exhibition to Adults only) in India.

1951
• Formation of Central Board of Film Censors with B.N. Sircar on the Board.
• Launching of Film Federation of India under the presidentship of Chandulal J
Shah.
• Formation of SIMPSA in Madras and CCCA in Bhusaval.
• “Aan” produced by Mehboob in colour 16mm and blown up to 35mm.
• Weekly Magazine SCREEN started by Indian Express.

1952
First International Film Festival
The Films Division of the Government of India sponsored and organized the First International Film Festival of India in Bombay on January 24, 1952, which continued for a fortnight.

1953
First President's Gold Medal
P.K. Atre's “SHYAMCHI AYEE” in Marathi was the first film to get the President's Gold Medal, considered as the best film of 1953.

India's first Technicolour film ‘ JHANSI KI RANI' was produced by Sohrab Modi for Minerva Movietone with foreign technicians.

The film magazine Filmfare introduced Awards, the Award for the best film going to ‘ DO BIGHA ZAMIN'

1954
Film Producers Guild is formed

First National Awards
The annual State Awards for film were introduced for the first time by Government in 1954.

1955
First film seminar
The first film seminar was convened by Sangeet Nataka Akademi and inaugurated by Prime Minister Pt. Jawaharlal Nehru.

1956
First Film Exempted from Entertainment Tax
Rajkamal Kalamandir's JHANAK JHANAK PAYAL BAJE was the first film to be exempted from entertainment tax in 1956. Dr V Shantaram was a founder member of the Film Producers Guild

1957
K. A. Abbas made the first Indo-Russian Co-production “PARDESI” in Hindi and Russian.

1960
First Excise Duty on release prints
Excise Duty was levied by the Government on release prints for the first time in India on April 1, 1960.

1961
First Cinemascope film
Guru Dutt's “Kagaz Ke Phool” in 1959 was the first Cinemascope film shot in black and white. Later in 1961 Anupam Chitra produced “Pyar Ki Pyas' in Cinemascope and colour. Guru Dutt was a member of the Guild.

First Talkie film without Dialogue
Taru Mukerji Production, Calcutta's “Ingeet” in 1961 was the first film of the talkie era which had no dialogue at all.

1964
First Film with only one actor
Sunil Dutt's “Yaadein” in 1964 was the first film in India which had only one actor in the fim.

1967
First 70mm Technicolour film
Pachhis “ Around The World” was the first Indian Film in 70mm and Technicolour with Stereophonic Sound in 1967.

Western

Western

The Western is an American genre in literature and film. Westerns are art works – films, literature, sculpture, television and radio shows, and paintings – devoted to telling stories set in the American West, often portraying it in a romanticized light.

While the Western has been popular throughout the history of movies, it has begun to diminish in importance as the United States progresses farther away from the period depicted.

Definition
Westerns, by definition, are set in the American West, almost always in the 19th century, generally between the Antebellum period and the turn of the century. Many incorporate the Civil War into the plot, or into the background, although the west was not touched by the war to the extent the east was. However, their setting may extend further back to the time of the American colonial period or forward to the mid-twentieth century. They may also range geographically from Mexico to Canada.

Many westerns involve semi-nomadic characters who wander from town to town, their sole possessions consisting of clothing, a gun, and (optionally) a horse. The high technology of the era – such as the telegraph, printing press, and railroad – may appear, occasionally as a development just arriving, and usually symbolizing the impending end of the frontier lifestyle which will soon give way to the march of civilization.

The Western takes these simple elements and uses them to tell morality tales, usually setting them against spectacular American landscapes. In some movies, scenery becomes almost the star of the movie. Westerns often stress the harshness of the wilderness and frequently set the action in a desert-like landscape for example in The Searchers (1956) and Open Range (2003). However, this desert landscape is not as evident in High Noon (1952), which is set in a gritty, dirty western town and shows a juxtaposition between the dirty town and the beautiful landscape.

Specific settings include lonely isolated forts, ranch houses, the isolated homestead, the saloon or the jail. Other iconic elements in westerns include Stetsons and Spurs, Colt .45s, prostitutes and the faithful steed.

Common themes
The western film genre often portrays the conquest of the wilderness and the subordination of nature, in the name of civilization or the confiscation of the territorial rights of the original inhabitants of the frontier.

The Western depicts a society organized around codes of honor, rather than the law, in which persons have no social order larger than their immediate peers, family, or perhaps themselves alone. Here, one must cultivate a reputation by acts of violence; or they can be generous, because generosity creates a dependency relationship in the social hierarchy.

These themes unite the Western, the gangster movie, and the revenge movie in a single vision. In the Western, these themes are forefronted, to the extent that the arrival of law and "civilization" is often portrayed as regrettable, if inevitable.

Origins of the "Western idea"
The idealized version of the "Wild West" can be traced at least as far back as Buffalo Bill's Wild West shows which began in 1883. In literature, Owen Wister's The Virginian, published in 1902, was an American start (though not the first Western published in the United States); but the German writer Karl May was writing Wild West stories as early as 1876. His books were a major influence on the founder of Universal Pictures, the German immigrant Carl Laemmle; and May himself traced ideas at least to the American writer James Fenimore Cooper, who wrote Last of the Mohicans in 1826.

Thus, the "western idea" has a long history. The western was a distinct literary genre before the rise of motion pictures; other important writers were Zane Grey, Louis L'Amour and Elmore Leonard.

It has been said that there are four principal elements which contributed to the form of the western genre:
• A structure drawn from 19th century melodramatic literature, involving a virtuous
hero and a wicked villain who menaces a virginal heroine.
• An action story, composed of violence, chases and crimes appropriate to a place
like the American West in the 19th century.
• The introduction of the history of the migration westwards and the opening of the
frontier signalled in such films as The Covered Wagon (1924) and The Iron Horse
(1924).
• The revenge structure, which was present by the time of Billy The Kid in 1930.

These have been claimed for the 'premise' from which westerns were developed and from which all subsequent westerns have emerged.

Western literature
Western fiction got its start in the "penny dreadfuls" and later the "dime novels" that first began to be published in the mid-nineteenth century. These cheaply made books were published to capitalize on the many fanciful yet supposedly true stories that were being told about the mountain men, outlaws, settlers and lawmen who were taming the western frontier. By 1900, the new medium of pulp magazines also helped to relate these adventures to easterners. Meanwhile, non-American authors like the German Karl May picked up the genre, went to full novel length, and made it hugely popular and successful in continental Europe from about 1880 on, though they were generally dismissed as trivial by the literary critics of the day.

The western in American Literature began to emerge with the novels of James Fenimore Cooper. although arguably it did not begin to be a separate genre until the publication of The Virginian by Owen Wister in 1902. Popularity grew with the publication of Zane Grey's Riders of the Purple Sage in 1912. When pulp magazines exploded in popularity in the 1920s, western fiction greatly benefited (as did the author Max Brand, who excelled at the western short story). The simultaneous popularity of Western movies in the 1920s also helped the genre. In the 1940s several seminal westerns were published including The Ox-Bow Incident (1940) by Walter van Tilburg Clark, The Big Sky (1947) and The Way West (1949) by A.B. Guthrie, Jr., and Shane (1949) by Jack Schaefer. Many other western authors gained readership in the 1950s, such as Luke Short, Ray Hogan, and Louis L'Amour. The genre peaked around the early 1960s, largely due to the tremendous number of westerns on television (though television did help hasten the demise of western short fiction pulp magazines in the early 1950s). The burnout of the American public on television westerns in the late 1960s seemed to have an affect on the literature as well, and interest in western literature began to wane. In the 1970s, the work of Louis L'Amour began to catch hold of most western readers and he has tended to dominate the western reader lists ever since. Readership as a whole began to drop off in the mid- to late '70s and has reached a new low today, so much so that most bookstores, outside of a few western states, only carry a small number of Western fiction books in comparison to other genres. Western authors have an organization that represents them called the Western Writers of America, who present the annual Golden Spur Awards.

Western films
A genre in which description and dialogue are lean, and the landscape spectacular, is well suited to a visual medium. Early Westerns were mostly filmed in the studio like other early Hollywood movies, but when locations shooting became more common, producers of Westerns used desolate corners of California, Arizona, Utah, Nevada, Colorado or Wyoming, often making the landscape not just a vivid backdrop, but a character in the movie.

The Western genre itself has sub-genres, such as the epic Western, the shoot 'em up, singing cowboy Westerns, and a few comedy Westerns. The Western re-invented itself in the revisionist Western.

Cowboys and Gunslingers play prominent roles in Western movies. Often fights with Indians are depicted, although "revisionist" Westerns give the natives sympathetic treatment. Other recurring themes of westerns include western treks, and groups of bandits terrorizing small towns such as in The Magnificent Seven.

The Classical Western film
The Great Train Robbery, the first narrative film produced in the United States, was a Western

The western film traces its roots back to The Great Train Robbery, a silent film directed by Edwin S. Porter and starring Broncho Billy Anderson. Released in 1903, the film's popularity opened the door for Anderson to become the screen's first cowboy star, making several hundred Western movie shorts. So popular was the genre that he soon had competition in the form of William S. Hart.

In the United States, the western has had an extremely rich history that spans many genres (comedy, drama, tragedy, parody, musical, etc.). The golden age of the western film is epitomised by the work of two directors: John Ford (who often used John Wayne for lead roles) and Howard Hawks. Ford's 1939 epic, Stagecoach is considered one of the best westerns ever made.

Spaghetti Westerns
During the 1960s and 1970s, a revival of the Western emerged in Italy with the "Spaghetti Westerns" or "Italo-Westerns". Many of these films are low-budget affairs, shot in locations chosen for their cheapness and for the similarity of their landscapes to those of the Southwestern United States (southern Spain was the most popular choice). Spaghetti Westerns were characterised by the presence of more action and violence than the Hollywood westerns.

But the best of the genre, notably the films directed by Sergio Leone, have a parodic dimension (the strange opening scene of Once Upon a Time in the West being a reversal of Fred Zinnemann's High Noon opening scene) which gave them a different tone to the Hollywood westerns. Clint Eastwood became famous by starring in Spaghetti Westerns, although they were also to provide a showcase for other such considerable talents as Lee van Cleef, James Coburn, Klaus Kinski and Henry Fonda.

Revisionist Westerns
Beginning in the 1960s, in part due to the impact of the Spaghetti Westerns, many American filmmakers began to question many traditional themes of westerns. Aside from the portrayal of the Native American as a "savage", such as Major Dundee and Ulzana's Raid, audiences began to question the simple hero versus villain dualism, and the use of violence to test one's character or to prove oneself right. Examples of "revisionist westerns" include Jeremiah Johnson, Little Big Man, Dances With Wolves and Unforgiven. Some "modern" Westerns give women more powerful roles, such as Comes a Horseman, Open Range and The Missing. In 1969, Claudia Cardinale had a starring lead in Once Upon a Time in the West.

Genre studies and Westerns
In the 1960s academic and critical attention to cinema as a legitimate art form emerged. With the increased attention, film theory was developed to attempt to understand the significance of film. From this environment emerged (in conjunction with the literary movement) a enclave of critical studies called genre studies. This was primarily a semantic and structuralist approach to understanding how similar films convey meaning. Long derided for its simplistic morality, the western film genre became to be seen instead as a series of conventions and codes that acted as a short-hand communication methods with the audience. For example, a white hat represents the good guy, a black hat represents the bad guy; two people facing each other on a deserted street leads to the expectation of a showdown; cattlemen are loners, townsfolk are family and community minded; and so forth. All western films can be read as a series of codes and the variations on those codes. Since the 1970s, the western genre has been unraveled through a series of films that used the codes but primarily as a way of undermining them (Little Big Man and Maverick did this through comedy). Kevin Costner's Dances with Wolves actually resurrects all the original codes and conventions but reverses the polarities (the Native Americans are good, the U.S. Cavalry is bad). Clint Eastwood's Unforgiven uses every one of the original conventions, only reverses the outcomes (instead of dying bravely or stoicly, characters whine, cry, and beg; instead of a good guy saving the day, unredeemable characters execute revenge; etc.)

One of the results of genre studies is that some have argued that "Westerns" need not take place in the American West or even in the 19th Century, as the codes can be found in other types of movie. Hud, starring Paul Newman, and Akira Kurosawa's Shichinin no samurai (The Seven Samurai), are possible examples of these. Likewise, it has been pointed out that films set in the old American West, may not necessarily be considered "Westerns."

Influences on and of the Western
During the late 1950s, the Western movie became a template for the Bills, a Congolese youth subculture.

Many westerns after 1960 were heavily influenced by the Japanese samurai films of Akira Kurosawa. For instance The Magnificent Seven was a remake of Kurosawa's Seven Samurai, and both A Fistful of Dollars and Last Man Standing were remakes of Kurosawa's Yojimbo, which itself was reputably inspired by Red Harvest, an American detective novel by Dashiell Hammett. It should also be noted that Kurosawa himself was heavily influenced from American Westerns, especially the works of John Ford. Senses of Cinema

Despite the Cold War, the western was a strong influence on Eastern Bloc cinema, which had its own take on the genre, the so called 'Red Western' or Ostern. Generally these took two forms: either straight westerns shot in the Eastern Bloc, or action films involving the Russian Revolution and civil war and the Basmachi rebellion in which Turkic peoples play a similar role to Mexicans in traditional westerns.

An offshoot of the western genre is the "post-apocalyptic" western, in which a future society, struggling to rebuild after a major catastrophe, is portrayed in a manner very similar to the 19th century frontier. Examples include The Postman and the "Mad Max" series, and the computer game Fallout.

Many elements of space travel series and films borrow extensively from the conventions of the western genre. Peter Hyams' Outland transferred the plot of High Noon to interstellar space. Gene Roddenberry, the creator of the Star Trek series, once described his vision for the show as "Wagon Train to the stars". More recently, the space opera series Firefly used an explicitly western theme for its portrayal of frontier worlds.

Elements of western movies can be found also in some movies belonging essentially to other genres. For example, Kelly's Heroes is a war movie, but action and characters are western-like. The British film Zulu set during the Anglo-Zulu War has sometimes been compared to a Western, even though it is set in South Africa.

In addition, the superhero fantasy genre has been described as having been derived from the cowboy hero, only powered up to omnipotence in a primarily urban setting.

The western genre has been parodied on a number of occasions, famous examples being Support Your Local Sheriff, Cat Ballou, and Mel Brooks's Blazing Saddles.

George Lucas's Star Wars films use many elements of a western, and indeed, Lucas has said he intended for Star Wars to revitalize cinematic mythology, a part the western once held. The Jedi, who take their name from Jidaigeki, are modeled after samurai, showing the influence of Kurosawa. The character Han Solo dressed like an archetypal gunslinger, and the Mos Eisley Cantina is much like an old west saloon.

Television Westerns
The Saturday Afternoon Movie was a pre-TV phenomenon in the US which often featured western series. Audie Murphy, Tom Mix, and Johnny Mack Brown became major idols of a young audience, plus "Singing cowboys" such as Gene Autry, Roy Rogers and Dale Evans, Rex Allen. Each had a co-starring horse such as Rogers' Golden Palomino, Trigger, who became a star in his own right. Other B-movie series were Lash La Rue and the Durango Kid. Herbert Jeffreys, as Bob Blake with his horse Stardust, appeared in a number of movies made for African American audiences in the days of segregated movie theaters. Bill Pickett, an African American rodeo performer, also appeared in early western films for the same audience.

When the popularity of television exploded in the late 1940s and 1950s, westerns quickly became a staple of small-screen entertainment. A great many B-movie Westerns were aired on TV as time fillers, while a number of long-running TV Westerns became classics in their own right. Notable TV Westerns include Gunsmoke, The Lone Ranger, The Rifleman, Have Gun, Will Travel, Bonanza, The Big Valley, Maverick, The High Chaparral and many others. The peak year for television westerns was 1959, with 26 such shows airing during prime-time.

The 1970s saw a revision of the western, with the incorporation of many new elements. McCloud, which premiered in 1970, was essentially a fusion of the sheriff-oriented western with the modern big-city crime drama. Hec Ramsey was a western who-dunnit mystery series. Little House on the Prairie was set on the frontier in the time period of the western, but was essentially a family drama. Kung Fu was in the tradition of the itinerant gunfighter westerns, but the main character was a Chinese monk who fought only with his formidable martial art skill. The Life and Times of Grizzly Adams was a family adventure show about a gentle mountain man with an uncanny connection to wildlife who helps others who visit his wilderness refuge.

The 1990s saw the networks getting into filming Western movies on their own. Like Louis L'Amour ‘s Conagher, Tony Hillerman’s The Dark Wind, The Last Outlaw, The Jack Bull etc. A few new comedies like The Cisco Kid, The Cherokee Kid, and the gritty TV series Lonesome Dove: The Outlaw Years.

This century started off with Louis L'Amour’s Crossfire Trail, Monte Walsh, and Hillerman’s Coyote Waits, & A Thief of Time. DVDs offer a second life to TV series like Peacemakers, and HBO’s Deadwood.

Also, in 2002 a show called Firefly (created by Joss Whedon) mixed in a perfect and original way the identity of both western genre with science-fiction. Now, it became a critically successful saga which closure took place in the acclaimed movie Serenity.

It is clear that the Western is not dead, but have moved smoothly from the first color TV series The Cisco Kid, through the half hour, shoot-um-ups, The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp, Have Gun — Will Travel, " of the 1950’s. Later hour long adult westerns, to the slickly packaged made for TV westerns of today.

Spaghetti Western
Spaghetti Westerns is a nickname for a broad sub-genre of Western film that emerged in the mid-1960s, so named because most of them were produced by Italian studios. Originally they had in common the Italian language, low budgets, and a recognizable highly fluid, violent, minimalist cinematography that eschewed (some said "demythologized") many of the conventions of earlier Westerns - partly intentionally, partly as a result of the work being done in a different cultural background and with limited funds. The term was originally used disparagingly, but by the 1980s many of these films came to be held in high regard.

The best-known and perhaps archetypal spaghetti Westerns were the so-called Man With No Name trilogy (or Dollars Trilogy) directed by Sergio Leone, starring American actor Clint Eastwood and with musical scores composed by Ennio Morricone (all of whom are now synonymous with the genre): A Fistful of Dollars (1964), For a Few Dollars More (1965), and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966). The last is one of the most famed Westerns of all time (although, atypically for the genre, it had a relatively high budget in excess of 1 million USD).

Many of the films were shot in the Spanish desert region of Almería, which greatly resembles the landscape of California. (A few were shot in Sardinia.) Because of the desert setting and the readily available southern Spanish extras, a usual theme in Spaghetti Westerns is the Mexican Revolution, Mexican bandits and the border zone between Mexico and the USA.

Spaghetti westerns are known as "macaroni western" in Japan.

Other "Food Westerns"
The name led to various other non-US westerns being associated with food and drink.

Sometimes the names chorizo/paella Western are used for similar films financed by Spanish capital, although Leone's earlier films were actually shot in Andalucia. Publicity for the Japanese comedy film Tampopo coined the phrase "Noodle Western" to describe the parody made about a noodle restaurant. Robert Rodriguez's Westerns have been called "Burrito Westerns." Sometimes Hrafn Gunnlaugsson's Viking movies are called "Cod Westerns". The German Westerns of the 1960s, which were successful in Europe before the Italian Westerns, were made after novels by Karl May and mostly filmed in former Yugoslavia. German Westerns are often called "Kraut Western". The Red Dwarf episode Gunmen Of The Apocalypse has been described as the world's only "Roast Beef Western". John Woo's Western movies were described by Roger Ebert as Dim Sum Western. The Red Western or Ostern is the Soviet and eastern bloc's take on the genre. (Time magazine dubbed the animated TV series Samurai Jack, which combined elements of—among others—anime and the Sergio Leone films, a "sashimi Western.")

War Film

War film

Films of the war film genre deal primarily with actual warfare, usually featuring sea, air, or land battles and their combatants, or on daily military or civilian life in the midst of battle or the threat of battle. Their stories may be fiction, historical re-enactment, docudrama or documentary in nature.

World War I
Films made in the years following World War I tended to emphasise the horror or futility of modern warfare, as in All Quiet on the Western Front (1930) and La Grande Illusion (1937); or concentrated on the drama of the new form of aerial combat in films like Wings (1927), Hell's Angels (1930), and The Dawn Patrol (1930 and 1938 versions).


