Genre Essay

Thrillers:                         

 

For my A2 coursework task I have chosen to do a sequence from a film, the film genre I have chosen is thriller this is because thrillers depend on the audience’s attention to what is happening on the screen as in, thrillers use specific elements to manipulate the audience to feel something or act in a way. For example, in the movie ‘Goodfellas’  by Martin Scorsese  ,  actor Joey Pesci plays a very violent gangster called Tommy DeVito, in this seen, the low lighting and  happy music lulls the audience into a false sense of security. As their laughing and joking about reminisces, Tommy changes the mood by asking Henry Hill (Ray Liotta) why he is funny the music becomes quieter and the aggressive tone of Tommy’s voice creates angst or a nervous feeling in the audience because of what we have been told about Tommy already.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thriller films can be broken down into many sub-genres such as,   crime thrillers, spy thrillers and physiological thrillers. Physiological thrillers such as ‘The Game’ by David Fincher use techniques such as mind games stalking, confinement/death-traps, horror-of-personality, and obsession. A prime example of this is in the scene where  the protagonist Nicholas Van Orton   comes home to find a clown laid in the same clothes as his farther was wearing when he committed suicide, these mind games  make the audience have to  question “ how” and “ why “ this is happening. These audience moving techniques provides the sudden rush of emotions, excitement, sense of suspense that drive the narrative sometimes subtly with peaks and drops and sometimes at a fast pace that makes the audience “grip to the edge of their seat”. 

 

 

 

 

 

The characters of a thriller genre movies are normally, criminals, stalkers, assassins, innocent people menaced women, with the protagonist being an everyday citizen or honourable police officer the protagonist could; face either his death or the death of someone else, for example in the film ‘True Romance’ by Quentin Tarantino , the protagonist is constantly on the run from Christopher Walken  and his Goons.

 

 

 

 

Another  character  element is that the  antagonist is cleverer/stronger that the protagonist e.g. the movie Seven, where the protagonist  Brad Pitt is outwitted by the  antagonist as he  leads him on a  quest for nothing resulting in the death of his wife.

 

 

 

 

 

Thrillers also manipulate the audience by using back stories or  go on a journey with they the protagonist,  making the audience route for that person during violent scenes or be upset if that person were to die, an example of this is ‘Taxi Driver’ by Martin Scorsese, we follow the protagonist as he starts work as a taxi driver, watch how lonely and upset he gets, until he takes matters into his own hands when he wants to " clean" the streets up,  the scene is very violent, in one part Robert De Nero  blows a man’s hands to pieces and shoots him the face, but instead of be  disgusted and wanting to turn the  whole movie off, we  are  gripped and want to see what happens to him.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The movie I’m doing is a Crime Thriller movie, where a woman and child are abducted by a venomous villain, in which the protagonist has to rescue them. Using elements from ‘No Country For Old Men’ by the Coen Brothers, the antagonist creates tension for the audience by being so quiet. Having silent scenes, where only a few sounds can be heard, but very loud, e.g. gun shots, punches or people screaming, makes the  scene more scary the longer the pause is before the action happens. No Country For Old Men uses this technique very well in one scene where the protagonist is trying to be quiet as possible so the antagonist doesn’t find him. The antagonist is checking doors and is slowly creeping up on the protagonist. The  cuts between the two, as well as the  film being silent at this part creates the impression that the antagonist has cornered the protagonist, until he opens the door to find there are only other residents.  Using the gripping “edge of seat "  emotion you get from quiet scenes like that and  dramatic irony, knowing what is going to happen before the  character does will make my movie have those stereotypical   thriller elements that work so well in drawing the audience into the diegesis. 

 

 

 

 

  I am also going to attack the emotional value of family in the audience,    as when I’ve seen films where son and daughters have died, it hasn't affected me when i watch it but when my father watches, he is emotionally upset as he puts his own son where the protagonist is. In film such as ‘Taken’ by Pierre Morel, the father is trying to get her daughter back, families and parents can relate to this making it more horrific than it is as the child has been abducted in a foreign country and is nowhere to be found. I am using this element in my film, using low angle shots and   fast passed cuts, when the gangsters in my film steal a child, it will use that family connection to bring parents out of their own comfort zones.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There is some aspects I am not going to use, in many thriller movies I have seen, there is a resolution; a sense of justice or vengeance  that happens in the end, in many films  such as the ones I have talked about in the end everything is  resolved and  people go back to the lives. In my film  the  killing of the antagonist is purely by accident, and as the protagonist takes the girl home, it leaves it on a subtle cliff hanger and creates the question “  well what is he going to do now” as the mafia are going to be after him for what he has done. This breaks the conventions of both thriller and gangster films as the good guy’s e.g. the police or the protagonist doesn’t win.