Investigating How Genre and Narrative are Established in Ocean's Eleven and The Bone Collector

1560 Words4 Pages

Investigating How Genre and Narrative are Established in Ocean's Eleven and The Bone Collector

In order to examine how genre and narrative is established in two

crime films, we conducted a close textual analysis of Ocean’s Eleven

and The Bone Collector to find out the main conventions. The main

conventions of the crime genre are law enforcers, criminals and action

sequence. There are also other signifers such as criminals and etc.

You can find typical iconography in the crime genre; the most obvious

one is a gun. Other iconography in the crime genre includes police

uniform, badges, gadgets, money.

There have been many notable crime films such as Seven (2000),

Paycheck (2004) and The Godfather (1972). The crime genre has perhaps

been most successful in creating hybrid and sub-genres. There is the

heist genre which include films such as The Italian Job also there is

the prison genre with films such as Shawshank Redemption. As well,

Goodfellas and The Godfather are categorised in the Gangster

sub-genre.

Crime is mostly mainstream genre but there are some independent films

such as Knock around Guys (2001) and Layer Cakes (2004). Crime can be

classified as a mainstream genre because of the A-list star that

appears its movie, e.g. Brad Pitt in Seven, and Tom cruise in

Collateral. Another explanation for the genre’s mainstream status is

that studio knew the crime genre was a mainstream genre and produce

them e.g. Collateral was produced by DreamWorks and Paramount. Also

this film have a large appeal of the genre so therefore make sure that

it will attract mainstream audiences. These studios have huge

Hollywood status.

Historic...

... middle of paper ...

...hereas The Bone

Collector has a more innovative approach to genre, as the director

uses flashbacks to explain the story.

Ocean’s Eleven is the more successful in introducing genre and

narrative because it had a linear structure, therefore it is less

complicated. Ocean’s eleven had successfully created an engaging and

coherent narrative because it uses conventional yet sympathetic

character e.g. Danny Ocean in Ocean’s Eleven.

Also Ocean’s Eleven was more successful because of the clear

establishment of equilibrium, so the audience knows what is happening

in the storyline. The most effective technique was the crime genre

signifier’s e.g. the gadgets, mobile phone and the prison cell,

whereas The Bone Collector uses the signifers to signify the thriller

genre where as Ocean’s Eleven more signifies the crime genre.

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