With the use of chiaroscuro lighting, femme fatale, overtly use of sets (an obvious fake but still wonderful and embraced), film noir does have its dark German expressionist influence side. The genre operates in the dark where mystery is the key tropes and viewers almost always see a detective. I did just called it a genre. But is it? House (1986) shared that there are both sides to the argument. Some say it’s not a genre, that it is merely a “specific period of film history” or a film movement. We also prospect that film noir is the mood of film, the style and tone rather than genre. I myself believes film noir to be an adjective of a film, whether in terms of genre, style or movement. Just as we say that The man from U.N.C.L.E (2015) and the film we watched on week 8 screening, The Killers (1946), are film noirs. When we say “film noir”, we think of that mood where smokes are around you and all that jazz is playing. Thus, it can definitely be a genre since genres define and better yet describes what the film is.

 

We have been reconstructing “vampires” whether inspired contextually as if they are meant to adapt and evolve (or live immortally) throughout the eras. They basically camouflage as humans since they were invented through the classical Victorian era and now contemporary settings. From Dracula (1992) to the classical Interview With a Vampire (1994) to sci-fi inspired Underworld (2009) and the teen culture Twilight (2008), various different elements were played around to mix with the “vampire” genre. Despite the diversity of contexts and elements, we can tropes-out that they are usually wealthy, sunlight intolerant and many other characteristically tropes presents. These films often come back to the idea of love and romanticism in which defines the whole essence of vampire culture. Though, what I have found inspiring is vampire filmmaking that break out of this traditional pattern such in Twilight, where sunlight doesn’t burn but instead shines them. Also in A Girl Who Walks Alone at Night, a contemporary western-tinted vampire film not of the typical english/american origin but rather from Iran.

The idea that they co-exist with humans, even only on films makes me question how genre forms. Like the vampire culture, genres do also evolve and overtime barriers do get blurry. But aren’t we as viewers, audiences and filmmakers causes the change and vice versa? is each new film the one changing us?

As we watched One Night the Moon (2001), my ideologies about musical was a bit challenged considering a typical happy ending, harmonic emotion embodied by the genre. The film musical in the other hand, incorporates a gothic vibe in terms of the use of dangerous Australian landscape as its setting. Let alone an ending that devastates two parents who found their daughter died due to the area’s geography. The reading by Grant (2012) also talks about how only film musicals feature an imaginary space even if it is ostensibly a real location and depicts its space as charmed by the magic of performance. Nevertheless, it does reminded me of the film adaptation Into the Woods (2014) the presents a unique kind of musical in dark fairytale world. I’ve also encountered the difference between film musicals and film that contain lots of musicals. Musical refers to “films that involve the performance of song and/or dance by the characters and also include singing and/or dancing as an important element” (Grant, 2012). Where although a film includes a dominantly music and soundtracks as its subject such as Pitch Perfect (2012 &2015) and The Sapphires (2012), they are not musicals because the characters do not perform for expressing their emotion but rather consciously sing and dance for the purpose of stage performances.