Editing Film genre (section)

==Pure and hybrid genres==
Films are rarely purely from one genre, which is in keeping with the cinema's diverse and derivative origins, it being a blend of "vaudeville, music-hall, theatre, photography" and novels.<ref name="autogenerated185"/> American film historian [[Janet Staiger]] states that the genre of a film can be defined in four ways. The "idealist method" judges films by predetermined standards. The "empirical method" identifies the genre of a film by comparing it to a list of films already deemed to fall within a certain genre. The ''[[A priori and a posteriori|a priori]]'' method uses common generic elements which are identified in advance. The "social conventions" method of identifying the genre of a film is based on the accepted cultural consensus within society.<ref name="Grant"/> Martin Loop contends that [[Cinema of the United States|Hollywood]] films are not pure genres because most Hollywood movies blend the love-oriented plot of the romance genre with other genres.<ref name="Grant">{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=tCQOwvI9vsAC|title=Film Genre: From Iconography to Ideology|last=Grant|first=Barry Keith|date=2007|publisher=Wallflower Press|isbn=9781904764793|language=en}}</ref> Jim Colins claims that since the 1980s, Hollywood films have been influenced by the trend towards "ironic hybridization", in which directors combine elements from different genres, as with the Western/science fiction mix in ''[[Back to the Future Part III]]''.<ref name="Grant"/>

Many films cross into multiple genres. [[Susan Hayward]] states that spy films often cross genre boundaries with thriller films.<ref name="autogenerated185"/> Some genre films take genre elements from one genre and place them into the conventions of a second genre, such as with ''[[The Band Wagon]]'' (1953), which adds [[film noir]] and detective film elements into "The Girl Hunt" ballet.<ref name="grant8" /> In the 1970s [[New Hollywood]] era, there was so much parodying of genres that it can be hard to assign genres to some films from this era, such as [[Mel Brooks]]' comedy-Western ''[[Blazing Saddles]]'' (1974) or the private eye parody ''[[The Long Goodbye (film)|The Long Goodbye]]'' (1973).<ref name="autogenerated185"/> Other films from this era bend genres so much that it is challenging to put them in a genre category, such as [[Roman Polanski]]'s ''[[Chinatown (1974 film)|Chinatown]]'' (1974) and [[William Friedkin]]'s ''[[The French Connection (film)|The French Connection]]'' (1971).<ref name= "autogenerated185"/>

[[Film theory|Film theorist]] [[Robert Stam]] challenged whether genres really exist, or whether they are merely made up by critics. Stam has questioned whether "genres [are] really 'out there' in the world or are they really the construction of analysts?". As well, he has asked whether there is a "... finite taxonomy of genres or are they in principle infinite?" and whether genres are "...timeless essences ephemeral, time-bound entities? Are genres culture-bound or trans-cultural?". Stam has also asked whether genre analysis should aim at being descriptive or prescriptive. While some genres are based on story content (the [[war film]]), other are borrowed from literature ([[Comedic genres|comedy]], [[melodrama]]) or from other media (the [[musical film|musical]]). Some are performer-based ([[Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers]] films) or budget-based ([[Blockbuster (entertainment)|blockbusters]], [[low-budget film]]), while others are based on artistic status (the [[art film]]), racial identity ([[race film]]s), location (the [[Western (genre)|Western]]), or sexual orientation ("[[New Queer Cinema]]").<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=mzRXmmpFgZEC|title=Film Theory: An Anthology|last=Stam|first=Robert|date=2000-02-21|publisher=Wiley|isbn=9780631206545|language=en}}</ref>