Some Rubbish About Genre

It is too difficult to stringently define Hollywood films through genre because certain films exist straddle a number of different genres. But if you use a very general brushstroke, the majority of films fit into genre slots. For example, if there’s a cowboy and indian on the screen, you could assume it’s a western. If there’s a gangster in a 1950's film, then you might be on a sure thing that you’re watching a crime film noir. Or if there’s a robot being attacked by space suited men using laser guns, then it’s a science-fiction film.

Genres may, on the surface, also contain their own types of themes and experiences that tend to be different. However, looking deeper certain themes do cross and supersede the various genres. Themes concerning life experiences can encompass a variety of genres because all films deal with life. For instance, many crime-noir films deal with social alienation, with the main character being the outsider, whose not part of the customary, respectable world. The character may be a part of the crime underworld whether a thief, a prostitute or even a pickpocket. For instance, Sam Fuller’s Pick Up On South Street (1953) has Richard Widmark playing Skip McCoy a pickpocket. He’s up against the main institutions of the police, the FBI and even the communists. He’s not patriotic and he doesn’t really want to get involved on a political level, he’s interested only in the cash he’ll make over the deal with the microfilm.

However, the outsider is not the only perspective we get in crime film noir cinema. For instance, in Fritz Lang’s Scarlet Street (1945), Edward G. Robinson plays Cross, a middle aged bank cashier, who in search of true love, gets sucked into the vulgar and distasteful world of a conman and a prostitute, who are out to rip him off. Yet, the outsider theme is also apparent in other genres for instance, in westerns. In Henry King’s The Gunfighter (1950), Gregory Peck plays the part of Jimmy Ringo, an ageing gunslinger whose reputation precedes him everywhere he goes. He is the fastest gun in the west. Though he regrets his wild outsider past, he cannot escape it. In a changing American Western frontier, where small towns and communities are forming, evolving and growing, Ringo is an anachronism of the past. He can never be part of the respectable society these community towns are becoming. He will always be Jimmy Ringo the killer. The theme of the outsider never being able to belong to respectable life is told in two different ways in Pick Up on South Street and The Gunfighter. The two genres use their own storytelling styles to deal with the social outcast.

Film genres came out of Hollywood, it may be argued, due to "the commercial nature of Hollywood production".[i]In short, if a movie became financially successful then the studios would naturally try to replicate the formula for future financial success. After a period of time, certain genres contained various conventions and iconography that repeated itself.[ii] These types of conventions slowly become rules. These “rules” become so familiar an audience not only understands what conventions, say a western contains, but would undoubtably expect to see the iconography and conventions on screen. After all, if they paid to see a western, then they want to see a western.

Repetition is important because “through repeated exposure to individual genre films we come to recognise certain types of characters, locales, and events”.[iii]Also, “because visual coding involves narrative and social values, it also extends to certain nonvisual aspects of genre filmmaking. Such elements as dialogue, music, and even casting may become key components of a genre’s iconography”.[iv] For instance a western may have, as a “rule”, cowboys, indians and even mexican bandits. There may be gunslingers, sheriffs, bar tenders or cattle rustlers. There may be a shootout or a bar brawl. The same occurs with other genres like science fiction, horror, musicals and the crime noir film. They all contain expectations for an audience.

While genres do contain certain iconography that sets one apart from another, actual themes that films portray may be similar and interchanging. Different genres may tackle the same theme. Certain themes and experiences are not exclusive to one particular genre. A western may tackle a theme that is generally expressed in another genre, for instance the crime noir film. The crime film noirs were interpretations of the time they were made in. Visually, these films were quite dark and bleak. The characters roamed and scrounged in “dark streets, dingy rooming-houses and office blocks, bars, night-clubs,...precinct stations,...most often seen at night, lit by feeble street lights or more garish neon sings”.[v]The darkness is very claustrophobic and film noir generally represents a certain type of dark mood.

The crime film noirs were visually very contrasting compared to the Hollywood westerns. The Western, in whatever country it's made, is about the United States and it’s history. As Kitses has argued “the American frontier life provides the milieu and mores of the western, its wild bunch of cowboys, its straggling towns and mountain scenery”.[vi] Schatz adds to that, arguing that “as America’s foundation ritual, the western projects a formalised vision of the nation’s infinite possibilities and limitless vistas, thus serving to ‘naturalize’ the policies of westward expansion”.[vii]Even “the landscape with its broad expanses and isolated communities was transformed on celluloid into a familiar iconographic arena where civilized met savage in an interminable mythic contest”.[viii]

While the western was very visually and iconographically different from crime noir films, the westerns made in the 1950s and beyond played with the expected themes of the genre. The optimism of the western gradually declined. This evolution came about because it was necessary for the western to remain valid as a part of Hollywood cinema. Crime film noir exploded in the 1940s and 1950s, and it depicted a very different attitude to America. They weren’t positive but "considerably more pessimistic and brutal in their presentation of contemporary American life”. [ix] In short, “Hollywood’s noir films documented the growing disillusionment with certain traditional American values in the face of complex and often contradictory social, political, scientific, and economic developments”.[x]Alienation can be a very evocative theme. This theme of alienation was sometimes expressed through the main character. In a number of films the main empathetic character was not from a respectable background or possessed a respectable and influential position in society. This type of character was from society’s low life. They were alienated from normal society, they were America’s underbelly. They didn’t belong to the everyday institutions. They were individuals who were not part of the mainstream community. Sometimes they were alienated by choice, because by leading the life that they were they could survive and breathe. They could not live by the everyday humdrum of a nine to five existence. They had to earn their living by more interesting and undoubtably, illegal means.