World War II
During this period, these films really came into their own. Many of the dramatic war films in the early 1940s in the United States were designed to create consensus at the expense of "the enemy". In fact, one of the conventions of the genre that developed during the period was that of a cross-section of the American people which comes together as a crack unit for the good of the country.

British films tended to follow a similar pattern, depicting ordinary people joining forces for the good of the war effort. In Which We Serve (1942), Millions Like Us (1943), The Way Ahead (1944) and The Way to the Stars (1945) are among the most celebrated British films of the war years. The British industry continued to produce war dramas throughout the 1950s and 1960s. Many of these were based on true stories, like The Dam Busters (1954), Dunkirk (1958), Reach for the Sky (1956) and Sink the Bismarck! (1960). Films based on real life commando missions like The Gift Horse (1952) and Ill Met by Moonlight (1956) would inspire a series of fictional adventure films popular in the 1960s, such as The Guns of Navarone (1961), The Dirty Dozen (1967) and Where Eagles Dare (1968).

Hollywood films in the 1950s and 1960s were often inclined towards spectacular heroics or self-sacrifice in films like Sands of Iwo Jima (1949), Halls of Montezuma (1950) or D-Day the Sixth of June (1956). They also tended to have a number of cliches associated with them: often a small group of men would tend to be fairly diverse ethnically, but most of the characters would not be developed much beyond their ethnicity; the senior officer would often be unreasonable and unyielding; almost anyone sharing personal information--especially plans for after returning home--would die shortly thereafter; and anyone acting in a cowardly or unpatriotic manner would convert to heroism or die (or both, in quick succession).

A popular sub-genre of war films in the 1950s and '60s was the prisoner of war film. This was a form popularised in Britain, and usually recounted stories of real-life escapes from (usually German) P.O.W. camps in World War II. Examples include The Wooden Horse (1950), Albert R.N. (1953) and The Colditz Story (1955). Hollywood also made its own contribution to the genre with The Great Escape (1963) and the fictional Stalag 17 (1953). Other fictional P.O.W. films include The Captive Heart (1947), Danger Within (1958) and The Mackenzie Break (1970). Unusually, the latter is about German prisoners attempting to escape from a British camp. A more recent example is Hart's War from 2002.

The late 1950s and 1960s brought some more thoughtful big-scale war films like David Lean's Bridge on the River Kwai (1957) and Lawrence of Arabia (1962), as well as a fashion for all-star epics based on real battles, and often quasi-documentary in style. This trend was started by Darryl F. Zanuck's production The Longest Day in 1962, based on the first day of the 1944 D-Day landings. Other examples included Battle of the Bulge (1965), Battle of Britain (1969), Waterloo (1970), Tora! Tora! Tora! (1970) (based on the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor), Midway (1976) and A Bridge Too Far (1977). A more recent example is the American Civil War film Gettysburg, which was based on actual events during the battle, including the defense of Little Round Top by Colonel Joshua Chamberlain.

Other Modern Genres
War films produced during and just after the Vietnam War era tended to reflect the disillusionment of the American public towards the war. Most films made after the Vietnam War delved more deeply into the horrors of war than movies made before it. (This is not to say that there were no such films before the Vietnam War; Paths of Glory is a notable critique of war from 1957, the very beginning of the Vietnam War.) The last film of what can be called the pre-Vietnam style is The Green Berets. Examples of post-Vietnam style films include Apocalypse Now, Platoon and Full Metal Jacket, which deal with Vietnam itself, and Catch-22 and M*A*S*H, which do not.

Many war films have been produced with the cooperation of a nation's military forces. The United States Navy has been very cooperative since World War II in providing ships and technical guidance with Top Gun being a famous example. Sometimes the military demands some editorial control in exchange for their cooperation, which can bias the final result. Another downside, if filmed during a war: the German Ministry of Propaganda, in making the epic war film Kolberg in January 1945, used several divisions of soldiers as extras. Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels believed the impact of the film would offset the tactical disadvantages of the missing soldiers.

If they do not cooperate, then another country's military may assist. Many 1950s and 1960s war movies, and the Oscar-winning film Patton were shot in Spain, which had large supplies of both Allied and Axis equipment. The Napoleonic epic Waterloo was shot in Ukraine, using Soviet soldiers (and incidentally, helped scholars learn why Napoleon preferred the tactics of attacking in column). Saving Private Ryan was shot with the cooperation of the Irish army.

Other War Film Genres
Trojan War
• Helen of Troy (1956)
• Troy (2004)

Greco-Persian Wars
• The 300 Spartans (1962)

Crusades
• Kingdom of Heaven (2005)

Wars of Scottish Independence
• Braveheart (1995)

French and Indian War
• The Last of the Mohicans (1920) & (1936) & (1992)

American Revolutionary War
• The Battle of Bunker Hill (1911)
• Drums Along the Mohawk (1939)
• The Patriot (2000)
• Revolution (1985)
• Valley Forge (1975) made for TV
• Johnny Tremain 1957

Napoleonic Wars
• Captain Horatio Hornblower (1951)
• Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World (2003)
• Napoléon (1927)
• War and Peace (1956 and 1967)
• Waterloo (1970)

Crimean War
• The Charge of the Light Brigade (1936 and 1968)

Texas War of Independence
• The Alamo (1936)
• The Alamo (1960)
• The Alamo (2004)
• The Alamo: Thirteen Days to Glory (1987)

American Civil War
• Andersonville (1996) made for TV
• Battle of Gettysburg (1913)
• Battle of Gettysburg (1956)
• Birth of a Nation (1915), first epic film
• Cold Mountain (2003)

Indian Wars
• Buffalo Soldiers (1997) (TV)
• The Court-Martial of George Armstrong Custer (1977) (TV)
• Crazy Horse (1996)
• Custer of the West (1967)

Spanish-American War
• Tearing Down the Spanish Flag - first war movie ever made, in 1898.

Anglo-Zulu War
• Shaka Zulu (1986) (TV)
• Zulu (1964)
• Zulu Dawn (1979)

Anglo-Boer War
• Ohm Kruger (1942)
• Breaker Morant (1980)

World War I
• The African Queen (1951)
• All Quiet on the Western Front (1930)
• The Blue Max (1966)
• Lawrence of Arabia (1962)

Spanish Civil War
• For Whom the Bell Tolls (1943)
• Land and Freedom (1995)

Thriller

Thriller

The thriller is a genre of fiction in which tough, resourceful, but essentially ordinary heroes are pitted against villains determined to destroy them, their country, or the stability of the free world. The hero of a typical thriller faces danger alone or in the company of a small band of companions. The protagonist may be a law enforcement agent, a journalist, or a soldier, but typically he or she is cut off from the resources of "their" organization. More often the hero is an ordinary citizen drawn into danger and intrigue by circumstances beyond their control. Thrillers are typically novels or movies, though television series such as Alias, 24, The Sandbaggers and Spooks also fall into this genre, along with such non-fiction bestsellers as Holy Blood, Holy Grail and even Fermat's Enigma, Simon Singh's account of the conquest of Fermat's Last Theorem. While thrillers constitute a distinct genre, they often incorporate elements of other genres such as adventure, detective fiction, and espionage. A thriller includes suspense as an indispensable ingredient.

Novelists closely associated with the genre include: Eric Ambler, Desmond Bagley, John Buchan, Frederick Forsyth, Jack Higgins, Christopher Hyde, Duncan Kyle, Alistair MacLean, Dan Brown and Robert Ludlum.

Notable movie thrillers include: The Thirty-Nine Steps, The Lady Vanishes, North by Northwest, The Day of the Jackal, Duel, The Parallax View, In the Line of Fire, The Fugitive, Manhunter, The Silence of the Lambs, Hannibal, Red Dragon, and Marathon Man.

Gangster film
Gangster film is a film genre which features gangster characters, such as members of the Mafia and inner city street gangs.

Giallo
Giallo (pronounced jee-AH-loh) is an Italian 20th century genre of literature and film. It is closely related to the French fantastique genre, crime fiction, horror fiction and eroticism. The term is also used to mean an example of the genre, in which case it can take the Italian plural gialli. The word giallo is Italian for "yellow" (see Wiktionary: giallo) and stems from the genre's origin in paperback novels with yellow covers.

Literature
The term giallo was originally coined to describe a series of mystery/crime pulp novels first published by the Mondadori publishing house in 1929, which continued to be published until the 1960s. Their yellow covers contained whodunits, much like their American counterparts of the 1920s and 1930s, and this link with English language pulp fiction was reinforced with the Italian authors always taking on English pen names. Many of the earliest gialliwere in fact English-language novels translated into Italian.

Published as cheap paperbacks, the success of the giallo novels soon began attracting the attention of other publishing houses, who began releasing their own versions (not forgetting to keep the by-now traditional yellow cover). The novels were so popular that even the works of established foreign mystery and crime writers, such as Agatha Christie and Georges Simenon, were labelled gialliwhen first published in Italy.

Film
The film genre that emerged from these novels in the 1960s began as literal adaptations of the books, but soon began taking advantage of modern cinematic techniques to create a unique genre.

Characteristics
Giallo films are characterized by extended murder sequences featuring excessive bloodletting, stylish camerawork and unusual musical arrangements. The literary whodunit element is retained, but combined with modern slasher horror, while being filtered through Italy's longstanding tradition of opera and staged grand guignol drama.

They typically introduce strong psychological themes of madness, alienation, and paranoia and include liberal amounts of nudity and sex. Sergio Martino's Your Vice is a Locked Room and Only I Have the Key (a.k.a. Eye of the Black Cat) was explicitly based on Edgar Allan Poe's short story "The Black Cat."

They remain notable in part for their expressive use of music, most notably by Dario Argento's collaborations with Ennio Morricone and his musical director Bruno Nicolai, and later with the band Goblin.

Development
As well as the literary giallo tradition, the films were also initially influenced by the German "Krimi" phenomenon - originally black and white films of the 1960s that were based on Edgar Wallace stories.


The first film that created the giallo as a cinema genre is La ragazza che sapeva troppo (The Girl Who Knew Too Much) (1963), from Mario Bava. Its title referred to Alfred Hitchcock's famous The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956), again establishing strong links with Anglo-American culture. In Mario Bava's 1964 film, Blood and Black Lace, the emblematic element of the giallo was introduced: the masked murderer with a shiny weapon in his black leather gloved hand.

Soon the giallo became a genre of its own, with its own rules and with a typical Italian flavour: adding additional layers of intense colour and style. The term giallo finally became synonymous with a heavy, theatrical, and stylised visual element.

The genre had its heyday in the 1970s, with dozens of Italian giallo films released. The most notable directors who worked in the genre were Dario Argento, Mario Bava, Lucio Fulci, Aldo Lado, Sergio Martino, Umberto Lenzi, and Pupi Avati.

Heist film
A heist film is a movie that has an intricate plot woven around a group of people trying to steal something. Comic versions are often called caper movies. They could be described as the analogues of caper stories in film history. Typically there are many plot twists, and film focuses on the characters' attempts to formulate a plan, carry it out, and escape with the goods. There is often a nemesis that must be thwarted, who is either a figure of authority, or a former partner who turned on the group or one of its members.

Etymology
The noun caper, according to the Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary means a frolicsome leap, a capricious escapade or an illegal or questionable act.

The archetypal plot
Usually a heist film will contain a three act plot. The first act usually consists of the preparations for the heist: gathering conspirators, learning about the layout of the location to be robbed, learning about the alarm system, revealing innovative technologies to be used, and most importantly: setting up the plot twists in the final act.

The second act is the heist itself. With rare exception, the heist will be successful, though some number of unexpected events will occur.

The third act is the unravelling of the plot. The characters involved in the heist will be turned against one another, or one of the characters will have made arrangements with some outside party, who will interfere. Normally most or all of the characters involved in the heist will end up dead, captured by the law, or without any of the loot.

Variations on the plot
As an established archetype it became common, starting in the fifties, to excise one or two of the acts in the story, relying on the viewers' familiarity with the archetype to fill in the missing elements. Touchez pas au grisbi and Reservoir Dogs, for example, both take place entirely after the heist has occurred.

Some heist films take place non-linearly: The Killing, Reservoir Dogs.

Related film archetypes
The "heist film" is the most well-known of a number of closely related archetypal storylines. All involving collaborative efforts that require elaborate preparation and dramatic fallout, there is also: the prison-break film, the assassination film, and the hostage film (usually shown from the opposite perspective: that of the hostages and the rescuers). A number of spy films also have heist-like plots.

Additionally, it is common for films to have sections that are modelled after the heist film archetype. National Treasure, etc.

History
From the origins...
A "caper movie" generally shows the ingenious planning and realization of a heist. Even though it has come to be regarded as as classic American genre, in Europe it is Jules Dassins Du rififi chez les hommes of 1955 that served as the founding father of this particular type of film.

The classical Film noir period of the 40s and 50s brought the genre to fame: during these decades, several such gangster's films have been shot that to this day remain second to none. John Huston's Asphalt Jungle of 1950 or Stanley Kubrick's The Killing of 1956 are examples. The sombre atmosphere of the unavoidable failure which occurs during the film and which should become a sort of brand name for Film noir intertwines in these films with the viewers delight in watching the unfolding of a near-perfect crime.

Since that time Big caper movies have been shot in many variations, often introducing innovative ways of craftsmanship, such as Quentin Tarantino's Reservoir Dogs. Even to contemporary Hollywood, the genre still remains promising, as the 2001 and 2003 remakes of Ocean's Eleven and The Italian Job show.

Spy film
The spy film film genre deals with the subject of fictional espionage, either in a realistic way or as a basis for fantasy. Many novels in the spy fiction genre have been adapted as films, although in many cases (such as James Bond) the overall tone is changed.

Alfred Hitchcock did much to popularise the spy film in the 1930s with his influential thrillers The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934), The 39 Steps (1935), Sabotage (1937) and The Lady Vanishes (1938). These often involved innocent civilians being caught up in international conspiracies. Some, however, dealt with professional spies as in Hitchcock's Secret Agent (1936), based on W. Somerset Maugham's Ashenden stories.

In the 1940s and early 1950s there were several films made about the exploits of Allied agents in occupied Europe, which could probably be considered as a sub-genre. 13 Rue Madeleine and O.S.S. were fictional stories about American agents in German-occupied France, and there were a number of films based on the stories of real-life British S.O.E. agents, including Odette and Carve Her Name With Pride. A more recent fictional example is Charlotte Gray, based on the novel by Sebastian Faulks.

The peak of popularity of the spy film is often considered to be the 1960s when Cold War fears meshed with a desire by audiences to see exciting and suspenseful films. The espionage film developed in two directions at this time. On the one hand, the realistic spy novels of Len Deighton and John Le Carre were adapted into relatively serious Cold War thrillers which dealt with some of the realities of the espionage world. Some of these films included The Spy Who Came in from the Cold (1965), The Deadly Affair (1966), and the Harry Palmer series, based on the novels of Len Deighton.

At the same time, the James Bond novels by Ian Fleming were adapted into an increasingly fantastical series of tongue-in-cheek adventure films by producers Harry Saltzman and Albert R. Broccoli, with Sean Connery as the star. The phenomenal success of the Bond series lead to a deluge of imitators, especially from America. Among the best known examples were the two 'Derek Flint' films starring James Coburn, and the Matt Helm series with Dean Martin. Television also got into the act with series like The Man from U.N.C.L.E and I Spy in the U.S., and Danger Man and The Avengers in Britain. Spies have remained popular on TV to the present day with series such as Callan, Alias and Spooks.

Spy films also enjoyed something of a revival in the late 1990s, although these were often action films with espionage elements, or comedies like Austin Powers.

Sports Film

Sports film

Sports film is a film genre that uses sport as the theme of a film.

Baseball movie
A baseball movie refers to a sports film belonging to a genre where the game of baseball features prominently in the plot.

If movies are often referred to as an American art form, then the baseball movie must be the most American of all. The inherent conflict present in sports very often makes for intriguing subject matter for motion pictures. Throughout movie history, filmmakers have often turned to baseball.

Many baseball films are true stories which follow a particular team or player. Many of the greatest players in the game's history (Lou Gehrig, Babe Ruth, etc.) have had their life stories turned into film.

Other baseball films are pure fiction, using baseball as a backdrop for humor (The Bad News Bears) or even mythology (The Natural).

Science Fiction Film

Science fiction film

Science fiction has been a film genre since the earliest days of cinema. Science fiction films have explored a great range of subjects and themes, including many that can not be readily presented in other genre. Science fiction films have been used to explore sensitive social and political issues, while often providing an entertaining story for the more casual viewer. Today, science fiction films are in the forefront of new special effects technology, and the audience has become accustomed to displays of realistic alien life forms, spectacular space battles, energy weapons, faster than light travel, and distant worlds.

There are many memorable of films, and an even greater number that are mediocre or even among the worst examples of film production. It took many decades, and the efforts of talented teams of film producers, for the science fiction film to be taken seriously as an art form. There is much genre cross-over with science fiction, particularly with horror films (such as Alien (1979)).

History
Movies that could be categorized as belonging to the science fiction genre first appeared during the silent film era. However these were generally singular efforts that were based on the works of notable authors. It was only in the 1950s that the genre came into its own, reflecting the growing output of science fiction pulp magazines and books. But it took Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey before the genre was taken seriously.

Since that time science fiction movies have become one of the dominant box office staples, pulling in large audiences for blockbuster movies such as Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope, Jurassic Park, Independence Day, and The Day After Tomorrow. Science fiction films have been in the forefront of special effects technology, and have been used as a vehicle for biting social commentary for which this genre is ideally suited.

Definition
Defining precisely which movies belong to the science fiction genre can be as difficult with films as it is with literature.
Science fiction film is "a film genre which emphasizes actual, extrapolative, or
speculative science and the empirical method, interacting in a social context with
the lesser emphasized, but still present, transcendentalism of magic and religion,
in an attempt to reconcile man with the unknown" (Sobchack 63).

This definition assumes that a continuum exists between (real-world) empiricism and (supernatural) transcendentalism, with science fiction film on the side of empiricism and horror film and fantasy film on the side of transcendentalism. However, there are numerous well-known examples of science fiction horror films, epitomized by Frankenstein and Alien.

The visual style of science fiction film can be characterized by a clash between alien and familiar images. This clash is implemented in the following ways:
1. Alien images become familiar
o In A Clockwork Orange, the repetitions of the Korova Milkbar make the alien decor
seem more familiar.
2. Familiar images become alien
o In Dr. Strangelove, the distortion of the humans make the familiar images seem
more alien.
3. Alien and familiar images are juxtaposed
o In The Deadly Mantis, the giant praying mantis is shown climbing the Washington
Monument.

Cultural theorist Scott Bukatman has proposed that science fiction film is the main area in which it is possible in contemporary culture to witness an expression of the sublime be it through exaggerated scale (the Death Star in Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope), apocalypse (Independence Day) or transcendence (2001: A Space Odyssey).

Themes
A science fiction film will be speculative in nature, and often includes key supporting elements of science and technology. However, as often as not the "science" in a Hollywood sci-fi movie can be considered pseudo-science, relying primarily on atmosphere and quasi-scientific artistic fancy than facts and conventional scientific theory. The definition can also vary depending on the viewpoint of the observer. What may seem a science fiction film to one viewer can be considered fantasy to another.

Many science fiction films include elements of mysticism, occult, magic, or the supernatural, considered by some to be more properly elements of fantasy or the occult (or religious) film. This transform the movie genre into a science fantasy with a religious or quasi-religious philosophy serving as the driving motivation. The movie Forbidden Planet employs many common science fiction elements, but the nemesis is a powerful creature with a resemblance to an occult demonic spirit. The Star Wars series employed a magic-like philosophy and ability known as the "Force". Chronicles of Riddick (2004) included quasi-magical elements resembling necromancy and elementalism.

Some films blur the line between the genres, such as movies where the protagonist gains the extraordinary powers of the superhero. These films usually employ a quasi-plausible reason for the hero gaining these powers. Yet in many respects the film more closely resembles fantasy than sci-fi.

