Genre conventions in the films Control, Dead mans shoes and Casino Royale Essays

Genre conventions in the films Control, Dead mans shoes and Casino Royale Essays Genre conventions in the films Control, Dead mans shoes and Casino Royale Essay Genre conventions in the films Control, Dead mans shoes and Casino Royale Essay Essay Topic: Gun Control There are many different genres of film and each has its own set of generic conventions, films will follow these conventions to a certain degree. For example many mainstream Hollywood films will follow these conventions almost fully; films with a niche audience will often stray away from these generic conventions. A film that follows these conventions too strictly may be said to be boring and predictable however the audience may take pleasure from seeing conventions they know and take comfort from it. I am going to look at the films I am studying in terms of generic conventions and how they make use of them. The most conventional film is Casino Royale; it is a typical action film featuring almost everything the viewer would expect from an action film. One convention of an action film is that the character faces challenges and dangerous enemies. This is definitely true for this film with the protagonist facing many dangerous challenges such as gun fights and car chases. He also has dangerous human enemies such as Le Chiffre. : As this is a mainstream film with a high budget it will need to recoup this budget from sales and because of this the films producers will make sure the film follows generic conventions that they know the audience should enjoy instead of trying something new which may fail. Another generic convention of action films is beautiful women; this is also seen in Casino Royale with Vesper. Some scenes focus on her as a sexual object and this can be related to the male gaze theory. The main convention of an action film in my opinion is the following of the protagonist on his journey as he faces challenges; this hero will always succeed in conventional action films. This makes it very predictable for the audience who will often know for sure the hero is going to win and in a lot of cases the beautiful female (if there is one) will fall in love with him. However if the film breaks these conventions the viewer expects to see it will surprise them making the film more interesting and exciting. The least generic of these films in my opinion is Control, firstly because of its genre classification it is a biography, drama and music film. This is not a common form of film in comparison to the very popular action/adventure genre and this is why it is harder to say if it follows generic genre conventions. It is a lower budget independent film and I would say that it doesnt follow many typical mainstream conventions. One thing that makes this film less generic is that it is in black and white, this is to fit in with the time period the film is portraying and to make it more realistic. However this is something that a lot of mainstream films wouldnt use because their viewers may not appreciate it. A film on the same subject is Joy Division it gives the viewer an insight into the band and their lifestyle but in a different way. This shows how different films on the same subject can be as they follow conventions of different genres. Dead mans shoes is also a low budget film like control but in contrast it is fairly generic in its conventions. The main idea of the plot is of a man taking revenge on people by killing them. This basic idea can be found in many horror films and as the viewer may expect he does kill all of the people who had abused his brother. However the plot does have an unexpected twist with Richard getting the last victim to instead kill him. This is an example of how a typical plot can be changed to add excitement. A typical feature of this film is the violence and bloodshed featured, it is seen in most horror films and will be expected by the audience. For example in the scene when Richard drugs the victims he shoots one of them in the head, this is brutal and realistic violence. It could be compared to violence seen in Hollywood horror films such as saw, although these films are entirely different.