Christian Metz

http://www.filmreference.com/encyclopedia/Romantic-Comedy-Yugoslavia/Semiotics-
SEMIOLOGY-AND-FILM-THEORY.html
Christian Metzs was a French film theorist who is renowned for his genre characteristics
theory. Metzs claims there are reoccurring expectations there are 4 development stages
that can be applied to a genre; Classical, Experimental, Parody and Deconstruction.
Classical An original piece of work which is developing the initial codes and
conventions of the genre. For example the Thriller movie genre was established as early
as 1926 with silent thriller film, The Lodger. Then amateur director Alfred Hitchcock
defined the thriller genre with his suspense thrillers with the success of Rebecca (1940),
Saboteur (1942) and Shadow of a Doubt (1943). Hitchcock was instrumental in
establishing the thriller movie genre and still has a major influence even today. The initial
thriller movies experimented with sound, acting and visuals. Below is a classic thriller
scene from the movie 'Psycho'.
Experimental This is where the genre is established and experiments which different
sceneries and scenarios. In the late 70s and early 80s the experimental stage began to
employ psychological origins to the thriller genre.
Parody - In the 90's the development stage reached a phase where thriller scenes and
movies incorporated comedic effects watering down expectations of the film.
Deconstruction - The thriller genre has now evolved into a stage where hybrids are
evident. The thriller has now fused with several other genre creating sub-categories, the
most established being sci-fi/thriller or horror/thriller hybrids.

Andre Bazin
http://offscreen.com/view/bazin4
Bazin sees cinema as an idealistic phenomenon and only consequently technical. Being a
humanist he believes that the idea precedes the invention and hence is superior to the
technical means used to achieve it. Bazin was the first to explore the very significant
advantages of genre from an institutional perspective. He believes that genres make film
making more efficient by allowing the re-use of plots, set and the like and also being
more marketable by using the generic conventions as a way of selling the film to make
the audience want to watch it.
Rick Altman
http://books.google.co.uk/books/about/Film_Genre.html?id=bZweM58eg48C
Rick Altman in his book Film/Genre argues that genres are usually defined in terms
either of certain media language/iconography or even stars, or certain ideologies and
narratives. Altman states that genre films implicitly ingest every previous film in the genre
and so make heavy use of intertextual references. Many films are now labelled
postmodern because of their hybridity, intertextuality but use of bricolage. He believes in
a counter-culture attraction when one can abandon themselves
pleasures of actions that break with established rules in society.
The book Film/Genre seeks to revise notions of film genre. It
connects the roles played by industry critics and audiences in
making and re-making genre. Altman reveals the conflicting
stakes for which the genre game has been played. Recognizing
that the very term "genre" has different meaning for different
groups, he bases his genre theory on the uneasy competitive yet
complimentary relationship among genre users and discusses a
range of films.

Genre and audience pleasures Richard Dyer
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Only-Entertainment-Richard-Dyer/dp/0415254965
Only Entertainment explores entertainment as entertainment,
asking how and whether an emphasis on the primacy of pleasure
sets it apart from other forms of art. Dyer focuses on the genres
most associated with entertainment, from musicals to action
movies. He examines the nature of entertainment in movies such
as The Sound of Music and Speed, and argues that
entertainment is part of a 'common sense' which is always
historically and culturally constructed.
Richard Dyer believes genre forms are pleasurable because they
allow a fantasy escape from a reality full of scarcity, exhaustion,
and alienation into a fictional world coded as abundant, energetic
and transparent.