Crime Films Genre Analysis

This sample essay on Crime Films offers an extensive list of facts and arguments related to it. The essay’s introduction, body paragraphs, and the conclusion are provided below.

The focus of this essay is to show how genre and narratives are established in two crime films and the textual analysis of the title sequence. In main crime films we see typical signifiers to show the genre. Specifically in crime films we seem to see objects such as guns and torches, as well as objects we see dark colors, unique fonts, serious facial expressions.

Crime films also use close ups to show the characters facial expressions, as from expressions we can tell what kind of genre the plot is based on.

There are three types of genres; they are sub genre, major genre and hybrid genre. A sub genre is a minor category closely related to a major genre, a major genre is a dominant important category, which is easy to identify, and finally hybrid genre, which is a combination of major genres that create another type of film.

A signifier is a particular object that gives away what genre it is going to be e. g. guns, torches. A convention is typical ingredients of a film.

The main conventions and their signifiers are: romantic subplot- male and female characters; tension- isolated location, shadow figures and dark colours; threats- facial expressions weapons threatening villains; violent crime- murderers, serial killers and mafia; urban settings- New York, Washington and L. A. Another five examples of signifiers for a crime film are; car chases, dodgy business, detectives, killer and involves money.

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Examples of successful crime films are: Ocean’s Eleven (2001), The Bone Collector (2000), Seven (1995), Traffic (2000) and Minority Report (2002).

Types of Audience

There are two types of audiences a film can relate to, they are: target audience which is a targeted age group for a particular genre or film and secondly a mainstream audience which is a large audience which covers a wide variety of different types, example age and gender. Crime films are considered as a mainstream appeal, I will be exploring how and in which ways it is known as this. Introduction 2 Crime films are mostly considered as a mainstream appeal as well as a mainstream genre.

Most of the crime films are aimed at a mainstream audience. Crime is classified as a mainstream genre as it has a well known studio example Hollywood Pictures and New Line Cinema. Crime films also are associated with a mainstream audience as it applies to all genders male and female and all ages. The use of hybrid genre in crime films makes it a mainstream appeal as it uses to genres in one film, which will then create a bigger audience. Examples of different hybrid genres are crime detective, crime romance, Crime comedy and crime detective.

An example of a film that did well in the box office which consisted of a mainstream appeal is Ocean’s Eleven, this film did particularly well at the cinemas at it had a well known star Brad Pitt, it had a well known studio Warner Brothers it applied to males and females (males as of Julia Roberts and females as of Brad Pitt and Matt Damon) and lastly it is a Hybrid genre as it uses to genres to make one film, the two types of genre they use are crime with gangster. Paragraph 1 Crime films are mostly aimed at a mainstream audience as they aim it at all ages and genders.

The uses of stars in films makes big differences in the audience example if they had a well-known; good-looking and popular star it would create a larger audience. Denzel Washington is a famous well known actor, who has been previously nominated five times in the Oscars. He is well known for the crime film Training Day (2001). Training day did particularly well as it uses hybrid gene, it consisted of crime and action adventure. It also did well as it had two famous singers who are well known which are Snoop Dog and Dr. Dre.

In the academy awards Denzel Washington won best supporting actor and Angelina Jolie won best supporting actress. Researching the top five crime films of all times and the genres used are:- 1. Godfather, The (1972)- crime and drama 2. Godfather part, The (1974)- crime and drama 3. Memento (2000)- crime, thriller and mystery 4. Usual Suspects, The (1995)- crime and thriller 5. Pulp Fiction (1994)- crime, action and thriller All these films did well as they are in the top five, they all had at least one well known star and they all used hybrid genres. Paragraph 2

The first film I will be looking at is The Bone Collector (1999), which is rated 15. The bone collector used hybrid genre; they put crime, detective and thriller together to create one film. The director of this film is Phillip Noyce; he also directed the crime and thriller film The Quite American that was released in 2002. The famous studio, which made The Bone Collector, was Colombia pictures with Universal Pictures. This film had an award winning actor Denzel Washington and the famous actress Angelina Jolie that stared in the film Interrupted girl (1999), which was a crime drama.

We can tell this a high concept film as it did well at the box-office, we can also see this as it had actors, which are known by most people. I this film was rated with 6. 5 stars, which is not that bad. Overall the audience would have great expectation of this film as it has been talked about a lot and it has famous people, and also as the actors have won awards they are expected to be high quality. As the studio has produced other successful films the audience would have high expectation of other films produced by this certain studio. Paragraph 3 The next film I will be analysing is Ocean’s Eleven (2001).

Which is rated 12. This film also included two genres; the genres were crime with gangster. The director of this film is Steven Soderbergh. Steven Soderbergh also produced the famed film Traffic (2000). This film was released before Ocean’s Eleven and was also a crime film. Ocean’s Eleven was rated 7. 5. I believe the audience expected a high-quality film. The reason for high expectations is because it had a lot of advertising, it consisted of popular; good-looking; well known stars, which made the film more successful and more noticeable to all the audience.

Paragraph 4 All films have an opening sequence the reason for this is so that they create tension in the audience, so they audience get basic background information, so they can give out credits to people involved with the film production and so that the audience know the genre of the film and so that they know who is involved and who the stars are in the film. The narrative structure theory is the underlying structure of a story: the way in which the events of a story are put together.