Sep/091
Lethal Weapon
Can a movie be more than one genre? Often. How do you juggle more than one genre in your story?
Let’s take an oldie but a goodie, LETHAL WEAPON. It’s been on my mind because I recently watched all four LETHAL WEAPON movies. LETHAL WEAPON is many things – buddy comedy, action movie, gritty police story, murder mystery. If you are writing a story with multiple genres, the first step is to decide what your movie is. What is the movie really about; that is the main genre. In the case of LETHAL WEAPON, the relationship of Riggs and Murtaugh is the heart of the movie. Some may disagree, but I think LETHAL WEAPON is a buddy movie. Buddy movies are about how two people realize they are better together than apart. Each man makes the other whole. Murtaugh gives Riggs stability and a family while Riggs helps Murtaugh realize that he is not ready to retire.
The writer Shane Black builds his movie (and by extension the mystery) around the Riggs-Murtaugh relationship. As they investigate, they build a rapport. By the end of the film, they have solved the mystery, caught the bad guys, and become friends and partners. The conventions of the modern cop movie are here too. The rogue cop and mismatched partners are given a brilliant spin. Riggs is suicidal and Murtaugh is trying to stay alive until his retirement. This set up gives lots of opportunity for conflict. Often in these cop movies, the good guys uncover a conspiracy. This mystery starts out as a suicide that turns out to be homicide that leads the guys to corrupt army drug dealers. Add some amazing actions scenes and you have a kind of cop movie that no one had seen before.
There is no rule about how many genres are too many. But to make your movie succeed, you must understand what your core genre is. Start with the emotional story of your character and build out. With luck you’ll come up with something original and maybe start a subgenre of your own.
Sep/090
Tweaking Genre
Some writers acknowledge the conventions of the genre in their story and make that part of the movie. In SCREAM Kevin Williamson broke new ground when he had the characters in a teen slasher pic reference horror movies. Because these characters had seen slasher movies, they understood the psycho who was trying to kill them. This was revolutionary because characters in movies had never before talked about movies. Knowing the rules of the teen slasher pic made the SCREAM crew seem smarter. They could anticipate the killer’s next move because they knew how Jason and Fred acted.
A whole industry has sprung up making fun of genre conventions. AIRPLANE (1980), SCARY MOVIE, NOT ANOTHER TEEN MOVIE and the like take the conventions to the point of silliness. They are whole movies filled with nothing but the rules. With nothing original between the genre beats, these movies are ridiculous. These have become their own genre, the movie spoof.
Recently a new way of working with genre has become popular called genre mash up. Filmmakers take two seemingly unrelated genres and put them together. Horror-comedy and western-horror are two examples. SHAUN OF THE DEAD is a funny zombie movie. It’s also a romantic comedy as Shaun tries to get his ex-girlfriend back during the zombie attack. These are three genres are not stories you think of seeing in the same movie. Like Kevin Williamson did in SCREAM, the writers Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright understood the rules of the genre they were working in. They tweaked the zombie story by making it funny and the impetus for the hero to get his life together.
Sep/090
The Rules: The Whys of Genre
Writers often chafe against the confines of genre. They want to know why romantic comedies always end with the lovers together. Or why it’s wise to stick to one car chase per action movie. The short answer is that’s just the way it is. The longer answer is that the plot of your movie is informed by the genre of your story. What is genre? Simply, what kind of movie is it? What category does it fall into? What other movies is it like?
The two big genres are comedy and drama. Everything falls under this umbrella. Horror, Romantic comedy, action. Each genre has its own rules as the way the story unfolds. Where did these rules come from? They came from every movie that came before. The audience expects the lovers to get together because they have seen other romantic comedies. They expect the hero in an action movie to perform physically impossible feats because heroes always take a beating and keep on going. Murder mysteries are always solved. The movie never ends without the audience knowing who did it.
This historical aspect of genre makes newbie writers crazy. They want to be new and original, not writing the same old Hollywood drivel. Yes, what builds careers is originality. But it’s originality within the confines of the genre. Finding a new way to do what’s been done before. This balance of the familiar with the original is what makes screenwriting so challenging.
Think about movies of the last twenty years that were groundbreaking. They all traced their roots back to movies of the past. For example, before PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN, the last successful pirate movie was from the ‘40s. As a result every time anyone tried to make a modern one it felt stuffy and old-fashioned. What did the writers, Ted Elliot and Terry Rossio, do? They took the conventions of a pirate movie and turned them on their ear. Pirate movies have an evil pirate, a good pirate and a damsel in distress on the hunt for treasure. Elliot & Rossio added the character of Jack Sparrow, who was very appealing and unpredictable. They gave the treasure a supernatural element. They made the damsel in distress smart and active. All of the sudden the movie felt completely new and audiences responded.
DIEHARD is the granddaddy of all action movies. But the story of a lone hero battling a group of bad guys to save the woman he loves is a western. Instead of a town, John McClane is trapped in a skyscraper. Instead of cattle rustlers, he’s fighting terrorists. This movie was so successful both storywise and in box office that it spawned a subgenre of action. DIEHARD on a …. DIEHARD on a bus – SPEED. DIEHARD on Air Force One. Imagine reinventing a genre so cleverly that you create a new subgenre! We all should aspire to that.
RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK was a big budget feature of the swashbuckling serials from the 40s. SPIDERMAN took the previously corny superhero genre and made the story a compelling romance.
As you’re developing your story, watch movies of your genre. For instance, if you’re writing a romantic comedy, you’d better watch every top rom-com from IT HAPPENED ONE NIGHT (the very first) up through the latest, THE PROPOSAL. This marathon will help you understand structure and character. You’ll see what works and what doesn’t. It’s invaluable.