Historical Fiction Online Course Pack

Course Home Syllabus Course Plan Course Pack: Film Genres Historical Fiction Annotated Bibliography	Film Genres Online Course Pack UNDER CONSTRUCTION FOR SPRING 2002

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	Film Genres. Tim Dirks, 1996-2002. http://www.filmsite.org/genres.html (Last accessed: 3 April 2002). "Film Genres are categories, classifications or groups of films that have similar, familiar or instantly-recognizable patterns, techniques or conventions that include one or more of the following: setting, content, themes, plot, motifs, styles, structures, situations, characters (or characterizations), and stars. The main genres are the western, crime (gangster), horror, the musical, science fiction and comedy. Other genre categories include action/adventure, thrillers, epics (costume dramas), war movies, and the women's picture (melodrama). By the end of the silent era, many of the main genres were established: the melodrama, the western, the horror film, comedies, and action-adventure films (from swashbucklers to war movies). Musicals were inaugurated with the era of the Talkies, and the genre of science-fiction films wasn't generally popularized until the 1950s." ø ...Site includes Epic/Historical Films http://www.filmsite.org/epicsfilms.html [Last accessed 3 April 2002). "Epics/Historical Films often take an historical or imagined event, mythic, legendary, or heroic figure, and add an extravagant setting and lavish costumes, accompanied by grandeur and spectacle and a sweeping musical score. Epics, costume dramas, historical dramas, war film epics, medieval romps, or 'period pictures' are tales that often cover a large expanse of time set against a vast, panoramic backdrop. In an episodic manner, they follow the continuing adventures of the hero(s), who are presented in the context of great historical events of the past. Epics are historical films that have become expensive and lavish to produce, including elaborate and panoramic settings, on-location filming, authentic period costumes, inflated action on a massive scale and large casts of characters. "Epics often rewrite history, suffering from inauthenticity, fictitious recreations, excessive religiosity, hard-to-follow details and characters, romantic dreamworlds, ostentatious vulgarity, political correctness, and leaden scripts. Accuracy is sometimes sacrificed: the chronology is telescoped or modified, and the political/historical forces take a back seat to the personalization of the story. Epics often share elements of the more elaborate adventure films genre. They may be combined with other genre themes, including epic westerns, epic science fiction, or epic dramas or war films for example. "Epics are often called costume dramas, since they emphasize the trappings of a period setting: historical pageantry, costuming, locale, spectacle, decor and a sweeping visual style. They often transport viewers to other worlds: ancient times, biblical times, the Middle Ages, the Victorian era, or turn-of-the-century America. Unlike true historical epics, period films choose a specific historical period, and then superimpose fictional characters or events into the setting." ...of related interest: War and Anti-War Films http://www.filmsite.org/warfilms.html Biographical (Biopic) Epics: http://www.filmsite.org/warfilms.html
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	Iconic symbols represent the different genres or types of films. In 1999, the Guinness Book of Film selected their Top 100 Films, categorized into a Top 5 for twenty different genres. Films in the lists that have been selected as the 100 Greatest Films are marked with a http://www.filmsite.org/guinness.html http://www.filmsite.org/momentsindx.html
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	Film & History is a semi-annual published by the Historians Film Committee, an Affiliated Society of the American Historical Association since 1970. Editor-in-Chief, Peter C. Rollins http://www2.h-net.msu.edu/~filmhis/ The Historians Film Committee exists to further the use of film sources in teaching and research, to disseminate information about film and film use to historians and other social scientists, to work for an effective system of film preservation so that scholars may have ready access to film archives, and to organize periodic conferences and seminars dealing with film. A journal of film and social sciences will be established at the earliest practicable date in order to facilitate the exchange of information among scholars and others concerned with film. Efforts will be made to contact interested scholars in other social science organizations with a view toward creating a common association of film researchers. Similarly, contacts will be maintained with foreign scholars concerned with film use. Film & History : On-Line Resource Center Film and History Table of Contents Table of Contents, Volumes 1-31 http://www2.h-net.msu.edu/~filmhis/filmhistory.htm Film & History .Volume 29, Numbers 1-2 (1999) Special Focus: Medieval Period in Film, Part I. http://www2.h-net.msu.edu/~filmhis/current/medieval.html
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	American Popular Culture: Film http://www.wsu.edu/~amerstu/pop/film.html
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	See also Film Basics (Online Course Pack): URL: http://www.cocc.edu/cagatucci/classes/eng339/coursepack/filmbasics.htm
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	Find the film genre you're looking for at Movies Unlimited! http://www.moviesunlimited.com/musite/affiliate/member/118/4.asp Do more Movie links!! - link here!!

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