Thursday 10 October 2013

Research into the history of thriller films - Miss Georgiou

I will be researching the development within the thriller genre over the years. The thriller genre provides a lot exhilaration, emotions and excitement for the audience, there are a few sub genres for example crime thrillers, erotic thrillers and mystery thrillers.

1940
Rebecca-Alfred Hitchcock
  • The thriller genre started in the early 1920-1930's, however only really seriously developed in the 1940's. Hitchcock was often regarded as the greatest British filmmaker. He had many techniques in the suspense and psychological thriller genres, one was Rebecca which won best picture and best cinematography. 
1960
Psycho-Alfred Hitchcock
  • Hitchcock was still very big 20 years later when he directed the film Psycho which was ranked among the greatest films of all time, this shows that not just Hitchcock in particular but the whole thriller genre had started to develop a lot more in terms of quality and the content. Famous film stars and exotic locations were now being use within thriller films, broadening the genre.
1980
Dressed To Kill-Brian De Palmer 
  • By the 1990's thrillers were very popular and many talented directors were starting out in the genre, for example Steven Spielberg and Martin Scorsese. 
2000
Deja Vu-Tony Scott
  • The sub genres of crime and mystery thrillers, became much more popular.
2010
Dark Knight Rises-Christopher Nolan
  • In the present day many of the inspiration and techniques used in thrillers are from the previous decades of work. However action and spy thrillers are a lot more popular than the stereotypical thriller movie, which includes horror and violence. 
Hannibal is ranked number one in the thriller genre, within the film there is a lot of torture or gory scenes this shows how the target audience of thrillers enjoy the graphical scenes. Hannibal also includes crime, as hannibal is wanted by both the FBI and various detectives.
Ranked at number 8 is The Bone Collector, this film involves crime and many gory scenes as well which is very similar to the top ranked movie hannibal. This shows how crime is a very effective theme for the thriller audience as they enjoy to watch the mystery.
Ranked at number 17, the film includes no explicit torture and does not go into any detail of the murders. However there is enigma involved due to the audience not knowing the identity or truth behind the killers mother. Psycho is most likely ranked lower than the other films because of its lack of crime and graphical scenes, therefore this is what the target audience of thrillers enjoy to watch. 

2 comments:

  1. This post demonstrates a basic understanding of how thriller films have changes and developed over the years and this is because you have not explored the narrative of the films in enough detail.

    Within this post, you also need to reference your research that you carried out and include screenshots to support the points that you have made.

    Finally, aim to include a summary to explain how your research will assist you with planning your thriller

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  2. The box office information that you have included above, helps to demonstrate further understanding of the thriller genre. But further discussion of the narratives and audience figures are needed, to show further understanding of how thriller films appeal to an audience.

    This can be achieved, by considering 3 different films and the narratives. Consider why the audience are interested in watching these types of films in more detail

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