Not all science fiction themes are equally suitable for movies. In addition to science fiction horror, space opera is most common. Often enough, these films could just as well pass as westerns or WWII movies if the science fiction props were removed. Common themes also include voyages and expeditions to other planets, and dystopias, while utopias are rare.

Special effects in science fiction movies range from laughable to groundbreaking. Milestones in this respect include Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey, the Star Wars films, and, more recently, The Matrix.

Imagery
As was illustrated by Vivian Sobchack, one sense in which the science fiction film differs from the fantasy film is that the former seeks to achieve our belief in the images we are viewing while fantasy instead attempts to suspend our belief. The science fiction film displays the unfamiliar and alien in the context of the familiar, thereby making the images appear almost ordinary and even commonplace.

Despite the alien nature of the scenes and science fictional elements of the setting, the imagery of the film is related back to mankind and how we relate to our surroundings. While the of film strives to push the boundaries of the human experience, they remain bound to the conditions and understanding of the audience and thereby contain prosaic aspects, rather than being completely alien or abstract.

Genre films such as westerns or war movies are bound to a particular area or time period. This is not true of the science fiction film. However there are several common visual elements that are evocative of the genre. These include the spacecraft or space station, alien worlds or creatures, robots, and futuristic gadgets. More subtle visual clues can appear with changes the human form through modifications in appearance, size, or behavior, or by means a known environment turned eerily alien, such as an empty city.

Scientific elements
While science is a major element of this genre, many movie studios take significant liberties with what is considered conventional scientific knowledge. Such liberties can be most readily observed in films that show spacecraft maneuvering in outer space. The vacuum should preclude the transmission of sound or maneuvers employing wings, yet the sound track is filled with inappropriate flying noises and changes in flight path resembling an aircraft banking. The filmmakers assume that the audience will be unfamiliar with the specifics of space travel, and focus is instead placed on providing acoustical atmosphere and the more familiar maneuvers of the aircraft.

Similar instances of ignoring science in favor of art can be seen when movies present environmental effects. Entire planets are destroyed in titanic explosions requiring mere seconds, whereas an actual event of this nature would likely take many hours. A star rises over the horizon of a comet or a Mercury-like world and the temperature suddenly soars many hundreds of degrees, causing the entire surface to turn into a furnace. In reality the energy is initially reaching the ground at a very oblique angle, and the temperature is likely to rise more gradually.

The role of the scientist has varied considerably in the science fiction film genre, depending on the public perception of science and advanced technology. Starting with Dr. Frankenstein, the mad scientist became a stock character who posed a dire threat to society and perhaps even civilization. In the monster movies of the 1950s, the scientist often played a heroic role as the only person who could provide a technological fix for some impending doom. Reflecting the distrust of government that began in the 1960s in the US, the brilliant but rebellious scientist became a common theme, often serving a Cassandra-like role during an impending disaster.

Disaster films
A frequent theme among sci-fi films is that of impending or actual disaster on an epic scale. These often address a particular concern of the writer by serving as a vehicle of warning against a type of activity, including technological research. In the case of alien invasion films, the creatures can provide as a stand-in for a feared foreign power.

Disaster films typically fall into the following general categories:
• Alien invasion — hostile extraterrestrials arrive and seek to supplant humanity.
They are either overwhelmingly powerful or very insidious.
• Environmental disaster — such a major climate change, or an asteroid or comet
strike.
• Man supplanted by technology — typically in the form of an all-powerful computer,
advanced robots or cyborgs, or else genetically-modified humans or animals.
• Nuclear war — usually in the form of a dystopic, post-holocaust tale of grim
survival.
• Pandemic — a highly lethal disease, often one created by man, wipes out most of
humanity in a massive plague.

Time travel movies can also exploit the potential for disaster as a motivation for the plot, or they can be the root cause of a disaster by wiping out recorded history and creating a new future.

Mind and identity
The core mental aspects of what makes us human has been a staple of science fiction films, particularly since the 1980s. Blade Runner examined what made a organic-creation a human, while the RoboCop series saw a android mechanism fitted with the brain and reprogrammed mind of a human. The idea of brain transfer was not entirely new to science fiction film, as the concept of the "mad scientist" transferring the human mind to another body is as old as Frankenstein.

In the 1990s, Total Recall began a thread of films that explored the concept of reprogramming the human mind. This was reminiscient of the brainwashing fears of the 1950s that appeared in such films as A Clockwork Orange. The cyberpunk film Johnny Mnemonic used the reprogramming concept for a commercial purpose as the human became a data transfer vessel. Voluntary erasure of memory is further explored as themes of the films Paycheck and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. In Dark City, human memory and the fabric of reality itself is reprogrammed wholesale. Serial Experiments Lain also explores the idea of reprogrammable reality and memory.

The idea that a human could be entirely represented as a program in a computer was a core element of the film Tron. This would be further explored in The Lawnmower Man, and the idea reversed in Virtuosity as a computer program sought to become a real person. In the Matrix series, the virtual reality world became a real world prison for humanity, managed by intelligent machines. In eXistenZ, the nature of reality and virtual reality become intermixed with no clear distinguishing boundary. Likewise The Cell intermixed dreams and virtual reality, creating a fantasy realm with no boundaries.

Time travel
The concept of time travel, or travelling backwards and forwards through time, has always been a popular staple of science fiction film, as well as in various sci-fi television series. This usually involves the use of some type of advanced technology, such as H. G. Wells' classic The Time Machine, or the Back to the Future trilogy. Other movies have employed Special Relativity to explain travel far into the future, including the Planet of the Apes series.

More conventional time travel movies use technology to bring the past to life in the present (or a present that lies in our future). The movie Iceman (1984) dealt with the reanimation of a frozen Neanderthal (smiliair to the 1950 Christopher Lee film Horror Express), a concept later spoofed in the comedy Encino Man (1992). The Jurassic Park series portrayed cloned life forms grown from DNA ingested by insects that were frozen in amber. The movie Freejack (1992) has victims of horrible deaths being pulled forward in time just a split-second before their demise, and then used for spare body parts.

A common theme in time travel movies is dealing with the paradoxical nature of travelling to the past. The movie 12 Monkeys (1995) has a self-fulfilling quality as the main character as a child witnesses the death of his future self. In Slaughterhouse-Five (1969) the main character jumps backwards and forwards across his life, and ultimately accepts the inevitability of his final fate.

The Back to the Future series goes one step further and explores the result of altering the past, while in Star Trek: First Contact (1996) the crew must rescue the Earth from having its past altered by time-travelling aliens. The Terminator series employs self-aware machines instead of aliens, which travel to the past in order to gain victory in a future war.

Film versus literature
When compared to literary works, such films are an expression of the genre that often rely less on the human imagination and more upon the visual uniqueness and fanciful imagery provided through special effects and the creativity of artists. The special effect has long been a staple of science fiction films, and, especially since the 1960s and 1970s, the audience has come to expect a high standard of visual rendition in the product. A substantial portion of the budget allocated to a sci-fi film can be spent on special effects, and not a few rely almost exclusively on these effects to draw an audience to the theater (rather than employing a substantial plot and engaging drama).

Science fiction literature often relies upon story development, reader knowledge, and the portrayal of elements that are not readily displayed in the film medium. In contrast, science fiction films usually must depend on action and suspense to entertain the audience, thus favoring battle scenes and threatening creatures over the more subtle plot elements of a drama, for example. There are, of course, exceptions to this trend, and some of the most critically-acclaimed sci-fi movies have relied primarily on a well-developed story and unusual ideas, instead of physical conflict and peril. Nevertheless, few science fiction books have been made into movies, and even fewer successfully.

Science fiction as social commentary
This film genre has long served as a vehicle for thinly-disguised and often thoughtful social commentary. Presentation of issues that are difficult or disturbing for an audience can be made more acceptable when they are explored in a future setting or on a different, earth-like world. The altered context can allow for deeper examination and reflection of the ideas presented, with the perspective of a viewer watching remote events.

The type of commentary presented in a science fiction film often an illustrated the particular concerns of the period in which they were produced. Early sci-fi films expressed fears about automation replacing workers and the dehumanization of society through science and technology. Later films explored the fears of environmental catastrophe or technology-created disasters, and how they would impact society and individuals.

The monster movies of the 1950s served as stand-ins for fears of nuclear war, communism and views on the cold war. In the 1970s, science fiction films also became an effective way of satirizing contemporary social mores with Silent Running and Dark Star presenting hippies in space as a reposte to the militaristic types that had dominated earlier films, A Clockwork Orange presenting a horrific vision of youth culture, Logan's Run depicting a futuristic swingers society and The Stepford Wives anticipating a reaction to the women's liberation movement.

Enemy Mine demonstrated that the foes we have come to hate are often just like us, even if they appear alien. Movies like 2001, Jurassic Park, Blade Runner, and Tron examined the dangers of advanced technology, while RoboCop, 1984, and the Star Wars films illustrate the dangers of extreme political control. Both Planet of the Apes and Stepford Wives commented on the politics and culture of contemporary society.

Influence of classic sci-fi authors
Jules Verne was the first major science fiction author to be adapted for the screen with Melies Voyage Dans La Lune of 1902 and 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea of 1907 but these only use Verne's basic scenarios as a framework for fantastic visuals. By the time Verne's work fell out of copyright in 1950 the adaptations were treated as period pieces. His works have been treated in a number of film releases since then, including 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea in 1954, From the Earth to the Moon in 1958, and Journey to the Center of the Earth in 1959.

H. G. Wells has had better success with The Invisible Man, Things to Come and The Island of Doctor Moreau all being adapted during his lifetime with good results while War of the Worlds was updated in 1953 and another update has been released in 2005. The Time Machine has had two film versions (1961 and 2002) while Sleeper in part is a pastiche of Wells' 'The Sleeper Awakes'.

With the drop off in interest in science fiction films in 1940s and 1950s few of the 'golden age' sci-fi authors made it to the screen. A novella by John W. Campbell provided the basis for The Thing From Another World. Robert A. Heinlein contributed to the screenplay for Destination Moon (1950), but it was not until The Puppet Masters (1994) and Starship Troopers (1997) that one of his major works was adapted and L. Ron Hubbard had to wait to 2000 for the disastrous flop Battlefield Earth. Isaac Asimov can rightly be cited as an influence on the Star Wars and Star Trek films but it was not until 2004 that a version of I, Robot made it to film.

The most successful adaptation of a sci-fi author was Arthur C. Clarke with 2001 and its sequel. Reflecting the times, two earlier science fiction works by Ray Bradbury were adapted for cinema in the 1960s with Fahrenheit 451 and the Illustrated Man. Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughter-house Five was filmed in 1971 and Breakfast of Champions was filmed in 1998.

More recently Phillip K. Dick has become the most influential of sci-fi authors on science fiction film. His work manages to evoke the paranoia that has been a central feature of the genre without invoking alien influences. Films based on Dick's works include Blade Runner (1982), Total Recall (1990), Minority Report (2002), and Paycheck (2003). These film versions are often only loose adaptations of the original story, being converted into an action-adventure film in the process.

Horror film

Horror film

DVD cover showing horror characters as depicted by Universal Studios. Elsa Lanchester from Bride of Frankenstein (1935), Claude Rains from The Invisible Man (1933), Bela Lugosi from Dracula (1931), Claude Rains from Phantom of the Opera (1943), "The Creature" from Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954), Boris Karloff from Frankenstein (1931), Lon Chaney Jr. from The Wolf Man (1941) and Boris Karloff from The Mummy (1932)

In film, the horror genre is characterized by the attempt to make the viewer experience dread, fear, terror, disgust or horror. Its plots often involve the intrusion of an evil force, event, or personage, sometimes of supernatural origin, into the mundane world.

Some of the most common elements include vampires, zombies (and other forms of resurrected corpses), werewolves, ancient curses, ghosts, demons and/or demonic possession, Satanism, evil children, 'slasher villains', vicious animals, inanimate objects brought to life by black magic or twisted science, haunted houses, cannibals, and malicious extraterrestrials. The serial killer movie is sometimes regarded as part of the horror genre.

Specific stories and characters, often derived from classic literature, have also proven popular, and have inspired many sequels, remakes, and copycats. These include Dracula, Frankenstein, The Mummy, The Wolf Man and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.

The horror film is often associated with low budgets and exploitation, but major studios and well-respected directors have made intermittent forays into the genre. The genre's marginal status has caused it to receive much critical dismissal or moral condemnation over the course of film history. However, during the past few decades new generations of critics - more inclined to take popular genres seriously - have given horror substantial attention and analysis, especially with regard to its perceived subversive content. Over the same period, it has become more than ever a source of controversy, as its level of graphic violence has increased and especially feminist critics have leveled accusations of misogyny.

Some horror films owe a substantial amount to other genres, particularly science fiction, fantasy and the thriller. The lines between horror and these other categories are often a subject of debate among fans and critics.

History
Early milestones
The horror genre is nearly as old as film itself. The first depictions of supernatural events appear in several of the silent shorts created by film pioneer Georges Méliès in the late 1890s, most notably in his 1896 Le Manoir du Diable. However, the earliest true 'horror films' were created by German film makers in 1910s and 1920s, many of which were a significant influence on later Hollywood films. Paul Wegener's The Golem (1915) was seminal; in 1920 Robert Wiene's The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari was both controversial with American audiences, due to postwar sentiments, and influential in its Expressionistic style; the most enduring horror film of that era was probably the first vampire-themed feature, F. W. Murnau's Nosferatu (1922), an unauthorized adaptation of Bram Stoker's Dracula.

Early Hollywood dramas dabbled in horror themes, including versions of The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1923) and The Monster (1925) (both starring Lon Chaney, Sr., the first American horror movie star). His most famous role, however, was in The Phantom of the Opera (1925), perhaps the true predecessor of Universal's famous horror series.

1930s & 1940s
It was in the early 1930s that American film producers, particularly Universal Pictures Co. Inc., popularized the horror film, bringing to the screen a series of successful Gothic features including Dracula (1931), and The Mummy (1932), some of which blended science fiction films with Gothic horror, such as James Whale's Frankenstein (1931) and The Invisible Man (1933). These films, while designed to thrill, also incorporated more serious elements, and were influenced by the German expressionism of the 1920s. Some actors began to build entire careers in such films, most notably Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi.

Other studios of the day had less spectacular success, but Rouben Mamoulian's Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (Paramount, 1931) and Michael Curtiz's The Mystery of the Wax Museum (Warner Brothers, 1933) were both important horror films.

Universal's horror films continued into the 1940s with The Wolf Man 1941, not the first werewolf film, but certainly the most influential. Throughout the decade Universal also continued to produce more sequels in the Frankenstein series, as well as a number of films teaming up several of their monsters. Also in that decade, Val Lewton would produce a series of influential and atmospheric B-pictures for RKO, including Cat People (1942), I Walked with a Zombie (1943) and The Body Snatcher (1945).

1950s
With the dramatic changes in technology that occurred in the 1950s, the tone of horror films shifted away from the gothic and further toward science fiction. A seemingly endless parade of low-budget productions featured humanity overcoming threats from "outside": alien invasions and deadly mutations to people, plants, and insects. These films provided ample opportunity for audience exploitation, with gimmicks such as 3-D and "Percepto" (producer William Castle's electric-shock technique used for 1959's The Tingler) drawing audiences in week after week for bigger and better scares. The classier horror films of this period, including The Thing From Another World (1951; attributed on screen to Christian Nyby but widely considered to be the work of Howard Hawks) and Don Siegel's Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956) managed to channel the paranoia of the Cold War into atmospheric creepiness without resorting to direct exploitation of the events of the day. Filmmakers would continue to merge elements of science fiction and horror well into the future.

The late 1950s and early 1960s saw the rise of studios centered specifically around horror. Notable were British production company Hammer Films, which specialized in bloody remakes of classic horror stories often starring Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee, including The Curse of Frankenstein (1957) and Dracula (1958). Hammer, and director Terence Fisher, is widely acknowledged as pioneers of the modern horror movie.

American International Pictures (AIP) also made a series of Edgar Allan Poe themed films produced by Roger Corman and starring Vincent Price. These sometimes-controversial productions paved the way for more explicit violence in both horror and mainstream films.

1960s
In the 1960s the genre moved towards "psychological horror", with thrillers such as Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho (1960) using all-too-human monsters rather than supernatural ones to scare the audience; Michael Powell's Peeping Tom (1960) was a notable example of this. Psychological horror films would continue to appear sporadically, with 1991's The Silence of the Lambs a later highlight of the subgenre (although these films can also be considered crime films or thrillers).

Ghosts and monsters still remained popular: The Innocents (1961) and The Haunting (1963) were two supernaturally tinged psychological horror films from the early 1960s, with high production values and gothic atmosphere. Hitchcock's The Birds (1963) had a more modern backdrop; it was a prime example of "nature-goes-mad" menace combined with psychological horror.

Low-budget gore-shock films from the likes of Herschell Gordon Lewis also appeared. Examples included 1963's Blood Feast (a devil-cult story) and 1964's Two Thousand Maniacs (a ghost town run by the shades of Southerners), which featured splattering blood and bodily dismemberment.

One of the most influential horror films of the late 1960s was George Romero's (1968). This zombie film was later deemed "culturally, historically or aesthetically significant" enough to be preserved by the National Film Registry. Blending psychological thriller with gore, it moved the genre even further away from the gothic horror trends of earlier eras and brought horror into the lives of ordinary modern people.

1970s
With the demise of the Production Code of America in 1964, and the financial successes of the low-budget gore films churned out in the ensuing years, plus an increasing public fascination with the occult, the genre was able to be reshaped by a series of intense, often gory horror movies with sexual overtones, made as "A-movies" (as opposed to "B-movies"). Many of these films were made by respected auteurs.

Roman Polanski's Rosemary's Baby (1968) was a critical and popular success, and a precursor to the 1970s occult explosion, which included The Exorcist (1973) (directed by William Friedkin and written by William Peter Blatty, who also wrote the novel), and scores of other horror films in which the Devil became the supernatural evil, often by impregnating women or possessing children. Evil children and reincarnation became popular subjects (such as Robert Wise's 1977 United Artists film Audrey Rose, which dealt with a man who claims his daughter is the reincarnation of another dead person). Another well recognized religious horror movie was The Omen (1976), where a man realizes that his five year old adopted son is the Antichrist. Being by doctrine invincible to solely human intervention, Satan-villained films also cemented the relationship between horror film, postmodern style and a dystopian worldview.

The "new age" ideas of the 1960s hippies began to influence horror films, as the youth previously involved in the counterculture began exploring the medium. Wes Craven's The Last House on the Left (1972) and Tobe Hooper's The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974) both pushed comfortable liberal boundaries to the edge; George Romero examined the rise of the new consumer society in his 1978 zombie sequel, Dawn of the Dead; Canadian director David Cronenberg updated the "mad scientist" movie subgenre by exploring contemporary fears about technology and society, and reinventing "body horror", starting with Shivers (1975).

Also in the 1970s, horror author Stephen King, a child of the 1960s, first arrived on the film scene. Adaptations of many of his books came to be filmed for the screen, beginning with Brian DePalma's adaptation of King's first published novel, Carrie (1976), which went on to be nominated for Academy Awards, although it has often been noted that its appeal was more for its psychological exploration as for its capacity to scare. And John Carpenter, who had previously directed stoner comedy Dark Star (1974), created the hit Halloween (1978), introducing the teens-threatened-by-superhuman-evil theme, and kick-starting the "slasher film". This subgenre would be mined by dozens of increasingly violent movies throughout the subsequent decades.

1979's Alien combined the naturalistic acting and graphic violence of the 1970s with the monster movie plots of earlier decades, and re-acquainted horror with science fiction. It spawned a long-lasting franchise, and countless imitators, overs the next 30 years.

At the same time, there was an explosion of horror films in Europe, particularly from the hands of Italian filmmakers like Mario Bava, Dario Argento and Lucio Fulci, and Spanish filmmakers like Jacinto Molina (aka Paul Naschy) and Jesus Franco, which were dubbed into English and filled drive-in theaters that could not necessarily afford the expensive rental contracts of the major American producers. These films generally featured more traditional horror subjects - e.g. vampires, werewolves, psycho-killers, demons, zombies - but treated them with a distinctive European style that included copious gore and sexuality (of which mainstream American producers overall were still a little skittish). Notable national outputs were the "giallo" films from Italy, the Jean Rollin romantic/erotic films from France, and the anthology films of Amicus from the UK.

