Film/Genre

The sopranosand genre transformation: Ideological negotiation in the gangster film

“…Altman (1999) explains that syntactic genres communicate meaning in two ways, both through the linguistic (semantic) meaning of individual images and also through the structural (syntactic) meaning of genre plot patterns. These semantic elements can condition audience response just as syntactic, or plot structures, do.…”

Surgical passports, the EU and <I>Dirty Pretty Things</I>: Rethinking European identity through popular cinema

“…All the hardships Okwe and Senay live through seem to be functioning as narrative signposts that facilitate the streamlining of the story according to the dictates of Frears' generically hybrid, and thus commercially viable, discourse. 10 In other words, weaving together comedic, suspense and 10 For a full discussion of the commercial potential of generic hybrids, see Rick Altman's (1999) Film/Genre. Altman carefully explains how studios, for marketing purposes, are likely to favour generically hybrid labels since they have the potential to appeal to a broader range of audiences.…”

Radical exclusions, empty signifiers and an anti-war genre

“…I quickly encountered a problem recognized by genre analysts: the indeterminacy of category boundaries. Rick Altman (1999) lists two difficulties with defining genres absolutely: firstly, we cannot determine the properties that an element must have to belong to the genre without excluding some elements that people, in practice, treat as belonging to the genre. Secondly, the elements of a genre are not necessarily exclusive to that genre alone.…”