Genre-Bending Cinema

Greetings, curious readers. Recently I explored the release of the long-forecast, cinematic return to Gotham in The Batman (see here for more musings). Perspectively, the piece has since transitioned and I’m left with a new project to unfold in my head. 

One of the pertinent themes I discussed in my latest piece was the multi-genre aspects involved in The Batman. Ultimately, this is a detective neo-noir masquerading as a “superhero” film. It breaks conventions. Ultimately, narratives aren’t bound by the same conventions they once were.

Nicolas Winding Refn’s pulpy neo-noir, Drive (2011), for example, is a motion picture that, beneath the 80’s nostalgia stylism and assured handling of pacing, bears all the hallmarks of your typical western.

Gosling’s unnamed ‘driver’, a stuntman and mechanic who moonlights as a getaway driver for crook heists, is often mute and perpetually driven in purpose; displaying authority through body language rather than showy dialogue. His Chevy Malibu acts as his trusted steed, while the setting of Hollywood, Los Angeles is a fitting urban comparison to the open plains of most westerns.

Another riveting example is Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004), which blends drama, romance and sci-fi. Directed by Michael Gondry from a Charlie Kauffman script, the film dissects the nature of romantic relationships and the significantly influential factor that memory plays within them. Like any Kauffman narrative, this is one of woven intricacy; full of existentialism and obscure storytelling, the characteristics that have come to define his rather unique approach to filmmaking and storytelling.

Jim Carey plays Joel Barrish, one-half of the film's central couple along with Kate Winslett. The couple undergoes a medical procedure to have one another erased from their respective memories after their relationship turns sour. Carey is sublimely vulnerable in a challengingly sensitive role, while his on-screen chemistry with co-star Winslett is, at times, warming, but also cuttingly true to life. 

Fans of existential cinema might well keenly point to one Terrence Malik, whose work continually transcends the more austere label of “arthouse cinema” to find footing in a style of narrative that inspires awe as much as mystifying exasperation. 

Somewhat recently, The Tree of Life (2011), a darling of critics at the time, is a grandiose attempt to scrutinise the meaning of life through a narrative that routinely drifts in and out of linear functionality. As a medium, cinema allows Malick to follow the beat of his own drum. 

Paul Thomas Anderson, meanwhile, is a filmmaker who regularly plays with conventionality. Licorice Pizza (2021) flirted with the controversial age difference involved in its central relationship; self-aware and respectable enough to regularly toe the line and steer the narrative into something more earnest. 

In Punch Drunk Love (2002), Adam Sandler (an actor who, much like Jim Carey, has historically been consigned to the generic confines of his comedic roles), is allowed to flourish in a role much unlike his usual formula. Sandler plays Barry Egan, a lonely entrepreneur with social anxiety who falls in love with his sister's co-worker, Lena (Emily Watson). Anderson’s unique, touching and often oddball narrative is achingly human and entitles Sandler’s talents to express themselves in the arguably more earnest requirements of drama and romance. 

That aforementioned topic of cultural ingraining actually pops up pretty intermittently throughout the history of cinema. One such example is “monster movies”, such as Godzilla and King Kong. In the years of their earliest success, these features were a genre in their own right and existed primarily to accentuate the presence and devastation of its antagonist. 

In modern times, Guillermo Del Toro’s prowess comes in captivating and sensitive “creature features”, usually coupled with a foreboding sense of social context and allegorical themes. 

In the case of Pans Labyrinth (2006), an exquisitely spun tale pulsing with every fibre of Del Toro’s fabled nuances, we have the Falangist Spain of 1944. Despite the relevant danger and mystery of the secret, abandoned labyrinthian world contained in the narrative, lead character Ofelia (Ivana Baquero) readily accepts its occurrence as a means to escape her troubling reality. This is due largely to the declining health of her mother (Ariadna Gil) and the tyrannical nature of her new stepfather, Captain Vidal (Sergi Lopez), a devout enforcer of Falangism.

For clear and perhaps obvious reasons, genre exists to categorise the stylistic and thematic concepts of a narrative. In theory and in practice, it’s defined by a collection of similarities and functions by way of emotional response, allowing the audience to better understand the intention of the story. In a counterproductive sense, however, this can lead to a risk of oversimplifying a narrative, pigeonholing it in the process. Cinema has progressed tenfold since its earliest days in black and whites and “talkies”, and audience expectation has certainly followed in suit.