1980s
Almost any successful 1980s horror film received sequels. 1982's Poltergeist (Tobe Hooper) was followed by two sequels and a television series. The endless sequels to Halloween, Friday the 13th (1980), and Wes Craven's supernatural slasher A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) were the popular face of horror films in the 1980s, a trend reviled by most critics.

Nevertheless, original horror films continued to appear sporadically: Clive Barker's Hellraiser (1987) and Tom Holland's Child's Play (1988) were both critically praised, although their success again launched multiple inferior sequels.

As the cinema box office returns for serious, gory modern horror began to dwindle (as exemplified by John Carpenter's The Thing (1982)), it began to find a new audience in the growing home video market, although the new generation of films was less sombre in tone. Motel Hell (1980) and Frank Henenlotter's Basket Case (1982) were the first 1980s films to campily mock the dark conventions of the previous decade (zombie films like Night of the Living Dead and Dawn of the Dead had contained black comedy and satire, but were in general more dark than funny). Stuart Gordon's Re-Animator, Dan O'Bannon's The Return of the Living Dead, and Lloyd Kaufman's The Toxic Avenger (all 1985), soon followed. In Evil Dead II (1987), Sam Raimi's explicitly slapstick sequel to the relatively sober The Evil Dead (1981), the laughs were often generated by the gore, defining the archetypal splatter comedy. New Zealand director Peter Jackson followed in Raimi's footsteps with the ultra-gory micro-budget feature Bad Taste (1987).

Horror films continued to cause controversy: in the UK, the growth in home video led to growing public awareness of horror films of the types described above, and concern about the ease of availability of such material to children. Many films were dubbed "video nasties" and banned. In the USA, Silent Night, Deadly Night, a very controversial film from 1984, failed at theatres and was eventually withdrawn from distribution due to its subject matter: a killer Santa Claus.

1990s
In the first half of the 1990s, the genre continued with themes from the 1980s. It managed mild commercial success with films such as continuing sequels to the Child's Play and Leprechaun serieses. The Canadian film Cube (1997) was perhaps one of the few horror films of the 1990s to be based around a relatively novel concept; it was able to evoke a wide range of different fears, and touched upon a variety of social themes (such as fear of bureaucracy) that had previously been unexplored.

However, the adolescent audience which had feasted on the blood and morbidity of the previous two decades had by now grown up, and the replacement audience for films of an imaginative nature were being captured instead by the explosion of science-fiction and heroic fantasy films laden with computer-generated imagery and nonstop violent action.

To re-connect with its audience, horror became more self-mockingly ironic and outright parodic, especially in the latter half of the 1990s. Peter Jackson's Braindead (1992) (known as Dead-Alive in the USA) took the splatter film to ridiculous excesses for comic effect. Francis Ford Coppola's Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992), featured an ensemble cast and the style of a different era, harking back to the sumptuous look of 1960s Hammer Horror. Wes Craven's Scream movies, starting in 1996, featured teenagers who were fully aware of, and often made reference to, the history of horror movies, and mixed ironic humour with the shocks. It re-ignited the dormant slasher film genre.

Among the popular English-language horror films of the late 1990s, only 1999's surprise independent hit The Blair Witch Project attempted straight-ahead scares. But even then, the horror was accomplished in the ironic context of a mockumentary, or mock-documentary. Together with the international success of Hideo Nakata's Ringu in 1997, it launched a trend in horror films to go "low-key", concentrating on more on unnerving and unsettling themes than on gore. M. Night Shyamalan's The Sixth Sense (1999) was a spectacularly successful example.

Millennial horror
Ringu launched a revival of serious horror filmmaking in Japan ("J-Horror") leading to such films as Takashi Shimizu's Ju-on (2000) and Kiyoshi Kurosawa's Pulse (2001). Other advances in horror were in Japanese animation (for example the gruesome 'guro' animation), as Japanese culture reached new heights of popularity in the West (although the first horror-themed anime had begun appearing in the West by the late 1980s).

The plundering of horror film history gained steam, including sequels, homages and remakes of films long established from previous decades. Some notable box office revivals included the merging of two old franchises in Freddy vs. Jason (2003), the re-imagining of the Universal monsters in Van Helsing (2004), the prequel to The Exorcist, as well as further entries in the Halloween and Child's Play series. Remakes of previous successes included Gore Verbinski's American version of Ringu (The Ring (2002)), and remakes of Dawn of the Dead (2004) and The Amityville Horror (2005). The zombie genre enjoyed a revival around the world, fuelled, in part, by the success of the "survival horror" genre of videogames (themselves inspired by films). Some of these games were also turned into films (for example Resident Evil (2002)). Rob Zombie's House of 1000 Corpses and Eli Roth's Cabin Fever were both homages to the horror films of the late 1970s and early 1980s, with the latter using body horror as its primary method of scare.

Original horror entries in the 2000s were a mixed bag of teen exploitation like the Final Destination movies, starting in 2000, and more serious attempts at mainstream horror, notably the further horror-suspense films of M. Night Shyamalan.

There was also a small revival in British horror film production, with some of the more successful examples including 28 Days Later (2002), Dog Soldiers (2002), Shaun of the Dead (2004) and The Descent (2005).

Slasher film
The slasher film is a sub-genre of the horror film genre. Typically, a masked, psychotic person stalks and graphically kills teenagers or young adults who are away from adult supervision (and typically involved in premarital sex, drug use, or other illicit activity). Slashers are often followed by multiple sequels, which steadily decline in quality and fan interest.

Origins
The genre has its origins in the early 1960s: Michael Powell's Peeping Tom (1960), Herschell Gordon Lewis' Blood Feast (1963), and, most notably, Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho (1960) all bear the hallmarks of the genre.

Other early examples are Mario Bava's Reazione a catena (1971) (known by a dozen titles in English, including Bay of Blood, Carnage and Twitch of the Death Nerve), Tobe Hooper's The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974) and Bob Clark's Black Christmas (1974).

Glory days
However, the two prototypical films that launched the slasher cycle of the late 1970s and early 1980s were John Carpenter's Halloween (1978) and Sean S. Cunningham's Friday the 13th (1980), both of which spawned numerous sequels and even more imitators, including Wes Craven's A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) which itself generated an enduring series.

The simple plots, minimal special effects and potent combination of sex and violence made it an easy choice for low-budget filmmaking in the 1980s, finding a large audience in the burgeoning home video market in particular. Nevertheless, by the end of the 1980s audiences were tiring of unstoppable psychos and the slasher market began to dwindle.

Revival
The slasher genre resurfaced into the mainstream in the mid 1990s, after being successfully deconstructed in Wes Craven's Scream (1996). The film was both a critical and commercial success, which attracted a new generation to the genre. Two sequels followed, and the series was even parodied in Keenen Ivory Wayans' Scary Movie (2000), and its sequels.

It kicked off a new slasher cycle that still followed the basic conventions of the 1980s films, but managed to draw in a more demographically varied audience with increased production values, reduced levels of on-screen gore and better-known actors and actresses (often from popular television shows).

Critical analysis
Critic Roger Ebert has taken to calling this genre the "Dead Teenager Movie", the principal cliché of which is that the only teenager to survive is always the virginal girl who declines all of the vices (pot smoking, etc.) indulged in by those who end up skewered. And some other films in this genre have explored the sexual morality question from the other angle, drawing metaphorical parallels between sexual repression and the acts of the killer (as in William Lustig's Maniac (1980)).

Carol J. Clover, in her book Men, Women and Chain Saws: Gender in the Modern Horror Film, identified what she called the "final girl" trope; the heroic young woman who ultimately survives and defeats the killer (at least until the sequel).

The history of the slasher film has also been explored by Mikita Brottman in her book Offensive Films : Toward an Anthropology of Cinema Vomitif.

Snuff film
A snuff film is a film that depicts an actual murder, produced for general entertainment purposes.

The actual existence of snuff films has been questioned, and they have long been relegated by skeptics to the realm of urban legend and moral panic. Certainly no examples of a film of an actual murder that was created for distribution and entertainment purposes has ever surfaced. Some murderers have in various instances recorded their acts on video; however, the resultant footage is not usually considered to be a snuff film because it is not made for the express purpose of generating a profit from distribution. An example is the video taken in 2001 by Armin Meiwes of the murder of Bernd Jürgen Armando Brandes.

The first recorded use of the term snuff film was in Ed Sanders' book about the Manson Family murders, The Family: The Story of Charles Manson's Dune Buggy Attack Battalion (1971). Even there, the interview subject who described the production of said films had never actually seen such a film himself. The term "snuff" meaning death is older than that, and "snuff it", meaning to die, was used repeatedly in the film A Clockwork Orange (1971). The concept of a snuff movie subsequently reappeared and became more widely known in 1976 in the context of the film Snuff and in Paul Schrader's 1979 film Hardcore.

In recent years, snuff films have captured the imagination of pop culture. The Spanish horror movie Tesis (1996) revolves around a student discovering a library of snuff films hidden in a room beneath her college. 8mm (1999) is a similar movie about a private investigator hired by a widow to determine if the film her husband kept hidden in a safe is a real snuff film.

The Japanese Guineapig films are designed to look like authentic snuff films; the video is grainy and unsteady, as if recorded by amateurs. In the late 1980s, the Guinea Pig films were one of the inspirations for Japanese serial killer Tsutomu Miyazaki's murders of preschool girls. The most infamous Guinea Pig film is Guinea Pig: Flower of Flesh and Blood, in which a woman, apparently drugged, is shown chained to a bed as a man in a samurai costume slowly kills her through torture and dismemberment. The film is so realistic that the FBI, acting on a tip from actor Charlie Sheen (who saw the video at a party), investigated the film, believing it to be a real murder. In an attempt to offset further criminal investigations and ease the public mind, the producers released The Making of Guinea Pig, a film made up of behind-the-scenes footage. Likewise, Italian director Ruggero Deodato was once called before a court in order to prove that a murder depicted in his film Cannibal Holocaust had been faked.

During the early 1990s, rumors spread of gay bars in Boston showing a film involving homeless teenagers, who were told that they were going to star in a porno film, running away in horror from the movie camera until they were caught up with and shot to death on camera. The Boston Herald newspaper published an article on the subject of such murder films being shown in the Boston area, Articles on the Channel 1 computer bulletin board news groups alluded to such films and claimed they were made in New York City.

A possibly credible case emerged in 2000, when an Italian police operation broke up a gang of child pornographers based in Russia who, it was claimed, were offering snuff films for sale to their clients. No such films have been found to date; it is unknown whether the "snuff film" angle to this bust was a scam by the pornographers, whose victims were unlikely ever to complain to the authorities, or a circulation-building ploy by Il Mattino, the Italian daily where the snuff charges were first reported.

The number of Internet downloads of videos depicting actual murders (e.g. the filmed decapitations of Daniel Pearl, Nick Berg, Paul Johnson, Kim Sun-il, the shooting of Yitzhak Rabin, and the gun suicides of Ricardo Cerna and Budd Dwyer), plus the popularity of television programs and video releases showing actual or recreated deaths (i.e. Faces of Death, World's Wildest Police Videos—though the latter program usually edits out the more violent footage), reveals how large a market for genuine footage of murderous violence exists, whatever the context. In addition, historical footage of actual murders, such as the assassination of John F. Kennedy (in particular the Zapruder film) have often been incorporated into entertainment programs, such as the Oliver Stone film, JFK.

The early 90s video game KGB also deals with snuff films made in the then-USSR.

Rockstar Games also relased a game entitled "Manhunt" (for the PS2 and PC) in which the player controls an avatar who finds himself the potential victim in a snuff film. "Manhunt" acts as a powerful critical voice within the gaming community as it comments on the fasination with death and murder within video games even as it allows its players to carry out horrific murders themselves.
• Professione: reporter, a film directed by Michelangelo Antonioni, contains a sequence that depicts an actual execution by firing squad.

Film noir

Film noir

Film noir is a film style and mood primarily associated with crime films, that portrays its principal characters in a nihilistic and existential world. Film noir is primarily derived from the hard-boiled style of crime fiction of the Depression era, (many films noir were adaptations of such novels), and may first be clearly seen in films released in the early 1940s. 'Noirs' were historically made in black and white, and had a dark, high-contrast style with roots in German Expressionist cinematography.

The term film noir (French for "black film") was unknown to the filmmakers and actors while they were creating the classic films noir. Film noir was defined in retrospect by film historians and critics; many of the creators of film noir later professed to be unaware at the time of having created a distinctive type of film.

The use of the phrase "film noirs" is, technically incorrect and untrue to the French origin of the term. With "noir" modifying "film," the approriate plural form of "film noir" is "films noirs."

Precursors
Film noir is a result of a combination of genres and styles, with origins in painting and literature, as well as film.

German Expressionism heavily influences the aesthetics of film noir. When Germany fell to Nazism, many important film artists were forced to emigrate (including Fritz Lang, Billy Wilder, and Robert Siodmak). They took with them techniques they developed (most importantly the dramatic lighting and the subjective, psychological point of view) and made some of the most famous films noir in the USA. Concurrent with the development of German Expressionism were expressionistic gangster films in America in the 1930s, such as Little Caesar (1930), The Public Enemy (1931), Scarface (1932) and I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang (1932).

Other important influences came from the French poetic realism, with its themes of fatalism, injustice and doomed heroes, and Italian neorealism, with its emphasis on authenticity. Several later noir films, such as Night and the City (1950) and Panic in the Streets (1950), adopted a neorealist approach of using on-location photography with non-professional extras. Additionally, some noir films strove to depict comparatively ordinary or downtrodden people with unspectacular lives in a manner similar to neorealist films, such as The Lost Weekend and In a Lonely Place.

In the United States, a major literary influence on film noir came from the hard-boiled school of detective and crime fiction, featuring writers such as Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler and James M. Cain, and popularized in pulp magazines such as Black Mask. Chandler's The Big Sleep and Murder My Sweet (based on Farewell, My Lovely) and Hammett's The Maltese Falcon are notable films noir.

Boris Ingster's Stranger on the Third Floor (1940) is often considered to be the first full-featured film noir, starring Peter Lorre as the sinister 'stranger'. Orson Welles's landmark film Citizen Kane (1941) had a huge influence on the development of film noir, particularly with its stunning visuals and complex narrative stucture driven by voiceover narration.

The classic period
One of the quintessential films noir, Out of the Past features all of the noir hallmarks: a cynical private detective as the "hero", a sexy femme fatale, multiple flashbacks with voiceover narration, dramatic chiaroscuro black and white photography, and a pervasive fatalistic mood. The film stars Robert Mitchum who, along with Humphrey Bogart, was the foremost male icon of film noir.

The 1940s and 1950s were the "classic period" of film noir. Some film historians regard Stranger on the Third Floor (1940) to be the first true film noir. Orson Welles's Touch of Evil (1958) is often cited as the last film in the classic period.

Some scholars believed film noir never really ended, but declined in popularity, only to be later revived in a slightly different form. Other critics — probably a majority — regard films made outside the classic time frame to be something other than genuine film noir. These critics regard true film noir as belonging to a cycle or period, and that subsequent films that try to evoke the classic films are different because the creators are conscious of a noir "style" in a way that the original makers of film noir were not.

Many of the classic films noir were low-budget supporting features without major stars, in which 'moonlighting' writers, directors and technicians, some of them blacklisted, found themselves relatively free from big-picture restraints. Many of the most popular examples of film noir center upon a woman of questionable virtue and are also known as bad girl movies. Major studio feature films demanded a wholesome, positive message. Weak and morally ambiguous lead characters were ruled out by the "star system", and secondary characters were seldom allowed any depth or autonomy. In "A" films, flattering soft lighting, deluxe interiors and elaborately-built exterior sets were the rule. Noir turned all this on its head, creating bleak but intelligent dramas tinged with nihilism, mistrust, paranoia and cynicism, in real-life urban settings, and using unsettling techniques such as the confessional voice-over or hero's-eye-view camerawork. Gradually the noir style re-influenced the mainstream.

Directors associated with classic film noir include John Huston, Howard Hawks, Fritz Lang, Billy Wilder, and Orson Welles. Alfred Hitchcock made some crime films that display elements of film noir (Notorious, Strangers on a Train), but are not always considered part of the film noir canon.

Film noir outside the U.S.
Orson Welles (right) as Harry Lime in The Third Man, giving his infamous 'cuckoo clock' speech to Joseph Cotten - a classic scene of pure film noir.

There have been a number of films made outside the U.S. that can reasonably be called film noir, for example Pepé le Moko. Jules Dassin moved to France in the early fifties as a result of the Hollywood blacklist and made one of the most famous French films noir, Du rififi chez les hommes (1955). Other well-known French films sometimes considered to be noir include Touchez pas au grisbi (1954), Diabolique (1955), and Quai des Orfèvres (1947). The French director Jean-Pierre Melville is widely recognized for his tragic, minimalist films noir, such as Le Samouraï or Le Cercle rouge. Additionally, the British director Carol Reed made The Third Man (1949), which is often considered film noir. It is set in Vienna immediately after the war, with the collaboration of Joseph Cotten and Orson Welles, both prominent American film-noir actors.

Neo-noir is a term often applied to films made after the classic period. Neo-noir films have been produced internationally in most countries with a prominent film industry. Examples include High and Low (Japan), La Haine (France), Insomnia (Norway), Alphaville (France), The American Friend (Germany), and Blind Shaft (China).

Neo-noir and the influence of film noir
In the 1960s American film-makers like Sam Peckinpah, Arthur Penn, and Robert Altman created films that drew from (and commented upon) the original films noir. In The Long Goodbye, Altman's hard-boiled detective is presented as a hapless bungler who can't help but lose the moral battle.

Film noir has been parodied (both broadly and affectionately) on many occasions. Bob Hope first parodied film noir in My Favorite Brunette (1947), playing a baby photographer who is mistaken for tough private detective. Other notable parodies are Carl Reiner's black-and-white "cut and paste" homage Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid, and Woody Allen's Play It Again, Sam. These parodies have been extended to comic strips as well, with Sam Spayed from Garfield and Tracer Bullet from Calvin and Hobbes.

Many of Joel and Ethan Coen's films are excellent examples of modern films influenced by noir, especially The Man Who Wasn't There and Blood Simple, the comedy The Big Lebowski (itself a tribute to author Raymond Chandler, whose crime novels inspired the genre), and Miller's Crossing, loosely based on the novels The Glass Key and Red Harvest by Dashiell Hammett. Also, Curtis Hanson's widely praised L.A. Confidential is the closest thing to a modern-day film noir, with it's tale of corrupt cops and femme fatales seemingly lifted right from the 1950s.

The cynical, pessimistic worldview of noirs strongly influenced the creators of the cyberpunk genre of science fiction in the early 1980s. Blade Runner is among the most popular films from this era. Characters in these films are derived from 1930s gangster films and, more importantly, from pulp magazines such as The Shadow, Dime Mystery Detective, and The Black Mask. Other examples for SF-noir films are Gattaca, The Thirteenth Floor, Ghost in the Shell and Dark City. Some consider the films of David Lynch to have a notable noir influence, particularly his most well-known and renowned work, Blue Velvet.

Recent works of popular fiction in a noir vein include the 2005 movie Sin City, the video game series Max Payne, and Christopher Nolan's remake of Insomnia

Characteristics
Visual style
Noir films, traditionally black and white, tended to include dramatic shadows and stark contrast—using low-key lighting and monochrome film, typically resulting in a 10:1 ratio of dark to light, rather than the more typical 3:1 ratio. A number of noir films were shot on location in cities, and night-for-night shooting was common. Also common to be seen in any noir film are shadows of venetian blinds. These are dramatically cast upon an actor's face as he looks out a window. This is one of the many iconic visuals in noir.

Noir is also known for its use of dutch angles, low-angle shots, and wide angle lenses. Other devices of disorientation common in film noir include shots of people in mirrors or multiple mirrors, shots through a glass (such as during the strangulation scene in Strangers on a Train), and multiple exposures.

Setting
Film noir tends to revolve around flawed and desperate characters in an unforgiving world. Crime, usually murder, is an element of all films noir, often sparked by jealousy, corrhruption, or greed. Most films noir contain certain archetypal characters (such as hardboiled detectives, femmes fatales, corrupt policemen, jealous husbands, insurance agents, or down-and-out writers), familiar locations (downtown Los Angeles, New York, or San Francisco), and archetypal storylines (heist films, detective stories, court films, and films about rigged boxing games).

