8. What is Genre?

History of the Crime Genre

What is Genre?:
It is the way of categorising films. Genre can evolve into hybrid genres and sub genres, e.g. Alien.
- Genre changes over time due to:
- The attitudes of the public changes
- Changes in law/ legislation
- Genre changes

Sub genres of crime can include cosy mystery genre, legal thriller, forenisc thriller and military thriller. Other hybrid genres can include Film Noir, Courtroom Drama, Hood Films, Heist and Law and Order.

What was the first ever Crime film?

The first known crime genre film was known as The Musketeers of Pig Alley (1912) and it was about organised crime. It was directed and written by D.W Griffith and is known as a non-profit film, symbolising the minimal money it made if anything at all.

How has crime films changed through different decades?

An early example of a crime film is “Born to Kill” of 1947 it’s about a man who kills a girl she likes and her boyfriend out of jealousy. Due to the decade that this was made in, this would have been a lower budget film considering the fact that WW2 would have just finished, and the number of willing actors would have been at an all-time low. Another example is “Bonnie and Clyde” of 1967. This is one of the first crime films to be filmed in colour, immediately suggesting this has a higher budget. This film is one of the more famous crime films of this decade, considering its rather tragic ending. “Pulp Fiction” of 1994 however is known as one of the most successful crime movies to date, despite it being usually known as a gangster-crime movie. It is about two hitmen trying to retrieve a suitcase from their employer. Finally, a more recent crime film would include “Spectre” of 2015, although crime is just one of the sub-genres of this film. It is about a cryptic message from Bond’s past which sends him on a trail to uncover a sinister organisation hidden away. This film was made over the course of 3 years, meaning it would have had a high budget and lots of props and actors to work with.

     



In more modern crime films, story plots tend to have a more complicated and longer storyline due to the fact that modern films have larger budgets, which means they can make the films longer. Modern crime genres usually have a more significant number of actors included on the cast usually to accompany bigger storylines. Some noticeable directors include Tarentino and Whit Masterson.