Criteria and bases of genre identification
Summary
Slavi-Avik Harutyunyan
Key words – Genre, I. Weisfeld, S. Freilich, film, film studies, Y. Lotman, live action, historical film, musical, literary criticism, Periodic table, style, M. Bakhtin
Throughout many historical periods the interest in the issue of film genres has grown and fallen every now and then; hence, film genres and their identification issues are regularly being studied. With this regard, several theoretical approaches to film genres have been touched upon in this article. The author considers the primary genre categorizations drawn up by popular critics viewing genre as a mode of narration, conventionality and as an aspect of form. The theoretical interpretation of the emotional factors regarded as a basis for identifying film genres have been carried out.
The study reveals the major shortcomings of this classification: such as inconsistency, lack of the unified basis and a clear understanding of what can and should be taken into account while identifying.
Yet another approach to film genre creation based on the combined nature of cinematography has also been observed in details. According to this approach, along with the widely used literary principles, the cultural as well as musical features borrowed from fine arts and music, and other media of the world artistic appropriation should be observed.
The author concludes that the problem of film genres cannot be viewed without considering the issue of the style. However, the style and the language of each piece of work of art are always closely interlinked: thus the matter of film language, one of the most crucial and tricky issues in the modern cinematography, is to be considered as well.