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CHAPTER 10
MOVIE GENRES: CONVENTIONS, FORMULAS:, AND AUDIENCE EXPECTATIONS
MULTIPLE-CHOICE QUESTIONS
1. Fordism inspired Hollywood studios to
A. create, again and again, many different modified versions of a popular movie.
B. establish their association with specific genres.
2. In the first films of the 1890s, common formulas for short films included
D. slapstick comedies.
E. None of the options is correct.
3. In romantic comedies,
A. attention is drawn to a peculiar or awkward social predicament.
B. romance will eventually overcome predicaments on the way to a happy ending.
4. Which of the following statements about slapstick comedies is NOT correct?
A. They revolve around physical stunts set in fairly restricted social spaces.
B. They are marked by their physical humor.
5. Narratives that rely on coincidences and reversals and build toward emotional or physical climaxes are typical of
A. backstage musicals.
B. slasher films.
6. In westerns,
A. violent confrontations are central.
B. the battle is often about individual justice or revenge.
7. An example of a psychological horror film is
A. The Silence of the Lambs (1991).
B. Don’t Look Now (1973).
8. An example of a detective film is
A. Goodfellas (1990).
B. Scarface (1932).
9. A historical paradigm is
D. a genre that is based on the reenactments of real, historical events.
E. None of the options is correct.
10. Film noir
A. uncovers darkness and corruption in virtually all its characters.
B. emerged in the 1940s.
FILL–IN-THE-BLANK QUESTIONS
1. A
_____________ is a category or classification of a group of movies in which the individual films share similar
2. In a
_____________, a spiritual evil erupts in the human realm, sometimes to avenge a moral wrong and
3. In the 1930s and 1940s, _____________ transformed the humor of the physical into fast-talking verbal
gymnastics, arguably displacing sexual energy with barbed verbal exchanges between men and women when the
5. A _____________ is created through the interaction of different genres to produce fusions, such as musical horror
SHORT-ANSWER QUESTIONS
(3-4 SENTENCES)
1. What was the Paramount decision of 1948, and what was its effect on movie genres?
2. What is generic reflexivity? Give two examples of what it might convey in a film.
3. How do generic formulas provide patterns for developing stories in a particular genre?
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4. What effect might be created for the film viewer when a revisionist genre film realigns certain generic
expectations or breaks with certain generic conventions?
5. Explain two possible uses of genre in publicizing a film.