Thomas Schatz’s, “Film Genre and the Genre of Film,”

After reading Thomas Schatz’s, “Film Genre and the Genre of Film,” my knowledge of both these broad concept greatly increased.  Genre has always been an aspect of film that has perplexed me.  Going back to debates such as, “is film noir a genre,” genre has always been a cinematic element that I have had trouble defining.  I enjoyed Schatz’s statement that “changes in cultural attitudes, new influential genre films, the economics of the industry, and so forth, continually refine and film genre.”  This quote shows that film genre is the broader subject and that genre films can be grouped within the confines of film genre.  He suggests that the English language allows people to communicate with one another and that we share values and ideas of the language that shapes our perception and habits.  Just like language, film genre allows viewers to share basic interpretations of any genre film.  Schatz stresses cultural context throughout.  He describes genre as a range of expression for filmmakers and a range of experience for the viewers.  He sees characters as the physical embodiment of an attitude or a style. Characters such as cops and robbers represent basic cultural values.  While I found his entire article to be very interesting, is this argument that I found to be the most compelling.  I believe a great way to analyze genre is to dissect the characters of the story.