Throughout the history of cinema the idea of camp has been an ever looming presence. It makes filmmakers wonder, will audiences be able to buy into the drama for the characters and the story itself? The idea of camp is perhaps best described as an audiences perception of a film, specifically this is an audience that finds the film too ridiculous, silly, or unbelievable to be legitimately drawn into the drama of the story. Due to these factors and more audiences will find a camp movie to be hilarious and in a completely unintentional way. A genre like the disaster cinema of the 1970’s perfectly fits into camp for three major reasons, the paper thin/stock characters, the setup/execution of the disaster itself and the hammy acting or dialog found in the movie. We will be using the film Earthquake to examine how these three factors can turn a serious drama into a campy film. The very first aspect of 70’s disasters cinema that neatly fits into camp is the weak, barebones characters the films general supply us with. A film like Earthquake is full of characters like this, including our main character played by Charlton Heston, a tough leader who will try his best to save as many people …show more content…
If a film can’t be taken seriously than many audience members will find the film begins to divulge into the camp territory. A genre that really can feel this is the disaster cinema, especially the cycle of films from the 1970’s. Perhaps the main factors that can make a genre and cycle like this turn to camp is the fact that the characters are generally paper-thin or stock, the setup/disaster can be ridiculous, and the hammy acting/dialog changes the emotions of the audience. Of course there are many different factors that can make a genre like this turn campy, but what it all comes down to is that if the audience cannot buy into the drama, than how are they supposed to take the movie
The horror genre of film captives the frightfulness of individual fear, horror is the only genre that is meant captive the terror of the audience. The horror- the genre has been around well over one hundred- years there has been an extension of different types of horror and how the audience perceives horror. Many would even argue that horror films often reflect the fear of society in that certain time period. The evolution of horror reflects the evolution of society’s fear.
November 1998, written for FILM 220: Aspects of Criticism. This is a 24-week course for second-year students, examining methods of critical analysis, interpretation and evaluation. The final assignment was simply to write a 1000-word critical essay on a film seen in class during the final six-weeks of the course. Students were expected to draw on concepts they had studied over the length of the course.
Many films, and sometimes film genres, are dismissed as being part of the cinema of escapism. This assumes that in times of particular social or economic hardship (often on a national or international level), people go to movies for the sole purpose of “getting away from it all.” While some films may follow this overall trend, it is important to note that it cannot be a generalization made for all films. During the Weimar era in Germany, the nation was in the midst of a national struggle on many fronts. As a people, Germans attempted to deal with their past (the problems during World War I as well as the consequences of their loss) and move toward the future (finding a solution for their economic struggles and defining themselves culturally and socially). This period saw a resurgence of the horror genre, this time adapted to the new medium of film. However, the way horror was portrayed via film is the interesting part: it drew specifically on the struggles of the nation to instill horror. This is an exact reversal of the idea of cinematic escapism, since many Weimar era horror films used relatable struggles in order to both entertain and terrify (in this case, existing concurrently as well as dependently on each other). One of the clearest examples of this is through the film Nosferatu, a cinematic retelling of Bram Stoker’s novel Dracula directed by F.W. Murnau. The budding horror genre of the Weimar era, as exemplified by Nosferatu, succeeded because it drew parallels to the German people’s collective post-World War I mindset, including references to the terrible nature of the war itself and the fearful prospect of how to move forward.
Neill, Alex. “Empathy and (Film) Fiction.” Philosophy of film and motion pictures : an anthology. Ed. Noel Carrol and Jinhee Choi. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 2006. 247-259. Print.
Phillips, Gene D. Conrad and Cinema: The Art of Adaptation. New York: Peter Lang Publishing, Inc., 1995.
Barry, , Keith, and Grant, ed. Film Genre Reader III. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press,
The postmodern cinema emerged in the 80s and 90s as a powerfully creative force in Hollywood film-making, helping to form the historic convergence of technology, media culture and consumerism. Departing from the modernist cultural tradition grounded in the faith in historical progress, the norms of industrial society and the Enlightenment, the postmodern film is defined by its disjointed narratives, images of chaos, random violence, a dark view of the human state, death of the hero and the emphasis on technique over content. The postmodernist film accomplishes that by acquiring forms and styles from the traditional methods and mixing them together or decorating them. Thus, the postmodern film challenges the “modern” and the modernist cinema along with its inclinations. It also attempts to transform the mainstream conventions of characterization, narrative and suppresses the audience suspension of disbelief. The postmodern cinema often rejects modernist conventions by manipulating and maneuvering with conventions such as space, time and story-telling. Furthermore, it rejects the traditional “grand-narratives” and totalizing forms such as war, history, love and utopian visions of reality. Instead, it is heavily aimed to create constructed fictions and subjective idealisms.
Kane, Kathryn. Visions of War: Hollywood Combat Films of World War II. Ann Arbor: UMI Research Press, 1982.
culture. Initially slasher films don’t seem to break the barriers of American Cinema; they still
One could easily dismiss movies as superficial, unnecessarily violent spectacles, although such a viewpoint is distressingly pessimistic and myopic. In a given year, several films are released which have long-lasting effects on large numbers of individuals. These pictures speak
This depends on the location - is it a business mans office or an old
Disaster cinema has a rich and fascinating history, with early examples coming from Italian produced Roman epics as seen in the early 1900’s. Audiences have always been interesting in seeing films that will blow them away with high concepts and spectacular spectacles, and disaster films have always done this to a certain extent. But as the genre became more common, audiences did start to find many silly or ridiculous things in these movies, which makes the entire cinema of disaster flicks a prime target for a camp theory reading. Camp theory is an easily explained theory that examines films that “couple the unimaginable with ‘banality’ and ‘vulgarity’”. In other words a campy film is something that is trying to be serious, yet the audience can’t buy into it and laugh instead of cheer. There is a lot that goes into the formula for a so-bad-it’s-good movie to exist, including the ridiculous plot/situations, the
Stanley, Robert H. The Movie Idiom: Film as a Popular Art Form. Illinois: Waveland Press, Inc. 2011. Print
Horror movies generally are all the same. They all have been based off of something that has already happened or a previous movie. Society has paid to be entertained by these gruesome stories that we all truly fear. Before movies, people would purchase books of similar tramatic events to read in their spare time for amusement. Writters such as Bram Stoker created graphic novels that grabbed peoples attention for years to come. But the horror movie, The House Of The Devil(1896), was noted as being the first ever horror movie. And as the years pasted, the industry grew and became stronger. The artist and creative portion of the movies became more gruesume and realistic. Now many of the horror films that have been creatured are said to be based off an events that were real. The fact of knowing that the events could be real attract millions of people, and keep the industy growing. Numerous people spend countless hours perfecting the art of terror for our amusement. Truly, they are looking at previous story lines and methods that had become successfull before.
“Entertainment has to come hand in hand with a little bit of medicine, some people go to the movies to be reminded that everything’s okay. I don’t make those kinds of movies. That, to me, is a lie. Everything’s not okay.” - David Fincher. David Fincher is the director that I am choosing to homage for a number of reasons. I personally find his movies to be some of the deepest, most well made, and beautiful films in recent memory. However it is Fincher’s take on story telling and filmmaking in general that causes me to admire his films so much. This quote exemplifies that, and is something that I whole-heartedly agree with. I am and have always been extremely opinionated and open about my views on the world and I believe that artists have a responsibility to do what they can with their art to help improve the culture that they are helping to create. In this paper I will try to outline exactly how Fincher creates the masterpieces that he does and what I can take from that and apply to my films.