Film Genre: Hollywood and Beyond

Film Genre: Hollywood and Beyond provides a detailed account of genre history and contemporary trends in film genre, alongside the critical debates they have provoked. The book ranges widely across the field, dealing separately and in detail with not only classic genres - including the Western, the musical, the war film, the gangster film, and film noir - but also more recent trends such as body-horror, Holocaust film, and the action blockbuster. Throughout the book, genre is presented as a constantly evolving phenomenon. Writing in a sophisticated yet accessible style, Barry Langford shows how notions of genre help shape the ways that filmmakers, critics and audiences view films and how the often complex scholarly debates around genre reflect important differences in the ways cinema is understood in relation to its social and historical contexts. The book encourages students to interrogate and broaden received ideas about genre.