Crime Film (Main Genre)

Crime 

Crime films are films in which the main focus is on the lives of criminals. The approaches to films like this usually vary between real life criminals or fictional villains. Crime films are developed around the menacing and ominous acts of criminals or mobsters. The most common characters are bank robbers, underworld figures, or ruthless hoodlums operate outside the law, stealing and murdering their way through life. Crime films can be classified along with film noir or detective mystery because of how similar the cinematic techniques are. The category can also include some serial killer films. Films dealing with crime are most often derived from plays then the more popular assumption of novels. The difference between crime and gangster films is thin. The characters are the big difference between the two and from then it’s a ripple effect onto the plot, the script, the style etc… Film noir and detective mystery blend more into the crime section. Gangster films are more specific to a mob, mafia types of characters. Gangster films are frequently based on the lives of real gangsters and turn out to be biographies. According to Wikipedia films dealing with crime and its detection are often based on plays rather than novels ^{[citation needed]}. Agatha Christie‘s stage plays Witness for the Prosecution (1953; based on her own short story, published in 1933) was adapted for the big screen by director Billy Wilder in 1957. The film starred Marlene Dietrich and Charles Laughton and is a classic example of a "courtroom drama". In a courtroom drama, a charge is brought against one of the main characters, which says that they are innocent. Another major part is played by the lawyer (in Britain a barrister) representing the defendant in court and battling with the public prosecutor. He or she may enlist the services of a private investigator to find out what really happened and who the real perpetrator is. However, in most cases it is not clear at all whether the accused is guilty of the crime or not—this is how suspense is created.

Often, the private investigator storms into the courtroom at the very last minute in order to bring a new and crucial piece of information to the attention of the court. This type of literature lends itself to the literary genre of drama focused more on dialogue (the opening and closing statements, the witnesses' testimonies, etc.) and little or no necessity for a shift in scenery. The auditorium of the theatre becomes an extension of the courtroom. When a courtroom drama is filmed, the traditional device employed by screenwriters and directors is the frequent use of flashbacks, in which the crime and everything that led up to it is narrated and reconstructed from different angles.

In Witness for the Prosecution, Leonard Vole, a young American living in England, is accused of murdering a middle-aged lady he met in the street while shopping. His wife (played by Marlene Dietrich) hires the best lawyer available (Charles Laughton) because she is convinced, or rather she knows, that her husband is innocent. Another classic courtroom drama is U.S. playwright Reginald Rose's Twelve Angry Men (1954), which is set in the jury deliberation room of a New York Court of Law. Eleven members of the jury, aiming at a unanimous verdict of "guilty", try to get it over with as quickly as possible. And they would really succeed in achieving their common aim if it were not for the eighth juror (played by Henry Fonda in the 1957 movie adaptation), who, on second thoughts, considers it his duty to convince his colleagues that the defendant may be innocent after all, and who, by doing so, triggers a lot of discussion, confusion, and anger. (Wikipedia)

Some of the most notable crime films are The Shawshank Redemption, The Godfather, The Godfather II, a most recent film Inception, Pulp Fiction, Elite Squad 2, The Dark Knight, Goodfellas, City of God and Rear Window. The most popular gangster films are Road to Perdition, Donnie Brasco, Miller’s Crossing, The Untouchables, The Departed, Mean Streets, Casino, Reservoir Dogs, Scarface, Carlito’s Way and White Heat. Crime films have many different separate sub genres such as Crime Thrillers, Crime Horrors, Crime Comedies, Film noir, Mob Films, Yakuza films, Martial arts action, Heroic Bloodshed, Heist films, Police procedural, Detective films, legal dramas, prison films, hood films, Poliziotteschi, Mumbai Underworld films, snuff films and true crime. Criminal acts are always glorified in these movies something that’s quite unique and only achieved in film.  

The French New Wave

The French New Wave was a term created for a group of French Filmmakers who spurred out of the late 1950’s-1960’s French Film scene. What most people are unaware of is that the French New wave was highly influenced by Italian Neo Realism and Classical Hollywood cinema. The movement was never organized, never formed to a specific palate that’s what made it so unique. It was for the most part a generally young group of aspiring Film Directors this is the only factor that caused it to be classed under European Cinematic Art category. What also set it apart from many of the other kinds of films being made at the same time period or before is that it was a risk most of the time. The main concepts of the films were mirrored after the social and political upheavals of the era something that set them far aside from any other kind of film experiment around. This shattered everything that was then this conservative paradigm. They’re radical sense of being allowed them to make exceptional risk taking experiments with editing, visual style and narrative parts.

Now how it all started, the first establishing figures in the French New Wave were names that are echoed in the halls of cinema still today. Names like Truffaut, Chabrol, Rohmer and Godard who began their careers as critics of the famous magazine Cahiers du Cinema. Andre Bazin found and theorist of Chiers du Cinema was one of the main sources of influence for the movement. Criticism and editorilization laid the groundwork for a set of concepts revolutionary at the time which American film critic Andrew Sarris coined “auteur theory.” Bazin and Henri Langlois so established a dual father like role of the movement based on their founder and curator position of the Cinemathique Francaise. The auteur theory means that the filmmaker holds credit to being the author of the film that is something apparent from film to film. Movies like the 400 Blows by Truffaut and Breathless by Godard had extreme international success, which caused people to recognize the new wave. This is one of the factors that cause the movement to flourish. An important thing to acknowledge is one of the techniques that were prominent in French New Wave filmmaking that was to portray characters not readily labeled as protagonists in the classic sense of audience identification.

The French New Wave films were on very tight budgets so most things were improvised such as actors and crewmembers, which were, recruited friends of the directors. Directors were also forced to improvise with equipment and use things as odd as shopping carts to work as a device to use for tracking shots. Just like any other art film movement it had lasting effects, the innovations discovered by the French New Wave artists seeped into American cinema. Lots of contemporary filmmakers like Quentin Tarantino claimed influence from the French New Wave. The French New Wave is one of the most prominent film movements in cinematic history, in a sense it was a portal that created a swarm of young film directors, it impelled others to feel comfortable in experimenting with film that which opened the doors for a lot of independent films.