Essay!

Question: How has research into the social and/or cultural context of your Close Study film influenced your understanding of it?

After watching the film i was quite shocked as when you see Brazil advertised it is painted to be a lovely, exotic place especially when travel agents where trying to sell holidays to Rio. It showed the lovely weather, the clear sea, the sandy beaches and lots of carnivals. However City Of God paints a completely different picture by showing the favelas, rather than the posh and wealthy parts of Rio.

The opening scene of City Of God is the sharpening of knives and a close up shot of people dancing which would go with the original idea of Rio with all the carnivals. However it moves onto a chicken being slaughtered in front of the camera, such as the line or being killed, then the blood taken out, plucked and then ready to eat. This is all done in a market and you can already tell that it is a different picture to what you would think of when people would describe Rio. When another chicken escapes the first words you hear are " fuck, the chicken's got away." Then a gang of boys chance it holding guns and even threatening people. The group of boys age from men to very young which is worrying as they are shooting guns. This shows the different types of culture and how the favelas are in Rio. This scene is shot very close and has a claustrophobic feel to it. Compared to the adverts to Rio you can see it is completely different as you can see the graffiti on the walls, cracked floor, very limited space and the gun crime is a huge problem.

In looking more into the favelas of Rio, i found out the shocking reality that the life expectancy is about 21. This helped me understand a little more about the film, as it showed all ages of people dying from children to young adults. By now knowing the life expectancy it shows the worrying true reality of how young the population die in the slums. I looked at the statistics of murders in Brazil of minors who were killed and there were 3,937 between 1987 and 2001 compared to only 467 murders in Israel and Palestine. I found these statistics shocking as it shows the true reality or the brutal murders of young children and high the statistics are compared to other countries. In watching the film the only way to live is by breaking the law by either doing drugs, joining gangs or gun crime. But by joining one of these things will inevitable result in death and if you're born in the favella, you die in the favella. Throughout the film it's a vicious circle where you have to join a gang to live and have money but then you die for having it. An example of this is when Shaggy who was a member of The Tender Trio who tried to leave the favella's and start of fresh with his girlfriend Bernice, but as he tried to leave he was shot dead . However even if your not a member of a gang you can still be shot dead even if your innocent. As it shows in the film anyone can be shot by the police and then questions will be asked after even if the person had nothing to hide.

- gang members are all males and no females.

Is there such a thing as Genre?

Question: With refrence to the films you have studied, explore the controversial idea that genre is dead.

The term genre defines the type of film and audience will be influence to go and watch. They will be loured to watch a film depending on the genre as each genre has its own codes and conventions, for example an audience will go and watch a horror film to get the feeling of being scared and un safe. Within the different genres there are sub genres such as within horror there is slasher, gothic horror, sci-fi horror, gorno and many more. However there is an argument that many people believe that the whole idea of genre is dead. In this essay I will be looking into these films and discussing if there is such a thing as genre. The films I looked at are Hostel part 2 (Dir Eli Roth (2007)), Halloween (Dir John Carpenter (1978)), Scream (Dir Wes Craven (1996)) and Ringu (Dir Hideo Nakata (1998)).

According to Thomas Schatz he believes that genre is evolutionary and goes through phases, but these phases go around in a circular motion and will always goes back to the beginning of the cycle and so on. Schatz believes there is four phases, these phases start with when a genre begins and the framework is established where the audience with then on have expectations n conventions are made. This first phase is also known as the innovation phase. An example of this to many is Halloween as the Director John Carpenter made almost the first evolutionary horror film by setting up codes and conventions and also audience expectations.

The next stage is the peak where repetition happens which is also known as the classical phase. I personally believe that at this present time we are in this stage as I think it is harder in today’s society to be scared as such even though cinema has moved on a little I think it still has the same codes and conventions in it such as dramatic music, the last girl and the typical ‘monster’ .The audience get pleasure from watching these types of films, as they know when to expect and be prepared for such as when the music gets dramatic or stops the audience can expect a jumpy part.

The third stage is repetition and difference, which is also known as the parody phase. This would be an example of something such as Hostel part two. I think this is a good example as it has the normal codes and conventions of a typical gory horror film, however it has difference, as there are women killers, women bidding to slaughter someone but also women high up in the chain of the business and generally powerful women. This is different as women are normally shown to be the weaker sex who needs to be protected as they are seen as vulnerable.

The fourth stage is known as the deconstruction phase, where the films self reflect and the audience can notice that there are self referential parts within the film, such as other films being referenced within a new film. An example of this would be that within Scream she picked up a big knife in the kitchen and it was shot similarly to Halloween and Scream was made in 1996 and Halloween was made in 1978.

Thomas Schatz use these four phases in defining the different types of film genres rather than putting them into exact genres and sub genres.

Overall I believe that genre as a single word is dead such as just horror, however I believe that genre is not dead as people will be influenced to see a film according to their likes.