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The Thriller Genre

The Thriller Genre.

maxwell-sanders
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The Thriller Genre

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  1. The Thriller Genre

  2. Thrillers are a genre of literature, film and television that uses suspense, tension and excitement as the main elements. The primary subgenres of thrillers are: mystery, crime and psychological thrillers. After the assassination of President Kennedy, political thriller and paranoid thriller films became very popular.

  3. Examples of Popular Thriller movies What all these films have in common are that they call contain twists, action and thrills • Mission: Impossible (1996) • American Psycho (2000) • The Beach (2000) • Unbreakable (2000) • Swordfish (2001) • The Bourne Identity (2002) • Inception (2010) • Psycho (1960)

  4. Hybrids • Thrillers are often hybrids - there are lots of varieties of suspense-thrillers: • Action/Crime thrillers - Inception (2010) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=66TuSJo4dZM • sci-fi thrillers - such as Alien (1979) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ojhGdRSkiUw • crime-caper thrillers - such as The French Connection (1971) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nP_7ZopT6oM • western-thrillers - such as High Noon (1952) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SkNu4-sSglY • film-noir thrillers - such as Double Indemnity (1944) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S3wjJcuGsVE • even romantic comedy-thrillers - such as Killers (2010) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ND69q158IZI

  5. Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho • Psycho is a 1960 psychological thriller film directed by Alfred Hitchcock. The film is based on the screenplay by Joseph Stefano, who adapted it from the 1959. • Here is the trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NG3-GlvKPcg • The Famous “Shower scene”. The murder of Janet Leigh's character in the shower is the film's pivotal scene, and one of the most famous scenes in cinema history. As such, it spawned numerous myths and legends. It was shot from December 17 to December 23, 1959, and features 77 different camera angles. The scene "runs 3 minutes and includes 50 cuts." Most of the shots are extreme close-ups, except for medium shots in the shower directly before and directly after the murder. The combination of the close shots with the short duration between cuts makes the sequence feel longer, more subjective, more uncontrolled, and more violent than would the images if they were presented alone or in a wider angle. • Shower Scene: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8VP5jEAP3K4

  6. Settings and locations • The setting and sense of place are often extremely important in a thriller; in many cases, it's like an extra character in the story. • The setting can be a big part in exhilarating the audience by putting characters in dangerous or thrilling situations. An example of this is ‘Inception’, where the characters are forced to fight in a building with ever changing point of gravity. • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XcnSU0LOkH8

  7. Themes • Typical themes used in thrillers are; • Psychological – playing on the unknown areas of the mind, this theme has almost unlimited potential as anything can happen in the mind, giving directors the opportunity to induce fear and excitement in every aspect. • Crime – crime is a very good theme for thrillers as crime in itself is already thrilling. • Revenge – is used quite a lot in thriller films as it is a powerful emotion and one that can be conveyed in many different ways

  8. Narrative • Narrative twists and turns, building to a climax… • Todorov: Equilibrium - Disequilibrium - return to a state of Equilibrium • It can be very hard to determine the narrative of a thriller film because it can be portrayed in so many different ways. • However, modern thrillers usually throw hard going situations and obstacles as their protagonist to see how they will deal with them.

  9. Characters • Often in thriller films, there is one character who plays the role of a helpless innocent female in need of rescue. Who does however become brave when her help is needed and often aids or saves the male hero/protagonist. There is therefore normally a male hero who battles the injustice and ultimately aims to defeat the residing evil of the situation to allow good to prosper. The residing evil in thriller films can be a vast majority of characters from a monster to a twisted boy next door. There are however some common characteristics which include solitariness, revenge, anger, or a skewed view on events, as well as distorted social skills and understanding.

  10. Thriller Iconography • Setting: Can be urban, isolated suburban settings, cities or quiet country villages.Mise-en-scene: Normally dim lighting hiding parts to a character, large threatening weapons for props e.g. large knives, guns etc. Camera shots are normally point of view shots, frames within frames, or close ups. Often there is also a lot of camera movement. Colours are also used to signify different emotions like red connotes blood or danger, blue cold mystery or death.

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