I'm working on an application essay that asks for 700 words answering "What is your favorite film genre and why? What are the characteristics of this genre and what film best typifies it?"
This is like when people ask me what my favorite movie is. Are you kidding me? That is an unanswerable question. I usually just say Citizen Kane because it's firmly planted in my Top 5 and I like it for a lot of reasons, but to call it, or any film, "my favorite" is simply not possible. There are way too many to choose from, and like songs, it completely depends on my mood. It's not like we're picking ice cream here. Can I get a amen?
Now the essay question was about my favorite genre, not my favorite movie, which is a lot easier. I always have a hard time writing application essays, though, because there's so much pressure for what I write to be good. And it always comes out sounding stilted and, frankly, pretty dry. And heavy revisions and feedback sessions ensue...
So I thought I'd try something a little different this time and blog my way through my first draft.
My preliminary list of favorite genres is: Comedy, Psychological Thriller, Adventure, Sci Fi, and (not sure if this counts as a genre, but...) Experimental.
I like to watch a really well-written comedy because I like to laugh. No big revelation there. But I like comedies that step outside normal comedic plot and character formulas. [Insert any Coen Brothers comedy]. A comedy that actuaIlly has something to say and is genuinely funny is what I mean by a well-written comedy. It has got to have both. Save the bathroom humor and the gratuitous sex for the sun-faded, once-glossy DVD boxes in the inner aisles at Blockbuster.
Next on the list was Psychological Thriller. I like movies or books where we, the viewers, don't quite know whether a character's suspicions are legitimate or if the character is just crazy. Think, The Turn of the Screw. Rear Window is a fabulous example of a script that builds suspense by keeping us wondering, for a time, whether there is really something going on or if it's all in the imagination. Or a movie where someone must rely on their wits alone to get them out a situation they don't understand. A great example of this is a Spanish movie called Fermat's Room. Worth seeing. Not for the claustrophobic.
Really good Adventure movies seem to always stay in my memory, like the Indiana Jones films or a more recent movie like National Treasure. I like a movie where there is a puzzle to be solved, and if that puzzle leads the characters jet-setting around the world - even better.
I am also a fan of sci-fi (though I hate the Sci-Fi Network on TV), but I have not always loved science fiction. After years growing up enduring my dad's love for watching cheesy, B sci-fi movies, I had a marked distaste for them. But now, part of the reason I once did not like sci-fi is part of the reason I like it. Ed Wood Jr. films are probably not going to end up in my elusive Top 5, but the low-budget innovation of these kinds of films is inspiring. Personally, if I've seen one alien movie, I've seen them all (Signs is a well-written exception), but sci-fi as a genre has a special knack for conveying social meaning, perhaps better than any other genre. A movie like Star Wars or 2001, or even going back to an earlier film like Metropolis, is ripe for translating into social and cultural commentary. They give us a way to use fantasy as a metaphor for things very real and relevant. Also, time travel is cool.
A branch of this genre that I especially like is Social Science Fiction. My admiration for SSF is due to Wells (HG, not Orson), with The Time Machine and Island of Dr. Moreau, Thomas More with Utopia, Orwell's 1984 and Huxley's Brave New World. Instead of aliens and radioactive crickets - damn you, Sci-Fi network - these books (turned films, in many cases) make cautionary statements about the nature and future of humanity. I'm not sure if Social Science Fiction is a very popular movie genre, but it is without a doubt my favorite literature genre. Perhaps in my essay I could argue for it as an important film genre, to which filmmakers should pay more attention? This is a promising route...
I mentioned Experimental films, and I use this term really loosely. I don't mean a film that spends 45 minutes juxtaposing a picture of a rubber duck with a picture of an Ethiopian village. Not that kind of experimental film.
I mean a film, or a filmmaker rather, that does innovative, unexpected things. Christopher Nolan is a director I'm really getting into, especially because he studied English in college. He says he's using the techniques that novelists discovered two centuries ago and applying them on film. If you don't know him, he is famous for Memento, Inception, and The Dark Knight. He plays with how scenes string together, and in so doing, disorients the viewer and draws us into the universe of the character. I like this subjective storytelling, especially when it involves (as Nolan's films often do) a non-linear time structure. See Following and The Prestige for good examples of this.
I think by now I have a pretty good idea of where I'm going to take the application essay. Thanks for reading my rambles, and I'd love comments or facebook chatter to tell me what you think about YOUR favorite genre. And I promise I won't ask you your favorite movie, as long as you don't ask me mine.
I'll do another post soon on why I don't think Christian Film should be considered a "genre."
And one last thing... I don't care what people say about it, but I love Titanic. Don't be hatin'.
