Horror Films

The horror genre

Origins

·         The horror story in literature arose from the 18^th and the 19^th centuries tales of terror and often repressed sexuality in historical setting of dark, brooding menace

·         Described at the time as romantic literature, Mary Shells Frankenstein and Bram Stokers Dracula are the most enduring, but the Werewolf and the Mummy can also be traced back to novels from this period

·         Film versions of these stories have been remade many times from Universal in 1930s, to Hammer in 1950s and 60s to recent versions by Coppola and Kenneth Branagh and Stephen Sommers’ ‘Van Helsing’.

·         The American gothic tradition derives from the work of Edgar Allan Poe and H.P. Lovecraft. Roger Corman made several films in the 1960s based on Poes’s novels.

Haunting and Demonic Possessions

·         These films play on our fear of the unknown, superstition and the idea that evil forces exist in the world. These forces can remain spiritual presences (don’t look now) or can take the guise of witches (Blair Witch Project), ghosts (The Haunting) in demons (The Exorcist)

·         The characters fall prey to an evil force that is trying to victimise them in some way. The evil entity is doing this perhaps to gain vengeance e.g. in Blair Witch the witch is taking vengeance on the characters for trying to expose her.

·         In Nightmare on Elm Street Freddie is taking revenge on the people who killed him by haunting the dreams of their children and stalking them in their dreams. In many haunted house stories the ghost simply resents the presence of the people who have just moved in

·         Sometimes the evil force wants to corrupt its victims – to make them do evil. Eg “The Shining”.

·         In this case the evil force wants to take control of its victim – takes over his body or his mind or soul. Vampires and werewolves turn you into one of their kind

·         Often a fight between good and evil. In the Christian sense – temptation and sin

·         Witches, vampires and demons have their roots in folklore. Before modern medicine many disorders, blood diseases and psychological illnesses were attributed to supernatural causes: e.g. epilepsy was thought to be cause by possession by demons. So these mythologies are in our “collective unconscious” and are brought to the surface by horror films.

·         Sometimes the threat comes from t he everyday traditionally harmless creatures with whom we share the planet. All at once these creatures decide to gather against us and take over the world. The most famous film of this type is Hitchcock’s, The Birds.

·         In the 70s there was a whole spawn of films featuring all types of creatures: rats (Willard), bees, worms (squirm), ants and even giant rabbits

The Human Monster

·         Generally dates from Psycho (1960) deals with horror of the personality: psychopathology and murder (the serial killer) or psychosis and insanity. So the audience is taken inside the mind of a killer or a person who appears to be going insane

Iconography of horror films

·         Symbolic images which recur throughout the history of the horror film include:

·         the haunted house

·         Symbols of death

·         The disfigured face or mask

·         The screaming victim

·         The phallic murder weapon: knife, stake, chainsaw

·         Binary oppositions of good and evil e.g. Dracula/Van Helsing

·         Darkened places where the monster lurks: woods, cellars.

·         Blood and body parts

Universal Studios Horror Films (1930-48)

The significance of these films is thought to be linked to working class discontent arising from the Great Depression which led to mass unemployment

"42nd Street" -1933

 42^nd Street is one of the first backstage musical

Conventions

·         Alot of “lively” music is used in the introduction

·         Singing

·         Happy music within the performances

·         Costumes

·         Stage girls

·         Dancing

·         Story telling within the performance

Musicals

Musicals

·         Musicals have gone up and down in popularity in time.

·         1927 – 1931 musicals were very popular

·         In 1931 the popularity of musicals started to decline.

·         1933 a film came along called "42nd street", made by Busby Burkey??

·         MGM was a very famous studio for producing musicals

·         60’s did see some success of musicals, such as Mary Poppins, Sound of Music, and Westside Story etc

·         Grease was one of the main musicals from the 1970’s

·         Disney kept the genre of musical “alive” but declined in the 1990’s

·         Mama Mia was produced in 2008 and is the one of the most successful musical films of all time

The Musical Genre

·         Musicals are centred on combinations of music, dance, song or choreography.

