Genre Conventions

Genre

In this course, Dr Pete Falconer (University of Bristol) explores the characteristics of genre and genre conventions, with a particular focus on film. In the first module, we think about genre conventions - the features which define genres and make them distinctive from each other - in terms of their types, their purposes, and how associations between genres and conventions develop. In the second module, we look at how the conventions of particular genres, and the meanings audiences give to them, can shift over time, and the kinds of contextual changes which make this happen. We finish with a third module discussing the ways in which filmmakers creatively engage with and combine genre conventions to create new meaning and styles, and the role of the “genre hybrids” they create in the development of film.

Genre Conventions

In this module, we think about genre conventions - the features which define genres and make them distinctive. We focus on: (i) examples of these features, including costume and narrative structure, and the important point that different genres are defined by different types of conventions; (ii) how genre conventions are used to shape audiences’ expectations and communicate key information, looking at the opening scenes of Scarface (1932) and The Irishman (2019); (iii) genres’ reliance on audiences’ prior knowledge, again focusing on the start of The Irishman; (iv) how genre conventions are developed over time through repetition, considered in relation to the figure of the “masked killer” in the horror genre; (v) Steve Neale’s argument that audiences’ understandings of genre are not only shaped by films themselves, but also a range of associated publicity and promotional materials which he terms the “intertextual relay”; (vi) the concept of the “generic corpus” - the groups of films (or other media) which are seen to make up a particular genre.