Morality
The morals of film noir tend not to be simple black/white decisions, in line with the aforementioned existential influence.

Often, characters may adhere to an absolute moral goal, but are more than willing to let the "ends justify the means" in order to obtain this goal. For example, in The Stranger, the investigator is so obsessed with tracking down a Nazi war criminal that he places other people in mortal danger to track him down.

Outlook
Film noir is at its core pessimistic. The stories it tells are of people trapped in a situation they did not want, often a situation they did not create, striving against random uncaring fate, and usually doomed. Almost all film noir plots involve the hard-boiled, disillusioned male and the dangerous femme fatale.

Elements of noir
Film noir is hard to define specifically, unlike say film Westerns. Some movies are considered noir by some, but not by others. Examples include Vertigo (1958) or Niagara (1953). To be considered "film noir", the film should contain some or all of the following:

Heimatfilm
Heimatfilm is a film genre, which was popular in Germany in the 1950s. Heimatfilms were noted for their rural settings, sentimental tone and simplistic morality. Heimat is a German word meaning homeland.

The trilogy of films called “Heimat” by the German director Edgar Reitz (1984, 1992 & 2004) is partly an ironic reference to this type of sentimental film.

Fantasy film

Fantasy film

In theory fantasy films are films with fantastic themes, usually involving magic or exotic fantasy worlds, as distinct from science fiction films or horror films. The category has as much to do with approach as with context and there is often a good deal of overlap between the genres. For example, much about Star Wars suggests fantasy, yet it feels like science fiction, while much about Time Bandits suggests science fiction, yet it feels like fantasy.

Superhero films also seem to fulfill the requirements of the fantasy or science fiction genres, but they are usually considered to be a genre all their own.

Animated films are not always classified as fantasy, nor are talking non-human animals. Bambi, for example, is not fantasy, nor is Toy Story, though the latter is closer to fantasy than the former. The Secret of NIMH, however, is a fantasy film, not because it features talking non-human animals, but because there is actual magic involved.

Surrealist film also describes the fantastic, but it dispenses with genre narrative conventions, and commercial and financial aims, and is usually considered a separate category.

Most fantasy movies are released during the winter season, particularly in November and December, in stark contrast with the summer, which releases mostly action and sci-fi movies.

Sub-Genres
There are many sub-categories of fantasy films that can be identified. The most prevalent of these are High Fantasy and Sword and sorcery. These are films with quasi-medieval settings, wizards, magical creatures and the like. High Fantasy tends to have a complex fantasy world and hero of humble origins, while Sword and sorcery tends to pit a barbarian against a wizard. High Fantasy is indebted to the work of J.R.R. Tolkien and his Lord of the Rings books, while sword and sorcery is equally indebted to the work of Robert E. Howard and his Conan the Barbarian.

Another important sub-genre of fantasy films, more popular in recent years, is Contemporary fantasy. Such films feature magic (often figured as the supernatural) in the real world. The most prominent example in the early Twenty-first Century is the Harry Potter series while most superhero films are a form of science fantasy typically set in contemporary times.

Finally, we have the fairy tale genre, which many people consider separate from the rest of fantasy. We leave consideration of such major films as Snow White and the Seven Dwarves to the fairy tale genre.

History
Fantasy as a genre in film has existed since the beginning of films, although the offerings were sporadic until the 1980's, which saw a flourishing of the genre. In the era of silent film the outstanding fantasy films were Douglas Fairbanks' The Thief of Bagdad (1924) and Fritz Lang's Die Nibelungin (1925). In 1939, audiences embraced what is surely the best loved fantasy film of all time, The Wizard of Oz. The 1940s saw the full color fantasy films produced by Alexander Korda, The Thief of Bagdad and Jungle Book (1942). Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. in Sinbad the Sailor feels like a fantasy film, though it does not actually have any fantastic elements. In the 1950's there were only two major fantasy films, The 5000 Fingers of Dr. T and Darby O'Gill and the Little People. There were also several low budget fantasies, based on Greek or Arabian legend, by Ray Harryhausen. The only true fantasy film in the 1970s was The Seven Faces of Dr. Lao. With Raiders of the Lost Ark, a fantasy explosion began which continues into the Twenty-first Century.
• 1980s: Raiders of the Lost Ark, Dragonslayer, Poltergeist, The Dark Crystal, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, Legend, Highlander, Labyrinth, Conan the Barbarian, Conan the Destroyer, The Princess Bride, Willow, and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.
• 1990s: Ghost, Groundhog Day, The Indian in the Cupbord, Jumanji, The X-Files, Meet Joe Black, The Green Mile, and The Sixth Sense.
• 2000s: Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Unbreakable, Holes, Pirates of the Caribbean and, in a class by themselves, The Lord of the Rings films and the Harry Potter films. The final Lord of the Rings film, The Return of the King, was the first sci-fi, fantasy, or horror film to win an Oscar for Best Picture.

There is also at least one fantasy film that would be spoiled if you knew it was fantasy before you saw it.

Fantastique
Fantastique is a French term for a literary and cinematic genre that overlaps with parts of science fiction, horror and fantasy. It is not a specifically French genre. The conventional usage in French encompasses many non-French authors who may be categorised differently in their own countries.

What is distinctive about fantastique is the intrusion of supernatural phenomena into an otherwise realist narrative. It evokes phenomena which are not only left unexplained but which are inexplicable from the reader's point of view. In this respect, fantastique is somewhere between fantasy, where the supernatural is accepted and entirely reasonable in the imaginary world of a non-realist narrative; and magic realism, where apparently supernatural phenomena are explained and accepted as normal. Instead, characters in a work of fantastique are, just like the readers, unwilling to accept the supernatural events that occur. This refusal may be mixed with doubt, disbelief, fear, or some combination of those reactions.

Fantastique is often linked to a particular ambiance, a sort of tension in the face of the impossible. There is often a good deal of fear involved, either because the characters are afraid or because the author wants to provoke fright in the reader. However, fear is not an essential component of fantastique.

Some theorists of literature contend that fantastique is defined by its hesitation between accepting the supernatural as such and trying to rationally explain the phenomena it describes. In that case, fantastique is nothing more than a transitional area on a spectrum from magic realism to fantasy and does not qualify as a separate genre.

Fantastique literature is often considered close to science fiction. However, there is an important difference between the two: science fiction is situated in a different time and place than the reader, and irrational seeming events are actually held to be rational in the framework of future or perhaps alien science and technology.

A great deal of literature, from every part of the world and dating back to time immemorial, falls within the category of fantastique. Fairy tales like The Book of One Thousand and One Nights and epic literature like the Romance of the Holy Grail are within the scope of this genre. Among the precursors of modern fantastique are such luminaries as Voltaire and Jonathan Swift, who hid satire behind non-realist stories, as well as the noir fiction of William Beckford (Vathek) and Matthew Gregory Lewis (The Monk). Elements of fantastique can be found in the works of many 19th century authors like Honoré de Balzac (La peau de chagrin), Guy de Maupassant who exorcises his own demons in Le Horla, Jules Verne explaining the supernatural with science in Le château des Carpathes, Oscar Wilde working along more philosophical lines in The Picture of Dorian Gray, Mary Shelley who takes up the myth of the Golem in Frankenstein, and Bram Stoker's famous Dracula.

This is a term that has also been used to describe many television series and various films, most notably The X-Files.

Exploitation film

Exploitation film
Exploitation films, Exploitative films or trash cinema is the name given to a genre of films, extant since the earliest days of moviemaking, but popularized in the 1970s. Since the 1990s, this genre has also received attention from academic circles, where it is sometimes called paracinema. Exploitation films typically sacrifice traditional notions of artistic merit for the sensational display of some topic about which the audience may be curious, or have some prurient interest. Thematically, exploitation films are influenced by other so-called exploitative media like pulp magazines. Director Quentin Tarantino, who is a declared lover of exploitation cinema, mirrors evidence of exploitation films’ influence on contemporary cinema in films such as Kill Bill.

Grindhouse Cinema
Another term is grindhouse cinema; referring to the usually disreputable movie theaters that showed them. Many of these inner-city theatres formerly featured burlesque shows, which featured "bump and grind" dancing, leading to the term "grindhouse." The book Sleazoid Express, a travelogue of the grindhouses of New York's 42nd Street, explains that in the 1970s-late 1980s, the etymology of "grindhouse" changed to refer to the operations of twenty-four hour theatres, which would continually "grind out" films around the clock (a reference to the cranking motion required of old film cameras and projectors).

Early Exploitation Films
Some of the earliest exploitation films were pitched as sensationalist exposés of some drug or sex-related scandal, and were made independently of the major Hollywood studios, thus avoiding restrictions of the Production Code and providing a revenue source for independent theaters. Now that the major motion picture studios allow much more latitude in subject matter, it is not necessary for independent producers to cater to audiences' desires to view such things. Thus, in modern cinema, roles have reversed somewhat, with major studios catering to the so-called "lowest common denominator", while art films are more typically made independently.

Subcategories of Exploitation Films

Classic Exploitation
Classic Exploitation films made in the 1930s and 1940s were sensationalist fare at the time, and are now valued by aficionados for their nostalgic and ironic value. The most famous example of these is the cautionary tale Reefer Madness, a sensationalized and notoriously inaccurate attempt to demonize marijuana for Prohibition-era America.

A particularly important type of exploitation film of this era was the "sex hygiene" exploitation film, a remnant from the social or mental hygiene movement of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. These films featured white-coated "doctors" describing the how-tos of sex education to the fascinated and naive audience. Often times, the film would be attended by another "doctor" in a white coat selling sex-hygiene booklets in the lobby after the film screening. Usually the producers would make significantly more money from the sales of the booklets than the from the tickets to see the film. This type of film was also known as a "road show," because it was shown from town to town and was promoted in advance like a circus or carnival. One of the most famous of these was "Mom and Dad" which featured actual birth footage.

Sometimes the sex hygiene films would verge into what would be seen as shock exploitation today, showing graphic footage of the ravages of venereal disease. However, showman David Friedman said that in all his years presenting sex-hygiene films as a road show, patrons sometimes came out pale and shaken, but none asked for their money back.

Black Exploitation
Black Exploitation, or "blaxploitation" films, are made with black actors, ostensibly for black audiences, and about stereotypically African American themes such as slum life, drugs, and prostitution. Examples from the 1970s, when Blaxploitation was introduced, include Shaft and Superfly.

Sex Exploitation
Sex Exploitation, or "sexploitation", or Chick Exploitation "chixploitation" films, are similar to softcore pornography, in that the film serves largely as a vehicle for showing scenes involving nude or semi-nude women. Russ Meyer's Beyond the Valley of the Dolls is one example.

Shock Exploitation
Shock Exploitation Films (Shock Films), are films containing content designed to be particularly shocking to the audience. This type of exploitation film focus content traditionally thought to be particularly taboo for presentation in film, such as extremely realistic graphic violence, graphic rape depictions, simulated zoophilia and depictions of simulated incest. Examples of shock films include Cannibal Holocaust, Last House on the Left, Fight For Your Life, Run and Kill, Bald Headed Betty, Last House on Dead End Street, Baise-Moi, Thriller: A Cruel Picture, Cannibal Ferox (AKA Make Them Die Slowly), and I Spit On Your Grave. Sometimes these films purport to be the retelling of a true story, such as the Japanese film Schoolgirl in Cement, which dealt with the Junko Furuta murder. The sub-sub-genre of simulated "snuff" films might also belong here, such as the infamous Guinea Pig films, also from Japan.

Cannibal Exploitation Films
Cannibal films are a sub genre of exploitation film, a collection of graphically gory movies created from the late 1970s through the early 1990s by Italian moviemakers. In 1974, Umberto Lenzi made Man from Deep River (1972), generally believed to be the first Italian cannibal movie. Joe D'Amato made Emanuelle and the Last Cannibals in 1977 and Ruggero Deodato continued the tradition with Last Cannibal World (1977) and Cannibal Holocaust (1978), an acknowledged influence on The Blair Witch Project.

Mondo films
"Mondo" exploitation films are quasi-documentary films, often reconstructions of actual or purported events. The events depicted in such films are usually closer in spirit to shock exploitation: they are shocking not only because they deal with taboo subject matter (foreign sexual customs, for instance, or varieties of violent behavior in various societies), but because the on-camera action is allegedly real. Some mondo movies are more blatantly fictitious than others, and the vast majority of them are staged forgeries. Most of them tend to be anthologies of different things under a broad collective label rather than one specific thing. The name "mondo" comes from the first broadly commercially successful movie of this type, Mondo Cane. In Italian this means "A Dog's World," a title that was meant to imply that the world, as showcased in the film, is a nasty, brutal place. "Mondo Cane" was followed by a number of sequels and spinoffs, many of which were also produced in Italy. Other movies of this type include Addio Zio Tom and the Faces of Death series of films. Sometimes "mondo" films are called shockumentaries (i.e., a combination of shock exploitation and documentary).

Hick Exploitation
hixploitation ("hick," dealing with rural characters) Many times these films indulge in Southern American stereotypes of race relations, "moonshining," corrupt local law enforcement, and miscegenation.

Other examples
• Nunsploitation
• Women in prison films
• dyxploitation ("dyke," profiting from lesbian chic)

Some exploitation movies cross categories freely. Doris Wishman's Let Me Die A Woman contains both shock documentary and sex exploitation elements.

Film genres influenced by exploitation film
• Gangster film
• Horror film
• Slasher film
• Women in prison films
• Sexploitation film

Blaxploitation

Blaxploitation is a portmanteau of the words “black” and “exploitation”. It is a film genre which emerged in the United States in the early 1970s when many exploitation films were made that targeted the urban African American audience. The films featured primarily black actors, and were the first to have soundtracks of funk and soul music. Although criticized by civil-rights groups for their use of stereotypes, they addressed the great and newfound demand for afrocentric entertainment, and were immensely popular among black audiences.

Almost all blaxploitation films featured exaggerated sexuality and violence. When set in the North of the U.S., they tended to take place in the ghetto and deal with pimps, drug dealers, and hitmen. When set in the South, the movies most often took place on a plantation and dealt with slavery and miscegenation. In all these films, it was common to see drugs, the Afro hairstyle, "pimpmobiles," and crooked and corrupt White police officers. Controversy was heightened by the fact that these films were often written and directed by white men, although movies created by African Americans with similar themes have also been labeled as “blaxploitation.”

These films made were made for an African American audience and often showed negative depictions of White characters throughout the films. This was most clearly seen as Whites were often cast as crooked and racist police officers or government officials called the word Honky on several occasions. Italian Americans were specifically portrayed negatively as drug dealing members of the mafia whom Black characters would often rip off. Anti-Italian epithets such as Dago and Wop were used in conjunction with Honky against these characters. At the same time, these films set a negative stereotype of African Americans, the audience they were trying to reach as pimps and drug dealers. These were illegal jobs that many Whites stereotyped Blacks as having especially in the northern ghettoes and as a result a call against Blaxploitation had occurred.

The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, and the Urban League joined together to form the Coalition Against Blaxploitation. Backed by many black film professionals, this group received much media exposure and quickened the death of the genre by the late 1970s. Though still regarded as racist by many, some film scholars defend the cinematic genre as instrumental in bringing greater screen presence to African Americans. The films also paved the way for “mainstream” movies to deal with urban issues.

Famous blaxploitation films
• Cotton Comes to Harlem was written and directed by the African American Ossie Davis in 1970. It featured two Black NYPD detectives Coffin Ed played by Raymond St. Jacques and Gravedigger Jones played by Godfrey Cambridge who were looking for a money filled bail of cotton stolen by a corrupt reverend named Deke O'Malley. Blazing Saddles star Cleavon Little makes an appearance in the film.
• Watermelon Man (1970)—written by a white man (Herman Raucher) but directed by an African American (Melvin Van Peebles), this film about a white man who is turned into a black man is considered a forebearer of the 1970s blaxploitation boom
• Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song (1971)—written and directed by Melvin Van Peebles, this tale of a black male prostitute turned vigilante is considered by many to be the first true blaxploitation film, and the film that thrust afrocentric films into the spotlight. Van Peebles himself does not consider his film to be a part of the genre.


Modern media referencing blaxploitation
Recent movies such as Austin Powers in Goldmember (2002) and Undercover Brother (2002) , as well as Quentin Tarantino’s Jackie Brown (1997) and Kill Bill, Vol. 1 (2003), feature nods to the blaxploitation genre. John Singleton’s remake of Shaft (2000) would be modern-day interpretations of blaxploitation—this trend goes back to the early 1990s with films like Strictly Business (1991) and Juice (1992).

I’m Gonna Git You Sucka (1988) is a famous spoof of urban blaxploitation films, featuring several of the male stars of that genre. A later film, Original Gangstas (1996), also featured many of those stars, but was made as a tribute to the genre. Pootie Tang (2001) also parodies many blaxploitation elements. Robert Townsend’s comedy Hollywood Shuffle (1987) features a young black actor who is tempted to take part in a white-produced blaxploitation film.

The popular anime series Cowboy Bebop features several episodes with blaxploitation themes, particularly Mushroom Samba which extensively parodies blaxploitation movies.

The 1997 film Hoodlum starring Laurence Fishburne was an attempt at gangster blaxploitation, portraying a fictional account of black mobster Ellsworth “Bumpy” Johnson.

The Hebrew Hammer (2003) is another parody of blaxploitation films, but with a Jewish protagonist (and was therefore called “Jewsploitation” by some).

In 2004, Mario Van Peebles, Melvin’s son, released Baadasssss!, a movie based on the making of his father’s movie in which Mario played his father.

The animated series Family Guy showed a cutaway based on blaxploitation movies in the form of a parody of Back to the Future (Black to the Future), starring the main character Peter’s distant cousin as “Marty McSuperFly.”

In The Simpsons episode “Simpson Tide” (3G04) a TV announcer says “Next, on Exploitation Theatre...Blackula, followed by Blackenstein, and The Blunchblack of Blotre Blame!

The Onion's book Our Dumb Century has an article from the 1970's entitled "Congress Passes Anti-Blaxploitation Act: Pimps, Players Subject to Heavy Fines"

Many of actor and wrestler The Rock's catch phrases have come from blaxploitation films.

Cult film
A cult film is a movie that attracts a small but devoted group of fans, usually failing to achieve considerable success outside that group.

Overview
Most movies considered "cult films" failed to achieve mainstream success upon original theatrical release, often grossing more money in video rentals and sales than in theater tickets. In most cases (but by no means all), the film hardly makes an impression with the general public and critics are often apathetic as well. However, a small, devoted group of viewers, often "film buffs" or film students, show an extreme appreciation of the film.

The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975)
The Rocky Horror Picture Show is often considered the first "cult film." The movie combines the conventions from science fiction and horror films and included elements of transvestitism, incest and homosexuality — all within the context of a musical. The film received little attention when first released in 1975 but, a few years later, fans showed up at midnight screenings at repertoire theaters, dressed in costume and "participating" in the film (e.g. throwing rice at the wedding scene).

Eraserhead (1977)
The Rocky Horror Picture Show is one of many cult films to survive initial box office failure by finding success in other outlets. Like Rocky Horror, Night of the Living Dead, Pink Flamingos, Female Trouble, The Hills Have Eyes and Eraserhead achieved cult status through repeat screenings at independent repertory cinemas, most usually during late night "midnight movie" screenings. Such films were cheaper for theaters to hire than current releases and thus were more sensible to screen during late night when attendance was lower. In the early 1990s many repertory cinemas went out of business due to changes in cinema ownership and distribution.

Network television, cable television and pay-per-view stations have also helped raise the stature of cult films. Despite failing to meet box office expectations, Blade Runner was a favorite of early pay-per-view and HBO. When Steven Spielberg's 1979 comedy 1941 (after its near-failure at the box office) aired on ABC in an expanded version, it became one of the most asked-for home video reissues, and thereby giving the movie the popularity it did not receive at the box office. Repeated showings on Comedy Central helped popularize Office Space and Half Baked.