A prime example is Sam Fuller’s Pick Up On South Street. Skip McCoy is a very independent and shrewd pickpocket whose been up against the police and won. He knows the law is against him but he understands how to use the rules to frighten the police. He encourages his nemesis Captain Dan Tiger (Murvyn Vye) to beat him up. A few bruises and broken bones is a price he’s willing to pay to get the last laugh because he knows how to use the rules to get Tiger on an assault charge and in trouble with his superiors. If he was part of respectable, mundane, everyday society he wouldn’t have the wit to stand up and face Tiger using the law. He is a loner and a cynical one at that. His gods are survival and money and he understands it when others use these gods against him. For instance, he isn’t angry when information seller Moe (Thelma Ritter), sells his address to call girl (Candy) Jean Peters, whose working for communist Joey (Richard Kiley). Skip understands that Moe needs money to live. It’s a certain code that mystifies outsiders but it’s a logic that they live by. Though they don’t do it for patriotic reasons, it is the outcasts of American society that win the day and defeat the communists. Yet even when victorious, they remain outsiders, alienated from mundane society. Their motivations are different. Patriotism is for the mainstream community who have been trained to be afraid of communists, though no-one really understands what communism means. Ironically, the communists in Pick Up look like gangsters anyway. Skip is against the communists because they murder Moe and the violence against Candy. Compared to the outcasts in Lang’s Scarlet Street, who are totally unsympathetic, and out to rip off the “average Joe”, Pick Up gives the outsiders some self-pride. The feel free because inside the mainstream community they would be restricted. The have self integrity and independence when the community offers compromise.[xi]

The same types of contrasts are dealt with The Gunfighter’s outsider, Ringo. He’s living in a stark, grim and very desperate time. He’s an alienated gunfighter whose reached the point where he’s tired of running and tired of looking over his shoulder every minute of his life. The spark of the life as a gunslinger is over for Ringo. He wants an alternative but the community he wants to belong to are afraid of his reputation so they don’t want him. He's also a loner whose enjoyed the lifestyle for a very long time. He didn’t want to belong to any type of society or community. He would find the social responsibility totally restricting and the compromises to his life too much to handle. Ringo used to be an outsider by choice, but when we meet him it’s his reputation that keeping him an outsider. As his friend Mark (Millard Mitchell) tells him “That’s what you wanted, wasn’t it? Top Gun of the west”. Most importantly, The Gunfighter uses film noir techniques to set certain moods in tune with Jimmy Ringo self doubts. Ringo doesn’t live past the film’s end. Instead, he is murdered by a young buck who thinks himself special and wants to prove it by beating Ringo at his own game. Ringo’s message to him is that he is going to keep running all his life away from frightened communities and from other young try hards who want to be the ones who can boast that they’re the one who shot the man who shot Jimmy Ringo, the fastest gunfighter in the west. It demonstrates that gunslingers cannot be part of a community that espouses the rule of law.

Both Skip and Ringo are outsiders. The Gunfighter and Pick Up On South Street both portrayed the uncertainties in American society through their main protagonists. Both are outsiders and both will never be able to belong to any type of respectable society or community. The western, most especially, had to evolve to deal with more “modern” and dark themes and The Gunfighter is a prime example of this evolution. The Gunfighter displayed a theme that has been traditionally in crime film noirs. The theme of alienation could be handled by other genres that didn’t include criminals or gangsters. But they had to use their own iconography and points of reference. In the instance of The Gunfighter, it used the traditional gunslinger and juxtaposed him against an America that was growing and evolving into towns and communities. Ringo could never be a part of a community just like Skip, Candy and Moe who also couldn’t belong to a community which used institutions like police officers and the secret service against another institution of Cold War America, Communism or, more realistically, the threat of communism.



[i]Mc Arthur, Colin, Underworld USA, Secker and Warburg: London, 1972, p.17.
[ii] Ibid, p. 17.
[iii] Schatz, Thomas, Hollywood Genres: Formulas, Filmmaking, and the Studio System, Random House: New York, p.16.
[iv] Ibid., p. 24.
[v] McArthur, Colin, op.cit., p. 28-29
[vi] Kitses, Jim, Horizons West, Thames and Hudson: London, 1969, p. 8
[vii] Schatz, Thomas, op. cit., p.47.
[viii] Ibid., p. 47-48.
[ix] Ibid., p. 112.
[x]Ibid., p. 113.
[xi] Kitses, op. cit., p.11