Crime Genre Research
In order to create a successful and authentic crime film, I conducted some research into the crime genre. The key aspects that were needed to focus on were the conventions of a crime film, common symbols, motifs and themes and the history of crime films. By researching these areas of the crime genre, I will gain a good understanding of what components I will need to create a good crime film. Mob Films
Subgenre of crime films, dealing with organized crime, often the Mafia
Commonly overlapped with film noir
Focus on the rise to power of an organized gang, sometimes focusing on the gangs leader, as well as their fall. The message is almost always crime doesn’t pay though sometimes it focuses on their humanity making it more about a means to an end
Widely regarded as the best crime films
Developed around the sinister actions of criminals or gangsters, particularly bank robbers, underworld figures or ruthless hoodlums who operate outside the law, stealing and murdering their way through life.
First introduced in 1932 with ‘Scarface’ starring Paul Muni and George Raft
In the later thirties, the mob movies were tamer and focused on how crime never pays. An example is ‘Angels with dirty faces’. They always lead to a tragic ending for the main mobster through a fatal mistake with the police using it to their advantage
In the forties and fifties the genre died down and was replaced by film noir
· In the seventies there was a revival of mob films, notably with ‘The Godfather’ by Mario Puzo. It was purposefully shot with hard lighting to give it a grim feel. What made it different was their portrayal as humans
· Most famous examples are from the late 1970’s-1990 including ‘Scarface’, ‘Goodfellas’, ‘Goodfellas’, ‘The Godfather’, ‘Carlito’s way’, ‘Once upon a time in America’ and ‘Casino’. Many of these films are considered timeless classics, showing the popularity and critical acclaim of the genre at one time.
· The tradition mob film has died out with the latest 2007 release ‘The Deported’ showing a less grim and realistic portrayal of the mob
· Gangster films are often categorised as film noir or mystery films, or they are related to detective films-because of underlying similarities between these cinematic forms.
Themes
· Rivalry, usually with other criminals. Often regarding money, pride or loyalty
· Morality, as religion is used as a key aspect, usually used as dramatic irony or to highlight their lack of morals
· Betrayal, huge theme of giving up information to crime families or police. Can be to do with frustration or most commonly, will go to prison otherwise
· Fierce ambition, protagonist is usually full of desire, sometimes resulting in his death or attaining ultimate power
· Materialism, most focus on material aspects, for example cars represent ultimate fantasyof rags to riches
· Self destruction, obtain everything they desire but they become complacent and bored, leading to a big downfall
· Evil, the protagonist can appear evil, clinical and sinister as death is portrayed as a business with no care or doubt
· Loyalty, undying loyalty between the mob, shown with how they consider them to be ‘family’
Symbols
· Money, epitomizes materialism and a crime films ultimate desire.
· Guns, represents violence and most prevalent weapon used in a crime film
· Police, represent the law which is everything the mob hates and fights against, epitomize the ultimate enemy
· Grimy Locations, highlights unglamorous aspect of crime and can be used to represent that crime doesn’t pay
· Jail, representation of the notion crime doesn’t pay, but can also be a symbol of disloyalty.
The history
Most popular genres have a history. The crime film has none—or rather, it has so many that it is impossible to give a straightforward account of the genre's evolution without getting lost in innumerable byways as different crime formulas arise, evolve, compete, mutate, and cross-pollinate. Crime films arise from a radical ambivalence toward the romance of crime. That romance gave heroic detectives like Sherlock Holmes—burlesqued onscreen as early as 1900 or 1903 (the exact date is uncertain), in the thirty-second Sherlock Holmes Baffled —a matchless opportunity to make the life of the mind melodramatic and glamorous, and it made silent criminals like Fantômas ( Fantômas and four sequels, France, 1913–1914) and Bull Weed ( Underworld , 1927) both villain and hero. The arrival of synchronized sound in 1927 and the Great Depression in 1929 created an enormous appetite for escapist entertainment and a form of mass entertainment, the talkies, capable of reaching even the most unsophisticated audiences, including the millions of lower-class immigrants who had flocked to America. The great gangster films of the 1930s and the long series of detective films that flourished alongside them, their detectives now increasingly ethnic ( Charlie Chan Carries On , 1931, and forty-one sequels; Think Fast, Mr. Moto , 1937, and seven sequels; Mr. Wong, Detective , 1938, and four sequels), were nominally based on novels. But crime films did not seek anything like the literary cachet of establishment culture until the rise of film noir —atmospheric tales of heroes most often doomed by passion—named and analyzed by French journalists but produced in America throughout the decade beginning in 1944. Postwar crime films, whatever formula they adopted, were shaped in America by cultural anxiety about the nuclear bomb ( Kiss Me Deadly , 1955) and the nuclear family ( The Desperate Hours , 1955). The decline of film noir after Touch of Evil (1958) was offset by a notable series of crime comedies at England's Ealing Studios (such as The Lavender Hill Mob , 1951) and a masterly series of psychological thrillers directed by Alfred Hitchcock ( Strangers on a Train , 1951; Rear Window , 1954; Vertigo , 1958; North by Northwest , 1959; Psycho , 1960). The 1960s was the decade of the international spy hero James Bond, who headlined history's most lucrative movie franchise in a long series beginning with Dr. No (1962). But it was left to a quartet of ironic valentines to retro genres, Bonnie and Clyde (1967), The Godfather (1972), The Godfather: Part II (1974), and Chinatown (1974), to reinvent the crime film for a hip young audience. The replacement of the 1930 Production Code by the 1969 ratings system allowed niche films to be successfully marketed even if they were as graphically violent as Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer (1990) or as bleak in their view of American politics as The Parallax View (1974) or JFK (1991). The closing years of the century, marked by a heightened public fear of crime, a fascination with the public-justice system, and a deep ambivalence toward lawyers, allowed a thousand poisoned flowers to bloom around the globe, from the sociological sweep of the British television miniseries Traffik (1989), remade and softened for American audiences as Traffic (2000), to the ritualistic Hong Kong crime films of John Woo ( Die xue shuang xiong [The Killer], 1989) and Johnny To ( Dung fong saam hap [The Heroic Trio], 1993) and their American progeny ( Pulp Fiction , 1994), to the steamy eroticism of the all-American Basic Instinct (1992) and its direct-to-video cousins. Perhaps the most distinctive new strain in the genre has been the deadpan crime comedy of Joel (b. 1954) and Ethan (b. 1957) Coen, whose films, from Blood Simple (1985) to The Ladykillers (2004), left some viewers laughing and others bewildered or disgusted.