Cult films within a particular culture
An instance of how cults differ between culture can be seen in the cult status of British comedic actor Norman Wisdom’s films in Albania. Wisdom’s films, in which he usually played a family man worker who outsmarts his boss, were some of the few Western films considered acceptable by the county’s communist rulers, thus Albanians grew familiar and attached to Wisdom. Curiously, he and his films are now acquiring nostalgic cult status in Britain. Similarly, the American film It's a Wonderful Life, which features an exploitative capitalist as its villain, was allowed in the USSR, giving it a cult status in Russia.

Another example is the place of The Wizard of Oz in American gay culture. Although a widely viewed and historically important film in greater American culture, it has gained a special meaning to many gay men who see probably unintended gay themes in the film. Gay men sometimes refer to themselves as "friends of Dorothy".

Manhunter, the film that introduced Hannibal Lecter, was originally a box office flop, but found a cult following on video following the success of The Silence of the Lambs in 1991.

So-bad-they’re-good cult films
Many films enjoy cult status because they are seen as ridiculously awful. The critic Michael Medved characterized examples of the "so bad it's good" class of low-budget cult film through books such as the Golden Turkey Awards.


Disaster movie
A disaster movie is a movie that has an impending or ongoing disaster (e.g. a major fire, earthquake, shipwreck, or an asteroid collision with Earth) as its subject. They typically feature large casts and multiple plotlines, and focus on the characters' attempts to avert, escape, or cope of the aftermath of the disaster. One major character, several minor characters, and scores of extras typically die before the story is resolved.

Disaster themes are nearly as old as film itself. D. W. Griffith's Intolerance (1916) has disaster elements, as do 1930s dramas such as San Francisco (earthquake) and In Old Chicago (fire). Science-fiction movies such as When Worlds Collide routinely used disasters as plot elements in the 1950s and early 1960s. The heyday of disaster movies began in 1970, however, when the success of Airport generated a flood of "all-star-cast-in-peril" stories.

Airport itself qualifies as a disaster movie only in retrospect. It is closer in tone and construction to The High and the Mighty or Zero Hour than to the full-blown disaster films that came after it. The disaster-movie cycle of the 1970s, really began with The Poseidon Adventure (ocean liner capsized by tsunami) in 1972, and continued in 1974 with similar movies such as The Towering Inferno (world's tallest building catches fire) and Earthquake (catastrophic earthquake strikes Los Angeles). The genre was beginning to burn out by the mid-1970s, when movies like The Swarm and Meteor were being produced more and more quickly, with weaker disasters (killer bees, etc.), less production effort and less impressive casts. 1983 saw the TV movie The Day After that dealt with the possibility of a nuclear war.

The disaster movie genre revived, briefly, in the mid-1990s—perhaps because new special effects techniques made more spectacular disasters possible. In 1996 Independence Day merged a science fiction alien invasion plot from the 1950s with disaster movie conventions (most notably, from Earthquake). Daylight, a movie about a collapse of the Holland Tunnel followed, and in 1997 two movies about volcanic eruptions debuted, Volcano and Dante's Peak. Later, spectacular products of this brief revival were a pair of extraterrestrial object impact movies Deep Impact and Armageddon, both released in the summer of 1998. The movie The Core dealt with the disasters resulting from the stalling of Earth's core.

In 2004, The Day After Tomorrow built upon fear of global warming with an unlikely assortment of disasters, perhaps setting a record of the most disasters in a single movie.

Drama film

Drama film

A drama is a film that depends mostly on in-depth character development, interaction, and highly emotional themes. In a good drama film, the audiences are able to experience what other characters are feeling and identify with someone.

This genre could be especially useful by challenging the ignorance from stereotypes or any other overly simplistic generalizations by bringing it down to a more personal and complex level. As well, such movies could also be therapeutic by showing how characters cope with their problems, challenges, or issues, and to the extent the viewer can identify with the characters with his or her own world.

This film genre can be contrasted with an action film, which relies on fast-paced action and develops characters sparsely.

List of dramatic films
• Titanic (1997)
• Traffic


Legal drama
A legal drama is a work of dramatic fiction about law, crime, punishment or the legal profession. Types of legal dramas include courtroom dramas and legal thrillers, and come in all forms, including novels, television shows, and films.

It is widely believed by most practicing lawyers that legal dramas result in the general public having misconceptions about the legal process. Many of these misconceptions result from the desire to create an interesting story. For example, conflict between parties make for an interesting story, which is why legal dramas emphasize the trial and ignore the fact that the vast majority of civil and criminal cases in the United States are settled out of court. Legal dramas also focus on situations where there is an obvious injustice or ones in which either the plaintiff or defendant is very interesting and unusual. As a result, things such as the insanity defense occur far more often in legal drama than in real life. Finally, legal dramas often focus on areas of the legal process which can be portrayed dramatically, such as oral arguments, and ignore areas which are less easily portrayed, such as researching a written legal brief.

An incomplete list
Television shows that fall into this category include:
• L.A. Law
• Matlock
• The Practice
• Boston Legal

Romance film
The romance film has as its central plot the beginning, obstruction and eventual, though often tragic, fruition of romantic love. A common derogatory term for such films is "weepy" since they can reduce the audience to (willing) tears by playing on themes of noble self-sacrifice or cruel fate.

Examples
Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.
Perhaps the most famous romance film of all is Casablanca where Rick Blaine, a bitter and cynical man following the end of an affair with Ilsa Lund, meets Ilsa again in Casablanca. Ilsa's husband, Victor Laszlo, is an important Resistance leader from Czechoslovakia with a massive price on his head and is being hunted by the occupying Nazis. Rick eventually chooses to help the couple escape, regardless of his own feelings for Ilsa, with whom he earlier reconciles.

Romantic drama film
A romantic drama film is a film that seriously studies the romantic nature of relationships between people. Common themes include the characters making decisions based on a newly found romantic attraction. The questions, "What am I living for?" or "Why am I with my current partner?" often arise.

The appeal of these films is in the dramatic reality of the emotions expressed by the characters. The following is a list of recent romantic drama films.
• Before Sunrise and its sequel Before Sunset
• Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
• My Life Without Me
• Somewhere in Time

Historical drama film
The historical drama is a film genre in which stories are based more or less accurately upon historical events and famous persons.

Some well-known historical dramas are:
• Barry Lyndon
• A Night to Remember
• Gandhi
• Gladiator
• Gone with the Wind
• The Madness of King George
• A Man for All Seasons
• Schindler's List
• Spartacus
• Tora! Tora! Tora!

Docudrama

It has been suggested that Drama Documentary be merged into this article or section.

A docudrama or docu-drama is a type of work (usually a film or television show) that combines elements of documentary and drama, to some extent showing real events and to some extent using actors performing set pieces to take dramatic liberty with events.

Docudramas of note
• The Battle of Algiers (1966)
• Brian's Song
• Canada's Sweetheart: The Saga of Hal C. Banks
• The Company of Strangers (1990)
• Supervolcano (BBC, 2005)

TV series that utilize a docudrama style
• America's Most Wanted
• The E! True Hollywood Stories

Comedy Film

Comedy Film

A comedy film is a film laced with humor or that may seek to provoke laughter from the audience. Along with drama, horror and science fiction, comedy is one of the largest genres of the medium.

A comedy of manners film satirizes the manners and affectations of a social class, often represented by stock characters. The plot of the comedy is often concerned with an illicit love affair or some other scandal, but is generally less important than its witty and sometimes bawdy dialogue. This form of comedy has a long ancestry, dating back to Much Ado about Nothing by William Shakespeare.

In a fish out of water comedy film the main character, or characters, finds himself in an alien environment and this drives most of the humor in the film. Such films can be portrayals of opposite gender lifestyle, such as in Tootsie (1982); adults swapping roles with a kid, as in Big (1988); a freedom-loving individual fitting into a structured environment, as in Police Academy (1984), and so forth.

A parody or spoof film is a comedy that satirizes other film genres or classic films. Such films employ sarcasm, stereotyping, mockery of scenes from other films, inconsequential violence, and the obviousness of meaning in a character's actions. Examples of this form include Blazing Saddles (1974), Airplane! (1980), and Young Frankenstein (1974).

The anarchic comedy film uses nonsensical, stream-of-consciousness humor which often lampoons some form of authority. Films of this nature stem from a theatrical history of anarchic comedy on the stage and in street performances. Well-known films of this sub-genre include National Lampoon's Animal House (1978) and Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975).

The black comedy is based around normally taboo subjects, including, death, murder, suicide and war. Examples include Arsenic and Old Lace (1944), Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949), The Ladykillers (1955), The Loved One (1965), Monty Python's the Meaning of Life (1983) and The War of the Roses (1989).

Gross-out films are a relatively recent development, and rely heavily on sexual or "toilet" humour. Example of these movies includes American Pie (1999), There's Something About Mary (1998), and Dumb and Dumber (1994).

The romantic comedy sub-genre typically involves the development of a relationship between a man and a woman. The stereotyped plot line follows the "boy-gets-girl", "boy-loses-girl", "boy gets girl back again" sequence. Naturally there are innumerable variants to this plot, and much of the generally light-hearted comedy lies in the social interactions and sexual tensions between the pair. Examples of this style of film include Pretty Woman (1990), It's a Wonderful World (1939), The Shop Around the Corner (1940), When Harry Met Sally... (1989), and Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994).

It was not uncommon for the early romantic comedy film to also be a screwball comedy film. This form of comedy film was particularly popular during the 1930s and 1940s. There is no consensus definition of this film style, and it is often loosely applied to slapstick or romantic comedy films. Typically it can include a romantic element, an interplay between people of different economic strata, quick and witty repartee, some form of role reversal, and a happy ending. Some examples of the screwball comedy are: It Happened One Night (1934), Bringing Up Baby (1938), His Girl Friday (1940), and more recently What's Up, Doc? (1972).

• Social comedy film
• Silent comedy film
• Slapstick film
• Splatstick film
• Teen comedy film
• Tragicomedy and related Black comedy


History
The very first movies to be produced were Thomas Edison's kinetoscope of his assistant Fred Ott in Record of a Sneeze. This could also be considered the first to show a comedic element.

Comedic films began to appear in significant numbers during the era of silent films, prior to the 1930s. These were mainly focused on visual humor, including slapstick and burlesque. A very early comedy short was Watering the Gardener 1895 by the Lumiere Brothers. Prominent clown-style actors of the silent era include Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton and Harold Lloyd.

A popular trend during the 1920s and afterward was comedy in the form of animated cartoons. Several popular characters of the period received the cartoon treatment. Among these were Felix the Cat, Krazy Kat, and Betty Boop. However the development of the cartoon medium was inhibited by the lack of sound and color.

1930s
Toward the end of the 1920s, the introduction of sound into movies made possible dramatic new film styles and the use of verbal humor. During the 1930s the silent film comedy was replaced by dialogue from film comedians such as the W. C. Fields and the Marx Brothers. A few studios still clung to the silent film medium, but within three years of 1928 almost all movies were making use of sound. The comedian Charlie Chaplin was one of the last hold-outs, and his films during the 1930s were devoid of dialogue, although they did employ sound effects.

The introduction of sound led to a consolidation of the studios, as the equipment required was too expensive for the smaller studios to afford. The MGM studio became particularly dominant during this period, and they were noted for their comedies among other genres.

Screwball comedies, such as produced by Frank Capra, exhibited a pleasing, idealised climate that portrayed reassuring social values and a certain optimism about everyday life. Movies still included slapstick humor and other physical comedy, but these were now frequently supplemental to the verbal interaction.

Another common comedic production from the 1930s was the short subject. The Three Stooges were particularly prolific in this form, and their studio Columbia produced 190 Three Stooges releases. These non-feature productions only went into decline in the 1950s when they were migrated to the television.

Other notable comedians of this period were Mae West and Jack Benny.

In Britain, film adaptations of stage farces were popular in the early 1930s, while the music hall tradition strongly influenced film comedy into the 1940s with Will Hay and George Formby among the top comedy stars of the time.

1940s
With the entry of the United States into World War II, Hollywood became focused on themes related to the conflict. Comedies portrayed military themes such as service, civil defense, boot-camp and shore-leave. The war-time restrictions on travel made this a boom time for Hollywood, and nearly a quarter of the money spent on attending movies.

Major film comedians of this period included Bing Crosby, Bob Hope, and Danny Kaye, as well as the comedy teams of Abbot and Costello and Laurel and Hardy.

In Britain, Ealing Studios achieved popular success as well as critical acclaim with a series of films known collectively as the "Ealing comedies", from 1946 to 1956. They usually included a degree of social comment, and featured ensemble casts, which often included Alec Guinness or Stanley Holloway. Among the most famous examples were Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949), The Lavender Hill Mob (1951) and The Ladykillers (1955).

The post-war period was an age of reflection on the war, and the emergence of a competing medium, the television. In 1948 the TV began to acquire commercial momentum and by the following year there were nearly a hundred television transmitters in American cities.

1950s
By the 1950s the television industry had become a serious competition for the movie industry. Despite the technological limitations of the TV medium at the time, more and more people chose to stay home to watch the television. The Hollywood studios at first viewed the TV as a threat, and later as a commercial market. Several comedic forms that had previously been a staple of movie theaters transitioned to the TV. Both the short subject and the cartoon now appeared on the TV rather than in the theater, and the "B" movie also found its outlet on the television.

Some Like it Hot won an academy award for best costume and was nominated in several other categories.

The 1950s saw a trend away from family oriented comedies and toward more realistic social situtions. Only the Walt Disney studios continued to steadily release family comedies. The release of comedy films also went into a decline during this decade. In 1947 almost one in five films had been comedic in nature, but by 1954 this was down to ten percent.

Some comedy films began to examine more realistic, mature themes. Marilyn Monroe starred in adult-oriented comedies such as Some Like it Hot (1959). The film themes often avoided social issues, and focused on humor.

This decade saw the decline of past comedy stars and a certain paucity of new talent in Hollywood. Among the few popular new stars during this period were Judy Holliday and the comedy team of Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis. Lewis followed the legacy of such comedians as Keaton and Harold Lloyd, but his work was not well-received by critics in the United States (in contrast to France where he proved highly popular.)

The British film industry produced a number of highly successful film series, however, including the Doctor series, the St. Trinian's films and the increasingly bawdy Carry on films. John and Roy Boulting also wrote and directed a series of successful satires, including Private's Progress (1956) and I'm All Right, Jack (1959). As in the U.S., in the next decade much of this talent would move into television.

A number of French comedians were also able to find an English speaking audience in the '50s, including Fernandel and Jacques Tati.

1960s
The next decade saw an increasing number of broad, star-packed comedies including It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World (1963), Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines (1965) and The Great Race (1965). By the middle of the decade, some of the 1950s generation of American comedians, such as Jerry Lewis, went into decline, while Peter Sellers found success with international audiences in his first American film The Pink Panther. The bumbling Inspector Clouseau was a character Sellers would continue to return to over the next decade.

Toward the end of the 1950s, darker humor and more serious themes had begun to emerge that included satire and social commentary. Dr. Strangelove (1964) was a satirical comedy about Cold War paranoia, while The Apartment (1960), Alfie (1966) and The Graduate (1967) featured sexual themes in a way that would have been impossible only a few years previously.

1970s
In 1970 the black comedies Catch 22 and M*A*S*H reflected the anti-war sentiment then prevalent, as well as treating the sensitive topic of suicide. M*A*S*H would be toned down and brought to television in the following decade as a long-running series.

Among the leading lights in comedy films of the next decade were Woody Allen and Mel Brooks. Both wrote, produced and acted in their movies. Brooks' style was generally slapstick and zany in nature, often parodying film styles and genres, including Universal horror films (Young Frankenstein), westerns (Blazing Saddles) and Hitchcock films (High Anxiety).

Woody Allen focused on humorous commentary and satire, often based around relationships, as in Annie Hall in 1977 and Manhattan in 1979.

Following his success on film and on Broadway with The Odd Couple playwright and screenwriter Neil Simon would also be prominent in the 1970s, with films like The Sunshine Boys and California Suite.

Other notable film comedians that appeared later in the decade were Richard Pryor, Steve Martin and Burt Reynolds.

Most British comedy films of the early 70s were spin-offs of television series, including Dad's Army and On the Buses. The greatest successes, however, came with the films of the Monty Python team, including And Now for Something Completely Different (1971), Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975) and Monty Python's Life of Brian in 1979.

Late in the 1970s a trend toward youth-oriented movies began to emerge, and this was reflected in the comedies. More than half of all movie-goers were under the age of 25, and this resulted in movies such as Animal House, Meatballs, and Kentucky Fried Movie, all in 1978-1979.

1980s
In 1980 the gag-based comedy Airplane!, a spoof of the previous decade's disaster film series was released and paved the way for more of the same including Top Secret! (1984) and the Naked Gun films.

Popular comedy stars in the '80s included Dudley Moore, Tom Hanks, Eddie Murphy and Dan Aykroyd. Many had come to prominence on the American TV series Saturday Night Live, including Bill Murray, Steve Martin and Chevy Chase. Eddie Murphy made a success of comedy-action films including 48 Hours (1982) and the Beverly Hills Cop series (1984-1993).

The decade also saw the rise of teen comedies like Fast Times at Ridgemont High, Porky's and Revenge of the Nerds. Many of these were based around teenager’s attempts to lose their virginity, a theme that would surface again in the late 1990s.

Also popular were the films of John Hughes, who would become best known for the Home Alone series of the early 1990s. The latter film helped a revival in comedies aimed at a family audience, along with Honey, I Shrunk the Kids and its sequels.

In the late 1970s and early 1980s a trend emerged toward the release of sequel films based on previously successful productions. Among the sequels were Trail of the Pink Panther, The Great Muppet Caper, and Porky's II. Unfortunately the revenue for sequels sometimes did not satisfy the investment, and the films would often met with criticism.

Other notable comedies of the decade include the gender-swap film Tootsie (1982), Broadcast News (1987), and a brief spate of age-reversal films including Big, 18 Again, Vice Versa and Like Father, Like Son. Also notable were the Police Academy series of broad comedies, produced between 1984 and 1993.

1990s
Popular comedy stars in the 1990s included Jim Carrey (The Mask), Adam Sandler (The Wedding Singer) and Mike Myers (Austin Powers and Wayne's World).

One of the major developments was the re-emergence of the romantic comedy film, encouraged by the success of When Harry Met Sally... in 1989. Other examples included Sleepless in Seattle (1993), Clueless (1995) and You've Got Mail (1998) from the U.S., and Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994), Sliding Doors (1998) and Notting Hill (1999) from the U.K..

Probably more representative of British humour were the working class comedies Brassed Off (1996) and The Full Monty (1997). Other British comedies examined the role of the Asian community in British life, including Bhaji on the Beach (1993), East is East (1999), Bend It Like Beckham (2002) and Anita and Me (2003).

Some Australian comedies also found an international audience following the 1980s success of Crocodile Dundee. Examples included Strictly Ballroom (1992), Muriel's Wedding (1994) and The Dish (2001).

Another development was the increasing use of "gross-out humour" usually aimed at a younger audience, in films like There's Something About Mary, American Pie and its sequels, and Freddy Got Fingered.

2000s
In mid 2000s the trend of "gross-out" movies is revamping, with adult-oriented comedies picking up the box office. In 2005 several gross-out movies have performed surprisingly well catering to such an adult market, these include Wedding Crashers and The 40-Year-Old Virgin. But serious black comedies (also known as dramatic comedies or dramedies) were performing also well, such as The Weather Man, Broken Flowers and Shopgirl.

Black comedy
Black humor, in literature, drama, and film, grotesque or morbid humor used to express the absurdity, insensitivity, paradox, and cruelty of the modern world. Ordinary characters or situations are usually exaggerated far beyond the limits of normal satire or irony. Black humor uses devices often associated with tragedy and is sometimes equated with tragic farce. For example, Stanley Kubrick's film Dr. Strangelove; or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1963) is a terrifying comic treatment of the circumstances surrounding the dropping of an atom bomb, while Jules Feiffer's comedy Little Murders (1965) is a delineation of the horrors of modern urban life, focusing particularly on random assassinations. The novels of such writers as Kurt Vonnegut, Thomas Pynchon, John Barth, Joseph Heller, and Philip Roth contain elements of black humor.

