Genre Conventions

Genre Conventions

Genre Conventions

Introduction

It may come as a surprise that I include a Western in a winter themed film collection. Director Robert Altman declared it an 'anti-Western' as it dispelled so many of the features usual in the genre. For a start, the scorching heat of the desert is replaced by the bitter snow and ice of the remote North-West. 'McCabe' is Warren Beatty; a gambler arrives who arrives in the town of 'Presbyterian Church' with big plans and a fierce reputation. His quick wit and supposed gun slinging past enable him to quickly establish himself as a figure of almost sovereign rule. (In the 1970s in particular it almost seemed as if he was checking genres off a list: “You think you know what a western is? Well, here's McCabe & Mrs. Miller!”) (Sutherland, 2001).

Wes Anderson, one of the most distinctive and original directors and screenwriters of our time, standing alongside such masters of auteur cinema, took quite a few films. What sort of "master-blockbuster" would remove the same years 20 hits, Anderson expects the same time for his paintings, as if every film he's preparing by hand, inch by inch looking footage, removing all unnecessary and smear for smear, bring your pictures to perfection (Carle, 2005). Distributors carry them, usually to the comedy genre, but "Life Aquatic" is the same comedy as, say, "Broken Flowers" by Jim. It will only sometimes a little smile and then, if he is not accustomed to the level of Sandler's comedies, the brothers Wynes and Martin Lawrence.

There's no sophomore for the Wachowski Brothers. Andy and Lana, a pair of obviously talented film makers, have returned to theaters with The Matrix, a science fiction thriller that is every bit the match of their debut effort, Bound, for tension, excitement, and intelligence. In the matrix it is simply a technological difference between our present time and a future of sentient robots. It is so extreme that no one in that society remembers how to speak in the first person singular and forgets the word I. There are many other examples I could give but I think this is the most prominent trope that exists in science fiction (Irwin, 2005).

Genre Conventions

To understand how Altman subverts genre convention, look first to the cinematography. McCabe & Mrs. Miller is an amazingly photographed color film, courtesy of the great Hungarian cinematographer Vilmos. McCabe intentionally frustrates expectations of what the visual style of a western movie should be. In contrast to the high-key lighting and bright primary colors of the horse operas from Hollywood's golden age, everything in McCabe looks drab, muddy and brown. This color scheme, combined with the film's snowy locations and excellent Leonard Cohen soundtrack, gives it the feel of a melancholy tone poem. But as any of the film's supporters will tell you, the sheer audacity of this muddiness is part of its perverse charm (Sutherland, 2001). Beatty in particular was one of the biggest stars in the world at the time and Altman intentionally obscured ...