·         The musical was created following the technical innovation of synchronizing live music and film

·         At first many musical were “Revues” – programs of numbers with little or no narrative link between each other

·         Hollywood Musicals tend to celebrate typically American ideals – a search for love, success, wealth and popularity

·         We are reminded over and over in Musicals that this world makes it possible for people at any time and in any place to express themselves through songs and dancing

Musical Conventions

·         The range of the subjects in musicals makes it difficult to define very specific iconography

·         But there iconographical settings e.g., dressing rooms, studios, nightclubs and dance floors

·         We can also find iconographical costumes e.g. Fred Astaire’s top hat and John Travoltas white suit, the umbrella in “singing in the rain”

Two typical plot patterns of the musical genre emerged during the 1930s:

·         The Backstage Musical – The narrative centres on singers and dancers who perform for an audience within the film

Most famous iconographic stars are Judy Garland, Mickey Rooney, Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire

·         The Straight Musical – where people may sing and dance in situations of everyday life

·         Often romantic comedies where characters express their fears, desires and joys while singing.

Technical Aspects

Musicals are usually brightly lit to:

·         Highlight the colourful costumes and settings – happy?

·         Keep the dancing clearly visible

The camera is usually high mobile to show off patterns formed by the dancers. Crane shots are commonly used.

Studio History

The Way Studios Worked

·         Golden age - companies did everything they filmed and distributed to their cinemas and collect all the profit.

·         Later on that becomes very expensive.

·         1950s ' couldn’t afford to this anymore, began to look for a new model.

·         Companies started to break up, cinemas was the first thing to break up.

·         The big studios worked as distributers and funded the films, then sold their films to cinemas

Western Films

Stagecoach & Unforgiven

Stagecoach 1939

Unforgiven 1992

Dominant Conventions of Science Fiction Films

Conventions are elements that allow us to recognise a film as being a part of a genre, and help us to know what to expect from a film.

Settings

• Space - e.g Star Wars and Star Trek
• Unknown planets
• Future Earth

Iconography

• spaceships
• space suits
• floating cars
• aliens
• time machines
• uniform
• robots

Style

• Futuristic
• advance technology

Narrative

• Future settings

Range of characters and relationships

• Good Vs Bad
• Hero
• Spaceman
• Human Vs Nature/technology

Paramount Pictures

Basic Profile
Paramount Pictures is an American film production and distribution company, founded in 1912 by W.W. Hodkinson. It is Americas oldest exsisting film studio aswell as one of the top-grossing movie studios. Headquaters are located in Hollywood, California, United States.

History
1910s ;

• Paramount began its creation in May 1912. Adolph Zukor, who had invested in Nickelodeons, noticed that the majority of movies appealed to working-class immigrants. With Partners Daniel Frohman and Charles Frohman, he planned to offer films that would appeal to the middle class by featuring the leading theatrical players of the time, leading to the slogan "Famous Players in Famous Plays". By 1913, they had completed five films and Zukor was on his way to success. That same year, another aspiring producer, Jesse L. Lasky, opened his Lasky Feature show Company.
• As Famous Players and Lasky were privately owned Paramount was a corporation so the other two companies were merged into Paramount. Paramount soon dominated the business.

1920s ;

• Zukor believed in stars, so he signed and developed many leading early stars such as,  Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks, Gloria Swanson, Rudolph Valentino, and Wallace Reid. Giving Paramount a leading position.

1930's ;

• Zukor shed most of his early partners, including the Frohman brothers, Hodkinson and Lasky, who was blamed for the near collapse of Paramount during the depression years. in 1935 Paramount became bankrupt, leading to Zukor reorganizing the company as Paramount Pictures, Inc. and was able to successfully bring the studio out of bankruptcy.
• Paramount created successful cartoon characters such as Betty Boop and Popeye the sailor. After the Production Code was enforced, Betty Boops character popularity declined as she was forced to have a more "tamed" personality and wear a longer skirt.
• The Paramount logo was designed by the founder in 1914