Gross-out film
Gross-out films form a sub-genre of comedy movies in which the producers aim to "gross out" their audience with disgusting and disturbing material, such as sexual or "toilet" humour. Since the abolition of the Production Code and its replacent with the MPAA film rating system in the late 1960s, some filmmakers began to experiment with vulgar humor. Early pioneers to the gross-out genre include several John Waters films of the early 1970s, such as Pink Flamingos (1972) and Mel Brooks' Blazing Saddles (1974).

The first true "gross-out film" was 1978's National Lampoon's Animal House, which was a great success at the box office. Since the 1980s, gross-out films increased in number, and became the norm for comedy films. Some films of this genre could be aimed at teen audiences (such as Porky's or American Pie) or adult audiences (such as There's Something About Mary or Wedding Crashers).

Mo lei tau is a name given to a type of humour originating from Hong Kong during the late 20th century. It is a phenomenon, which has grown largely from its presentation in modern film media. Its humour arises from the complex interplay of cultural subtleties significant in Hong Kong. Typical constituents of this humour include nonsensical parodies, juxtaposition of contrasts, and sudden surprises in spoken dialog and action.

Semantics
Mo lei tau is perhaps a corruption of (Jyutping: mo4 lei4 tau4), which can be loosely translated as "with no source" but is generally used to mean "makes no sense".

Romantic comedy film
Romantic comedy films are a sub-genre of comedy films as well as of romance films.

The basic plot of a romantic comedy is that two people meet, banter with each other, but despite an attraction obvious to the audience do not become romantically involved because of some internal factor (on the surface, they do not like each other) or an external barrier (one is romantically involved with another person, for instance). At some point, after various comic scenes, they are parted for some reason. One partner or the other then realizes that they are perfect for each other, and (often after some spectacular effort, sometimes termed the Grand Gesture, and/or incredible coincidence) they meet again, they declare undying love for each other, and disappear off into the sunset together.

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.
Of course, there are innumerable variations on this basic plotline. It is not even essential for the two lead characters to end up in each other's arms: My Best Friend's Wedding is a good example.

The basic format of a romantic comedy predates the cinema by centuries. For instance, many of William Shakespeare's plays, such as Much Ado About Nothing, and A Midsummer Night's Dream fall squarely within the bounds of the romantic comedy.

Screwball comedy film
The screwball comedy has proven to be one of the most popular and enduring film genres. It first gained prominence in 1934 with It Happened One Night, and although many film scholars would agree that its classic period ended sometime in the early 1940s, elements of the genre have persisted, or have been paid homage to, in contemporary film.

While there is no authoritative list of defining characteristics that comprise the screwball comedy genre, several qualities can be enumerated that tend to frequently appear in films considered to be definitive of the genre (see below). One proposed definition is "a sex comedy without the sex."

Other genres with which screwball comedy is associated include slapstick, situation comedy, and romantic comedy.

Characteristics of classic screwball
• Comedies produced by the Hollywood studio system in the 1930s and early 1940s that contain certain story or stylistic elements (mentioned below). Most acknowledge that the screwball comedy had stragglers through the late 1940s and 1950s, but the onset of World War II and the end of the Great Depression undermined some of the themes so necessary to the genre.
• Reverse class snobbery by implying (or the belief that) common folk had better common sense than the wealthy, and was therefore superior to them. Associated with this was the belief that even the wealthy had the potential to exhibit the nobility of ordinary folk.
• Romantic elements depicting a couple that were at once opposites but destined to complement each other. This element provided the dramatic tension to the audience who knew that the pair would eventually admit that the two of them were meant for one another, but wondered how this would come about and under what circumstances.
• The stories almost always revolved around an idle rich socialite who comes into conflict with the guy who has to work for a living (Bringing Up Baby), or has to overcome her family's insistence that the man in her life is unacceptable because of his circumstances (Holiday). While the lifestyles of the wealthy characters are depicted as sumptuous, they often find themselves in less than comfortable situations and are forced to adapt (It Happened One Night).
• Divorce and remarriage (The Awful Truth). Some scholars point to this frequent device as evidence of the shift in the American moral code by showing that despite freer attitudes about divorce, marriage wins out because it is ultimately a superior way of life.
• Fast-talking, witty repartee (You Can't Take it With You, His Girl Friday). This stylistic device did not originate in the screwballs (although it may be argued to have reached its zenith in screwball comedy), but can be found in many of the old Hollywood Cycles including the gangster film, journalism, romantic comedies, and others.
• Ridiculous, farcical situations, such as in Bringing Up Baby, in which a socialite (Katherine Hepburn) ensnares an unsuspecting man (Cary Grant) into helping her keep tabs on her brother's pet leopard. Slapstick elements are also frequently present (witness the numerous pratfalls Peter Fonda takes in The Lady Eve).
• Mistaken identity or circumstances in which a simple explanation could clear up matters but the parties involved seem either unable or unwilling to do so (My Favorite Wife and its remake, Move Over, Darling). Sometimes screwball comedies feature male characters cross-dressing, further contributing to the misunderstanding between characters (Bringing Up Baby, I Was a Male War Bride).
• Gender power reversal. Women are often the ones who have power over men in these films. Although the male lead may eventually be the one who resolves the plot's crisis, he is usually still dominated in some part by the female lead at the end of the film (The Lady Eve).

Other films from this period in other genres incorporate elements of the screwball comedy. For example, Alfred Hitchcock's 1935 thriller The 39 Steps features the gimmick of a young couple who find themselves handcuffed together and who eventually, almost in spite of themselves, fall in love with one another, and Woody Van Dyke's 1934 detective comedy The Thin Man portrays a witty, urbane couple who trade barbs as they solve mysteries together.

More recent screwball comedies
Various later films are considered by some critics and fans to have revived elements of the classic era screwball comedies. A partial list might include such films as:
• How to Marry a Millionaire (1953), d. Jean Negulesco
• Bell, Book and Candle (1958), d. Richard Quine
• Some Like It Hot (1959), d. Billy Wilder
• The Grass is Greener (1960), d. Stanley Donen
• What's Up, Doc? (1972), d. Peter Bogdanovich
• To Be or Not to Be (1983), d. Alan Johnson (remake of 1942 movie of the same title)
• A Fish Called Wanda (1988), d. Charles Crichton
• The Hudsucker Proxy (1994), d. Joel and Ethan Coen
• You've Got Mail (1998), d. Nora Ephron
• Two Weeks Notice (2002), d. Marc Lawrence
• Down with Love (2003), d. Peyton Reed
• How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days (2003), d. Donald Petrie
• Intolerable Cruelty (2003), d. Joel and Ethan Coen

Elements of classic screwball comedy often found in more recent films which might otherwise simply be classified as romantic comedies include the "battle of the sexes" (Down with Love, How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days), witty repartee (Down with Love), and the contrast between the wealthy and the middle class (You've Got Mail, Two Weeks Notice). Modern updates on screwball comedy may also sometimes be categorized as black comedy (Intolerable Cruelty, which also features a twist on the classic screwball element of divorce and re-marriage).

The television series Moonlighting (1985–1989) and Gilmore Girls (2000–) have also adapted elements of the screwball comedy genre for the small screen.

Stoner film
A stoner film (or stoner movie) is colloquial term referring to a subgenre of movies depicting the use of marijuana. Typically, such movies show marijuana use in an undiminished, comic, or even positive fashion, earning them a following as cult films. Stoner films are generally made by, and for, stoners. Marijuana use is one of the main themes, and inspires most of the action.

The series of movies in the 1970s starring Cheech and Chong are archetypal "stoner movies." Some anti-drug films like Reefer Madness have also become popular as "stoner movies" because viewers see their anti-drug message as so over the top that the film amounts to self-parody.

Many stoner movies also have certain elements and themes in common.

Often stoner movies revolve—at least in part—around a quest or a mission that the main characters, always well meaning but easily distractible stoners, must embark upon. Usually these quests are altruistic or noble in nature and involve the main characters raising a large sum of money or putting their band back together for some reason.

In Half Baked, Thurgood and his friends must become drug dealers, but only to raise money to bail their wrongly convicted friend Kenny out of jail—not for personal profit. In Rolling Kansas, the protagonists embark upon a journey to find the fabled Magical Marijuana Forest, but again, only to earn enough money to save the main character’s failing business. Similarly, the plot of Dude, Where's My Car? begins with a seemingly self-centered quest to find Jesse’s car but ends in a potentially life threatening mission to save the universe from an alien weapon.

Another almost universal element of stoner movies is sex, or the lack thereof. Stoner movies are irrefutably horny ones, as reflected in the main characters. Beautiful, many times naked women are a staple of the genre. More often than not, the main characters are unsuccessful in love, and the search for it can be their quest. The well-meaning but sexually frustrated male adolescent is a common stereotypical view of the stoner. Female stoner equivalents of the sexually frustrated male stoner are rare—if not entirely absent—from the stoner genre.

These themes are loosely based upon the ideals of the stoner culture’s parent culture, the hippie movement. The origins of free love and the easy-going, warm-hearted, sometimes altruistic lifestyle are firmly rooted in Haight-Ashbury. The idea that one can personify these attitudes, face seemingly insurmountable challenges, smoke a lot of weed and still emerge victorious provided that one’s heart is true and intentions noble is perhaps the most common stoner theme.

Some stoner movies, however, do not share these common elements. “Dazed and Confused,” for example, focuses on an ensemble cast of characters and takes place entirely on the last day of school in a Texas suburb. This day-in-the-life movie does not involve a quest—at least in the sense described above—and is thus unique from most stoner films. Even so “Dazed and Confused” does contain some more common themes, such as adolescent rebellion and the oppressive nature one’s hometown can assume in those adolescent years.

Wacky Comedy film
Wacky comedy or anarchy comedy is a genre of cinema using nonsensical, stream-of-consciousness humor which often lampoons some form of authority. Jokes and visual gags fly fast and furious, usually in a non sequitur manner that eschews narrative for sheer absurdity. No subject is too sacred; no joke too silly. These movies strive for laugh-a-minute pacing and gut-busting guffaws. Though they may be hit-and-miss, the ultimate success or failure of this type of comedy depends on the overall percentage of jokes that amply tickle a viewer's funny bone.

Like farce, wacky comedy uses widely exaggerated characters and situations to provide humor, but unlike farce, where any outrageous event springs from the situation, the gags used in this type of comedy have no narrative context. The gags are often similar to slapstick, but with less emphasis on physical violence and more emphasis on comic antics.

The wacky comedy has its roots in the lowbrow popular stage, namely the circus, minstrel shows, the traveling medicine and Western shows, vaudeville, burlesque, and the music hall. In these venues, especially the last three, comic business came in the form of sketches, which generally had no self-contained narrative. Since the performers needed to get immediate reactions from the audience, any and all appropriate jokes were thrown in these sketches at the expense of telling a story.

This type of moment-by-moment comedy made its way into early film. From the dawn of the medium through the mid-1910s, film comedies either showed one single gag - like the Lumiere Brothers' "L'arroseur arrosé"(The Sprikler Sprinkled)- or, in a one-reeler, showed repetition of the same basic gag - like 1912's "That Fatal Sneeze". The famous comedians of the silent screen started out, in their two-reelers, using disconnected black-out sketches built around one theme (Buster Keaton's The Playhouse, for example), but by the early 1920's they had moved on to more cohesive narrative forms and, thus, abandoned anarchic comedy altogether (although Buster Keaton captured the anarchic spirit with Sherlock, Jr).

It was in the 1930s that the wacky comedy started to blossom, as vaudeville performers raced to the big studios. The Marx Brothers were the kings of anarchic comedy, the proponents of their own brand of no-holds-barred humor captured for prosperity in films like The Cocoanuts, Duck Soup, and Horse Feathers. They had a knack for complex wordplay, double entendres, outrageous slapstick, and being able to walk into a room full of society people and leave the place in shambles. There was also W.C. Fields, a vaudeville comedian who made the switch to film in the early '30s and worked his own twist on the "up-the-society" theme. In such classics as The Bank Dick and Never Give A Sucker An Even Break, Fields perfected an everyman persona who fights the world of henpecking housewives, bumbling bureaucrats, and obnoxious children with made-up words, a shyster's sense of chicanery, and a steady stream of liquor.

The '40s produced Olsen and Johnson, two comedians whose Hellzapoppin manages to spoof Hollywood musicals, the aristocracy, and the entire notion of narrative linearity, and whose Crazy House contains in its first fifteen minutes the wackiest comic business of the decade. Also in this decade, Bob Hope, Bing Crosby, and Dorothy Lamour started making the casually anarchic farces known as the "Road" pictures. Hurried ad-libbing by all involved made otherwise corny comedies into gems such as Road to Morocco and "Road to Utopia". Bob Hope would later return to the anarchic format in "Son of Paleface."

The '50s saw a general decrease in wacky comedy, although some works of Frank Tashlin (Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?) and Jerry Lewis (The Bellboy) definitely had some anarchic elements, as did the big budget comedy epics of the '60s, especially It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, "The Great Race", and "Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines".

When the Monty Python group made a big splash in cinema with such films as Monty Python And The Holy Grail and The Meaning Of Life, they brought down institution after institution with deadly accuracy. Thus, the 1970s became the Golden Age of Anarchic Comedy; as American society spiraled out-of-control and the populace lost faith in the hypocrisies of the government and the church, the general public embraced a style of comedy that wasn't afraid to bite the hand that fed it. Movies such as Bananas, Animal House, The Jerk, and Caddyshack wore a thin veil of narrative over the basic theme of the slobs vs. the snobs and attacked the upper crust of society, while the Zucker/Abrahams/Zucker team kept the stream-of-consciousness comedy alive with Kentucky Fried Movie and Airplane!.

The surreal styling of humor that mark the wacky comedy still reigned supreme in the comedy of the '90s; as long as there are sacred cows to be mocked and ridiculed, the subgenre will continue to live long and prosper well into the millennium.

Examples:
• Duck Soup
• Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery

Independent film

Independent film

An Independent film (or indie film) is a film initially produced without financing or distribution from a major movie studio. According to MPAA data, January through March 2005 showed approximately 15% of US domestic box office revenue was from independent or indie studios. Creative, business, and technological reasons have all contributed to the growth of the indie film scene in the late 20th and early 21st century.

History
The roots of independent film can be traced back to when the early pioneer filmmakers at the turn of the century resisted the control of the Motion Pictures Patents Company, when filmmakers built their own cameras to escape the Edison trusts in order to relocate to Southern California where they laid the foundations of the American film industry as well as the Hollywood studio system.

The studio system took on a life of its own, and became too powerful. Filmmakers once again sought independence as a result. Throughout the decades, independent filmmakers around the world have created a diverse range of filmmaking styles that symbolize their own unique cultures such as Experimental film and Underground film.

Some independent filmmakers have even broken through technological barriers with the use of digital cinema.

Technology

Until the advent of digital alternatives, the cost of professional film equipment and stock was also a hurdle to being able to produce, direct, or star in a traditional studio film. The cost of 35mm film is outpacing inflation: in 2002 alone, film negative costs were up 23%, according to Variety. Film requires expensive lighting and post-production facilities.

But the advent of consumer camcorders in 1985, and more importantly, the arrival of high-resolution digital video in the early 1990s, has lowered the technology barrier to movie production significantly. Both production and post-production costs have been significantly lowered; today, the hardware and software for post-production can be installed in a commodity-based personal computer. Technologies such as DVDs, FireWire connections and non-linear editing system pro-level software like the open source Cinelerra or the commercial Adobe Premiere Pro and Final Cut Pro and consumer level software such as the open source Kino, or the commercial Final Cut Express and iMovie make movie-making relatively inexpensive.

Indie vs Major

Creatively, it was becoming increasingly difficult to get studio backing for experimental films. Experimental elements in theme and style are inhibitors for the big studios.

On the business side, the costs of big-budget studio films also leads to conservative choices in cast and crew. The problem is exacerbated by the trend towards co-financing (over two-thirds of the films put out by Warner Bros. in 2000 were joint ventures, up from 10% in 1987). An unproven director is almost never given the opportunity to get his or her big break with the studios unless he or she has significant industry experience in film or television. Films with unknowns, particularly in lead roles, are also rarely produced.

Another key expense for independent moviemakers is the music for the film. The licensing fees for popular songs can range between US$10,000 - $20,000.

Anecdotal evidence for the difference between indie films and studio films abounds. The following example was taken from a guest on David Letterman's talk show in November 2003:

The scene "Amy opens the window" takes half a day and perhaps ten shots in a big studio production:
Amy walks to the window,
Window itself,
Amy touching the handle,
shot from outside the window, etc.
For independent film makers, that scene is one shot, and done before 9 a.m.

Independent movie-making has resulted in the proliferation of short films and short film festivals. Full-length films are often showcased at film festivals such as Robert Redford's Sundance Film Festival, the Slamdance Film Festival or the Cannes Film Festival. Award winners from these exhibitions often get picked up for distribution by major film studios, and go on to worldwide releases.

Indie-producing studios
The following studios are considered to be the most prevalent of the independent studios (as of November 2004): Lions Gate, MGM/UA, Fox Searchlight, Focus Features, Sony Classics, IDP, Warner Independent, Magnolia, Paramount Classics, Fine Line, Dimension, ThinkFilm, 4Kids Productions, and Saban Entertainment.

Note that many of the above studios are subsidiaries of larger studios -- for example, Sony Classics is owned by Sony Pictures and is designed to develop less commercial, more character driven films.

In addition to these most prevalent of independent studios there exists several hundred production companies who produce independent films every year. These small companies look to regionally release their films theatrically or for additional financing and resources to distribute, advertise and exhibit their project on a national scale.

Art Film

Art Film

Art film is a film genre that began as a European reaction to the Hollywood style of filmmaking. Art film provides similar kinds of cinematic illusion that one finds in classical Hollywood, but by loosening the ties between its style and narrative concerns, it allows for increased subjective realism and authorial expressivity.

Less concern for causal narrative structure
In the classical Hollywood form, film style is dictated by narrative. Everything that happens or is portrayed in a classical film is supposed to advance the narrative forward. All characters that are introduced are causal agents in the narrative, and classical films are filled with redundant images, verbal expressions, or symbols to get the message across to the viewer. This can be viewed as an artificial construction of reality, since nothing will be included in the film that does not clearly help the viewer understand what is going on. Art film rejects this as unrealistic, and attempts to portray real life situations and characters where things happen that do not always have a clear meaning or purpose, but instead are vague and even mysterious. Therefore, art film does not worry about clearly explaining how everything fits together. Any causal gaps that appear in the narrative of art film are often permanent.

Ambiguity
Because art films do not always have to explain themselves, they will often have episodic plots or wandering episodes, where a character might wander off, encounter something, do something, or say something for no clear reason, and no definite explanation will ever be provided in the film. Instead, things remain ambiguous to the very end. This presents a challenge to most viewers who are accustomed to the classical style, because loose ends are not all tied up in the final scene of the art film, as opposed to classical Hollywood films which have strong closure. Art film is less about pure escapist entertainment compared with the classical system, also adding to the challenge for the viewer.

Objective and subjective realism
The art film deals with realistic social problems in both objective and subjective ways. Classical Hollywood films are also able to portray social issues, but only within the bounds of the narrative, and therefore social issues are looked at only from the outside, objectively. But unlike classical Hollywood, art film is considered to be more effective at portraying its characters as more true to life, because their inner psychological state is portrayed with more subjective realism. Therefore, the characters are complex, and their behaviour as well as their relationships cannot be easily understood.

Authorial expressivity
Because art film is not dictated by narrative concerns, there is more freedom for authorial expressivity. The film maker can express their own style or peculiarities more freely. For this reason, it is easy to recognize the makers of art films as auteurs.

Art film directors
• Federico Fellini
• Michelangelo Antonioni
• Alejandro Jodorowsky
• Peter Greenaway
• Akira Kurosawa
• David Lynch
• Satyajit Ray

Action movie

Action movie

Action movies, or sometimes known as actioners, usually involve a fairly straightforward story of good guys versus bad guys, where most disputes are resolved by using physical force. Action films are largely derived from crime films and thrillers, by way of westerns and to some extent war films. Modern Hollywood examples of the genre are usually "high concept" films where the whole movie can be easily summarized (eg. "a scientist brings dinosaurs back to life only to find them trying to dominate earth, again" for Jurassic Park). Who exactly the good guys are differs from film to film, but in Hollywood films they usually are patriotic and rather conservative (though not die-hard) Americans, whereas the bad guys are usually either criminals or agents of foreign powers. In the 1950's and '60s, they were very often Communists, which bring some action films fairly close to propaganda films. Starting in the 1970s, Communists were seen less as the predominant villains (although they were still widely present until the late '80s), and the focus turned instead to drug lords, terrorists, or some other criminal element. Action movies also tend to have a single heroic protagonist and often portray institutions such as the military or police as incompetent and limited by rules and regulations, which the protagonist has no regard for. This creates the stereotypical conflict between an action hero and the establishment.

