In this essay I will be exploring a particular genre and explain why it interests me and why I feel it works as a genre. The genre that I am focusing on is thrillers. I have chosen this genre due to it's action, mystery and suspense; To me it is a very intriguing genre in how the correct moods and atmosphere is created for the audience to be drawn in and continue to be drawn in. The basis of a successful thriller would be fast-paced editing, gritty story-lines, plot twists and high levels of suspense. Genre's aren't closed systems that all follow the conventions word for word, they are open systems that allow the entrance of conventions from other genres to create sub-genres. Sub-genres of thrillers merge different conventions of all sorts of different genres, for example; Crime thrillers, conspiracy thrillers, spy thrillers just to name a few. I would expect from a thriller, an equilibrium then a disturbance of a death or something violent or sometimes in the case of supernatural thrillers, some unworldly even and then a lot of action happening until the equilibrium has been reached again or even left suspenseful on a cliffhanger.
I feel that with thrillers in particular music is key. Music helps to build up the tension within a scene as many have said, it's about the build up to an event that's the suspense rather than the event happening itself. This I think is true for films such as horrors but I feel in thrillers music is a great accompaniment to an action rather than just a device to build up the tension.
I have chosen to evaluate two thriller trailers, one directed by the 'master of suspense' Alfred Hitchcock and one directed by Joe Wright. I have chosen to evaluate two from two different periods of time to see the progression within the genre through time and what conventions have been developed and which have remained the same.
Vertigo (1958) by Alfred Hitchcock is a classic example of a thriller, as it states in the trailer 'Only Hitchcock could weave this tangled web on terror'. It was like nothing that anyone had seen before, he was an early pioneer of thrillers. Trailers in this time period weren't as hard hitting and exciting as the are nowadays, I feel like the trailer was being sold to the audience more as a product rather than something that is almost reality. Now most films have almost broken down the barrier between media and reality in this 'post-modern age' whereas with the Vertigo, it is very apparent that it's just a work of art not reality. This is done with the usage of the non-diegetic sound of the voice-over with a very salesman like voice, also they have placed the actors credits on top of the shots of each actor, this ensures that the audience knows the actors names and faces whereas nowadays you get the main actors names at the very end of the trailer if at all, but in Vertigo their crediting is made 100% necessary and almost a main factor of the trailer. This is a convention of all film trailers that has almost diminished in time. Also voice overs almost throughout the entirety of the trailer as like in Vertigo has also been stopped, you now only see it often in parody/ spoof films; I think this is because now with the current technologies it's easier to portray a narrative in film with just the visual instead of the sound almost spoon feeding you the entire plot. Voice overs are only really used to give audiences information that is key but cannot be portrayed through a shot and also gives the audience the voice of a character that may not of spoken yet so is used as a character device as well as a plot device.
Actors tend to get caught in a 'genre trap'. This is where they get too well known for only playing one sort of role in certain genre films, so when you see the actor you immediately associate them with the film/ whatever they are doing being in a certain genre. For example Vin Diesel with action films and Simon Pegg with comedies. Saoirse Ronan, who plays Hanna, is well known for dramas such as The Lovely Bones and The Way Back, so Hanna is a quite different role for her. Since being in Hanna she has been in Violet and Daisy, Byzantium, The Host and is filming some more thrillers, so maybe since Hanna she is being almost pigeon holed into being a thriller/drama actress.
In Hanna by Joe Wright, women are shown throughout as different stereotypes, there is Hanna the main protagonist who is shown as a young, natural girl brought up to be a very strong and powerful female this is quite rare I think for a girl of her sort of age to be shown like this. The antagonist is a woman very high up in the CIA, she plays the stereotypical villain, I feel that it is more common for women to be shown as these sort of malicious characters rather than as heroes. Along Hanna's travels she finds a family whose female members consist of an overly protective mother and a daughter who is the stereotypical teen girl who cares greatly about boys, her looks etc. all the things that Hanna hasn't even come into contact with, this gives a contrast in characters even though they are of the same age group, which adds to the hilarity of certain scenes which underpins previous and later thrilling events. I would say that within Hanna females are represented in many different forms which I think if very fair and almost uncommon in the majority of films. Men however aren't shown as much as women, I think this is because the protagonist is a young girl and the focus of the film is about the strength of this girl. In the film men are used mainly as henchmen for the 'evil woman' or as helpers for example Hanna's dads friend, Hanna's father is a main character but isn't featured as heavily as Hanna he's just shown more as the typical 'doner'/father type figure. Race isn't really explored as such, I don't think that it's a key focal point of the film apart from the face you realise that the family are holiday makers through the shots of the camper vans and also their British accents.
In Vertigo by Alfred Hitchcock I do not feel as though race has been represented at all, but gender on the other hand has. Hitchcock is well known for his treatment of women in films, he often uses them as sexual objects or things just to kill off. In Vertigo the woman is playing a helpless suicidal 'princess' character, being protected by a man. This helpless woman is often found in Hitchcock's work, but one of the main male protagonists has a fear of heights- This is showing a weakness too that links in with the ending of the trailer for Vertigo. So I wouldn't say this film was objectifying women or even really looking down upon them either.
I feel like both Hanna and Vertigo (in it's day) are/were aimed for late teens through to adults as there is nothing in the script that suggests it's aimed at specific audiences or genders. Using the uses and gratification theory by Blumer and Katz which states that audiences watch certain media that suits their psychological needs- To be informed or educated, identification with the character or situation, just for plain entertainment purposes, to enable themselves to socially interact with others or as a form of escapism from real life. I do not feel as though either Hanna or Vertigo are informative/educational and they are both very unlikely circumstances so probably not very relatable to audiences so I'd say that both were for pure entertainment purposes and possibly social interaction. I would say that Vertigo would have the preferred audience of men though as Hitchcock's films are created through a male gaze which may not entice all female audience members.
The genre is clearly shown in both trailers in different ways but I feel Hanna was more effective at doing so, this is because I felt Vertigo could just be a drama as I didn't feel that the trailer was as full of suspense as it should be due to the slow editing and to me not very thrilling story line but that's personal preference I suppose. I felt as though Hanna conveyed a lot of the conventions of a thriller with the fast paced editing, action scenes, voice overs at points, diegetic sounds, flash backs. The whole package in my opinion in terms of thriller conventions.
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