The genre, although popular since the '50s, did not become one of the most dominant forms in Hollywood until the 1980s and 1990s, when actors such as Arnold Schwarzenegger, Bruce Willis and Sylvester Stallone popularized it. The 1988 film Die Hard was particularly influential on the development of the genre in the following decade. In the movie Bruce Willis plays a New York police detective who inadvertently becomes embroiled in a terrorist take-over of a Los Angeles office block. The film set a pattern for a host of imitators, which often just used the same formula in a different setting. Examples included Under Siege, Passenger 57, Executive Decision, Con Air and Air Force One.

Action films tend to be expensive requiring big budget special effects and stunt work. Action films have mainly become a mostly-American genre, although there have been a significant number of action films from Hong Kong which are primarily modern variations of the martial arts film. Because of these roots, Hong Kong action films typically center on acrobatics by the protagonist while American action films typically feature big explosions and modern technology.

Current trends in action film include a development toward more elaborate fight scenes, perhaps because of the success of Asian martial arts elements, such as kung fu and karate, in Western film. Actors in action movies are now much more skilled in the art and aesthetic of fighting than they have been in the past, apart from a few acknowledged fighters like Steven Seagal. Now, a distinction can be made between films that lean toward physical agile fighting, such as The Transporter, and those that lean toward other common action film conventions, like explosions and plenty of gunfire, such as Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever or Lethal Weapon, although most action movies employ elements of both.

Several of the common action film conventions saw their birth in the release of James Bond series (containing many of the original elements of spy movies still seen today). One popular element is the car chase, a feature that is almost standard in action films. Bullit and The French Connection were among the earliest films to present a car chase as an action set piece. At present, many action films culminate in a suspenseful climax centered around a Mexican standoff between two leading characters.

Action films also constitute very good examples for feminist film theory, because in them, the separation between the physical male who controls the scene and the look and the female, who is almost always the object of the look is very clear. Although female characters in most action films are nothing more than objects, a prize for the winner, hostages, loving wives and the like, there has been a move towards stronger female characters. James Cameron and Kathryn Bigelow maybe best exemplify these in works.
Due to their widespread appeal, many of the following films have also spawned one or more sequels.

Martial arts film
Martial arts film is a film genre that originated in the Pacific Rim. This genre of film is one kind of action film characterized by extensive fighting scenes employing various types of martial arts. This genre is no longer limited to Asian films -- there are many action movies starring well known western martial artists such as Steven Seagal, Chuck Norris, Wesley Snipes, and Jean Claude Van Damme.

Martial Arts film stars can be classified in two types, namely genuine martial artists who pursued a filming career, versus regular actors who acted in martial arts film under the directions of choreographers.

Martial arts film stars who are martial artists on their own merits:
• Kwan Tak-Hing was the original celluloid Wong Fei-Hung, starring as the legendary Hung Gar master in roughly 100 films from the late 1940s to the 1960s, possibly the most prolific movie series ever. Kwan himself was a master of Tibetan White Crane rather than Hung Gar and specialized in the use of the whip.
• Yu So Chow, is probably the best known martial artist and actress in the 50's and 60's and starred in over 170 martial arts films, still on the top record among all actresses.
• Bruce Lee's Enter the Dragon (1973) was one of the films that brought the genre into mainstream Western acceptance. His fame also helped popularize Wing Chun, the martial art that he originally trained in, and Jeet Kune Do, the martial art that he later created and dismantled based on Wing Chun.
• Jackie Chan continued this crossover during the 80s and 90s, finally conquering the US market with Rumble in the Bronx (1995) and the two Rush Hour films. He is renowned for his blend of martial arts and slapstick comedy, but has directed, action directed and starred in over 50 films of almost all conceivable genres. Despite proper martial arts training from a Chinese opera school, Jackie often tells people that he is an actor, not a martial artist.
• Cynthia Rothrock, probably the best known woman in the genre and considered "Queen of Martial Arts films"
• Sammo Hung or Gumbo Hung was a fellow opera school student of Jackie Chan and Yuen Biao. He has directed, action directed and starred in numerous Hong Kong films, as well as playing the leading role in the American TV series Martial Law.
• Yuen Biao trained Peking Opera with Sammo Hung and Jackie Chan, and is the youngest of the three.
• Lam Ching Ying learned Peking Opera in Hong Kong.
• Jet Li won the Chinese national Wushu (Martial Arts) championships five times in a row before becoming a movie star, starting with the movie Shaolin Temple.
• Donnie Yen learned Wushu from a young age and trained in Beijing as well.
• Chuck Norris learned Tang Soo Do, a martial art similar to Taekwondo, while in Korea; Norris also trained together with Bruce Lee.
• Steven Seagal is indeed an aikido instructor, although quite a bit of controversy surrounds him in the aikido world.
• Jean Claude van Damme practiced karate in Europe.


History and Context

Earlier precedents
Wuxia stories have their roots in some early youxia and cike stories around 2nd to 3rd century BC, such as the assassination attempts of Jing Ke and Zhuan Zhu (专诸) listed in Sima Qian's Records of the Grand Historian. In the section entitled "Assassins" (刺客列传), Sima Qian outlined a number of famed assassins in the Warring States who were entrusted with the (then considered noble) task of political assassination. These were usually shi ke (食客) who resided in the residences of feudal lords and nobilities, rendering services and loyalties much in the manner of Japanese samurais. In another section "Roaming Xia" (游侠列传) he detailed many embryonic features of the xia culture of his day. This popular phenomenon continues to be documented in historical annals like The Book of the Han (汉书) and The Later Book of the Han.

Xiake stories made a strong comeback in the Tang dynasty in the form of Chuanqi (literally "legendary") tales. Stories like Nie Yin Niang, The Slave of Kunlun, Jing Shi San Nian, Red String and The Bearded Warrior served as prototypes for modern wuxia stories, featuring fantastic, out-of-the-world protagonists, often loners, who performed daring heroic deeds.

The earliest novel that could be considered part of the genre was Water Margin, written in the Ming Dynasty, although some would classify parts of The Romance of the Three Kingdoms as a possible earlier antecedent. The former was a political criticism of the deplorable socio-economical state of the late Ming Dynasty, whilst the latter was an alternative historical retelling of the post-Han Dynasty's state of three kingdoms. Water Margin's championing of outlaws with a code of honor was especially influential in the development of Jianghu culture. Three Kingdoms contained many classic close combat descriptions, which were later borrowed by wuxia writers.

Many works in this vein during the Ming and Qing dynasties were lost due to prohibition by the government. The ethos of personal freedom and conflict-readiness of these novels were seen as seditious even in times of peace and stability. The departure from mainstream literature also meant that patronage of this genre was limited, and stifled some of its growth. Nonetheless, the genre continued to be enormously popular, with certain full-length novels such as The Strange Case of Shi Gong and The Romance of the Heroic Daughters and Sons cited as the clearest nascent wuxia novels. Justice Dee stories seen in San Xia Wu Yi and Xiao Wu Yi incorporated much of social justice themes of later wuxia stories.

20th century
The modern wuxia genre of novel started in the early 20th century. Historians have attributed this surge to a psychological decry in response to the upheavals in the politics in China, starting with the downfall of the Qing Dynasty, followed by Dr. Sun Yatsen's new party Kuomintang, who gave way to the warlord Yuan Shikai. Yuan sought to re-establish a new imperial China and his dream proved to be shortlived. Inevitably Kuomintang decomposed through corruption and incompetence, and led to their ultimate eviction by the Chinese Communist Party. Laypeople found it more and more difficult to trust the so-called lawful establishments and sought a different world - a martial, somewhat underground one, which was governed by different sets of rules and ethos. In the second-half of the century, many of the modern wuxia authors who were educated or came from affluent upperclass families left the People's Republic of China, or were forced to leave, after the Communists took control. Wuxia writing continued in earnest in Taiwan and Hong Kong.

The Old School
Modern wuxia novels outlined values complimentary to Confucius' (551-479 BCE) teachings concerning the virtues of Ru (excellence, scholarship) but combined this with a willingness to use force. The codes of xia was often synonymous with Tao or Daoyi, belonging to the teachings of another Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu, although the paths or ways prescribed in the 5000 odd words in the Tao Te Ching never advocated the use of force.

This was in sharp contrast to the unchanging style of talent-search bequeathed by the Confucius School for 2500 years of Chinese history, a system which advocated harmony rather than conflict. Some students of this period of history go as far as to say the value of xia (or xia yi) was the missing element of the Yin Yang of Taoism, indeed the missing component of ru jia, which Westerners know as Confucianism.

A parallel universe, the Jiang Hu world, was thus created in all of the wuxia novels, partly to engender acceptance of the alternative history thus propositioned. By the same reasoning The Water Margin and The Romance of the Three Kingdoms should not be seen as wuxia novels precisely due to the fact that they do not take place in a jianghu world.

The New School
The works of Jinyong can be seen as yet another category in which actual historical backgrounds intermingled with the fictitious. Historically accurate Yuan, Ming and Qing Dynasty settings, including the Emperors and nobility of the day were woven into the storylines, e.g. giving a Han-lineage to the Manchurian Qing Emperor Qian Long.

Novels
Wuxia novels now constitute a highly popular fiction genre in mainland China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Singapore. Wuxia novels, especially by eminent authors like Jinyong and Gu Long, have a cult-like following there, not unlike fiction or science fiction in the West.

Many of the most popular works, such as most of the work by Jinyong, has been repeatedly converted into films and TV series in Hong Kong, Taiwan, and mainland China. In addition, the study of Jinyong's work has created an indpendent branch of study called Jinology.
Themes

Plot and setting
The modern wuxia stories are basically adventure stories with a strong dose of cultural and historical context. Plot differs largely from writer to writer.

A common plot typically features a young male protagonist (only two modern wuxia novels have detailed female protagonists) in ancient China, who experiences a tragedy (e.g. the loss of a family or an old master), goes through exceeding hardship and arduous trials, and studies under a great master(s) of martial arts, or comes into possession of a long-lost scroll containing unrivalled martial arts expertise. Eventually the protagonist emerges as a supreme martial arts master unequalled in all of China, who then proffers his skills chivalrously to mend the ills of the "Jianghu" world.

Another common thread would involve a mature, extremely skillful hero with an equally powerful nemesis with whom he has had misgivings, and the storyline would meander from the past to a final showdown between the protagonist and his nemesis, where the hero would eventually triumph.

Deer and the Cauldron, the final novel by Jinyong, is distinguished as an "anti-hero" novel that breaks all of the cliches above, and his anti-hero, the lazy, greedy, lewd, sycophant brothel-boy Wei Xiaobao, has become a cultural symbol of sorts, loved by some and hated by others. Other novels, especially those by Gu Long, create detective-type and romance stories in the setting of ancient China.

Philosophy of Xia
To understand the concept of xia from a Western perspective, consider the Robin Hood mythology: an honourable and generous person who has considerable martial skills which he puts to use for the general good rather than towards any personal ends, and someone who does not necessarily obey the authorities.

Foremost in the xia's code of conduct are yi and xin, righteousness and honour, which emphasize the importance of gracious deed received or favours and revenge over all other ethos of life. The importance of revenge is disputed, since a considerable number of xia are influenced by the powerful Buddhist martial arts, and therefore some of its philosophy, which stresses forgiveness and compassion. Nevertheless, this code of the xia is simple and grave enough for its adherents to kill and die for, and their vendetta can pass from one generation to the next until resolved by retribution, or, in some cases, atonement.

Jiang Hu
Jiang Hu (Gong Woo), (literally means "rivers and lakes") is the wuxia parallel universe - the alternative world of martial artists and pugilists, usually congregrating in sects, disciplines and schools of martial arts learnings. It has been described as a kind of "shared world" alternate universe, inhabited by wandering knights and princes, thieves and beggars, priests and healers, merchants and craftspeople. It corresponds roughly to America's Wild West period, or to the era of the Book of Judges in the Bible. The best wuxia writers draw a vivid picture of the intricate relationships of honor, loyalty, love and hatred between individuals and between communities within this milieu.

A common aspect to jiang hu is the tacit suggestion that the courts of law or courts of jurisdiction are dysfunctional. Differences can only be resolved by way of force, predicating the need for xia and their chivalrous ways. Law and order is maintained by the alliance of wulin or wulin mengzhu, the society of martial artists. They are elected and commanded by the most able wuxia, who is usually (but not always) the protagonist of that novel (in a few films, such as the TV miniseries Paradise, the position is hereditary). This alliance leader is an arbiter, who presides and adjudicates over inequities and disputes. He is a de jure chief justice of the affairs of the jiang hu.

Martial arts
Although wuxia is based on true-life martial arts, the genre elevates the mastery of their crafts into fictitious levels of attainment. Combatants have the following skills:
• Fighting, usually using a codified sequence of movements known as zhāo where they would have the ability to withstand armed foes.
• Use of everyday objects such as ink brushes, abaci, and musical instruments as lethal weapons, and the adept use of assassin weapons with accuracy
• Use of qīnggōng or the ability to move swiftly and lightly, allowing them to scale walls, glide on waters or mount trees. This is based on real Chinese martial art practices. Real martial art exponents practice qigong through years of attaching heavy weights on their legs. Its use however is greatly exaggerated in wire-fu movies where they appear to circumvent gravity.
• use of nèilì or nèijìn, which is the ability to control mystical inner energy and direct it for attack or defense, or to attain superhuman stamina.
• ability to engage in di nxué also known by its Cantonese pronunciation Dim Mak, or other related techniques for killing or paralyzing opponents by hitting or seizing their acupressure points with a finger, knuckle, elbow or weapon. This is based on true-life practices trained in some of the Chinese martial arts, known as dianxue and by the seizing and paralyzing techniques of chin na.

Consistent with Chinese beliefs about the relationship between the physical and paranormal, these skills are usually described as being attainable by anyone who is prepared to devote his or her time in diligent study and practice. The details of some of the more unusual skills are often to be found in abstrusely written and/or encrypted manuals known as mìjí, which may contain the secrets of an entire sect, and are often subject to theft or sabotage.

The martialartsmanship detailed in the wuxia novels are substantially fictitious in nature, although there is still widespread popular belief that these skills once existed and are now lost. A popular theory to explain why current martial arts practitioners cannot attain the levels described in the wuxia genre is related to the methodology of passing on the martial arts crafts. Only the favourite pupil of a master gets to inherit the best crafts but the masters tend to keep the most powerful or significant chapter to himself. Hence what we have today at the Shaolin or other schools are but a fraction of what they were centuries earlier. There is little evidence to support this claim.

Suspension of disbelief
Because the wuxia genre occupies a difficult-to-define position between pure fantasy and reality, and many tales are set in clearly defined historical periods, Western audiences may have difficulty accepting the conventions of wuxia genre, dismissing them as pure improbability. The millieux of wuxia finds its closest equivalence in the West in the myths of King Arthur, the tales of Camelot.

Paradoxically, the Western audience readily embrace the concept of the Force in the Star Wars series or the superpowers of The Matrix and the superhero fantasy subgenre, or the magic in JRR Tolkien's Lord of the Rings or JK Rowling's Harry Potter. The difference can be explained by the general inconsistencies within the lineage of the novels. That is, insufficient background or ground rules have been detailed for the fantasies in the novel to be visualised by Western readers. With the exception of the works by Jinyong and Liang Yusheng, many wuxia novels are mono-dimensional, lacking the layering of elements that Western readers have come to expect from fantasy authors. Asian audiences understand the context of the "martial arts world" in which wuxia takes place, so such stories are self-explanatory in their own context.

With the works of Jinyong beginning to be translated into English, it is anticipated that western readers will begin to accept the some of the wuxia fantasies in the same way as they have with Tolkien's and Rowling's works.

Films
House of Flying Daggers (2004)
Wuxia film (or wuxia pian, Mo Hap film, Mo Hap Pin) (Traditional Chinese, Simplified Chinese, pinyin) is a film genre originating in Taiwan and Hong Kong. Because of its distinguishing characteristics (a historical setting, action scenes centred on swordplay, a stronger emphasis towards melodrama and themes of bonding, friendship, loyalty, and betrayal), this genre is considered slightly different to the martial arts film styles. There is a strong link between wuxia films and wuxia novels, such as those of Jinyong. Many of the films are based on novels; Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon is an example of this.

The modern form of the genre has existed in the Pacific Rim region since the mid 1960s, although the earliest films date back to the 1920s. King Hu, working from Taiwan, and the Shaw Studio, working from Hong Kong, were pioneers of the modern form of this genre, featuring sophisticated action choreography with plentiful wire-assisted acrobatics, trampolines and under-cranking.

The storylines in the early films were loosely adapted from existing literature. Actors, actresses, choreographers and directors involved in wuxia films became famous. For example Cheng Pei-Pei and Jimmy Wang-Yu were two of the biggest stars in the days of Shaw Studio and King Hu. Jet Li was a more recent star of wuxia films, having appeared in the Swordsman series and Hero amongst others. Yuen Woo Ping was a choreographer who achieved fame by crafting stunning action-sequences in films of the genre. Mainland Chinese director Zhang Yimou's foray into wuxia films was distinguished by the imaginative use of vivid colours and breathtaking background settings.

Wuxia was introduced to the Hollywood studios in 2000 by Ang Lee's Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. Following Ang Lee's footsteps, Zhang Yimou made Hero targeted for the international market in 2003, and House of Flying Daggers in 2004. American audiences are also being introduced to wuxia through Asian-television stations in larger cities, which feature well-produced miniseries such as Warriors of the Yang Clan and Paradise, often with English subtitles. With complex, almost soap-opera storylines, lavish sets and costumes, and veteran actors in pivotal roles, these tales can possibly appeal to Western viewers whether or not they catch the subtle nuances.

The West has also appropriated Wuxia film style. In 1986, John Carpenter's film Big Trouble in Little China was inspired by the visuals of the genre. The Matrix trilogy has many elements of wuxia, although the heroes and the villains of The Matrix gain their supernatural powers from a different source. Similarly, when Star Wars was released in the late 1970s, many Chinese audiences viewed it as a western wuxia movie set in a futuristic and foreign world.

List of film genres

List of film genres

Some common film genres are so widespread that they are often broken down into sub-genres. The most widely used terms encompassing a broad range of films (and some examples of their sub-genres) are:

• Action film
o Comic Book film-superhero
o Martial arts film
o Wu Xia film

• Art film
o Independent film

• Comedy film
o Black comedy
o Gross-out film
o Mo lei tau
o Romantic comedy film
o Screwball comedy film
o Stoner film
o Wacky Comedy film

• Drama film
o Courtroom drama film
o Romance film
o Romantic Drama film
o History film
o Docudrama

• Exploitation film
o Blaxploitation
o Cult film
o Disaster film

• Fantasy film
o Film fantastique

• Film Noir

• Heimatfilm

• Horror film
o Slasher film
o Snuff film
o Splatter film

• Science fiction film

• Sports film
o Baseball film

• Thriller
o Gangster film
o Giallo
o Heist film
o Spy film

• War film
o Submarine film

• Western film
o Spaghetti western

Model Question Paper

Film studies (model question paper)

Section A 5 x 8 = 40 marks
Answer any FIVE of the following
1. FTII
2. German Expressionism
3. Dada Shaeb Phalke
4. Film Noir
5. New Wave Cinema
6. Mise-en-scene
7. Avant-Grade
8. Parallel Cinema

Section B 4 x 15 = 60 marks
Answer any FOUR of the following
9. What are the different stages of film production? Explain
10. Elucidate the role of CBFC in film censorship.
11. Explain the various types of camera movements
12. Elucidate the development of the golden age of Hollywood
13. Briefly explain the development of Indian cinema
14. Explain the growth of Indian cinema.