David Buckingham is one of the many theorist I have to research for my exam he believes that: 'Genre is a constant process of negotiation and change over time'.
I have found a few different examples of films for example Grease, it is a 1978 film that follows the conventional genre because a man and woman meet, the couple then get seperated through no fault of their own and then they get reunited and then they drive off, living happily ever after.
Another example would be the film Pretty Woman, they meet under unusual circumstances as she is a prostitute, they then end up falling in love and end up living happily ever after.
Forrest Gump is about a man with a low I.Q he goes through life not rerally understanding that his actions has helped lives, all he cares about his sweetheart Jenny. They are childhood friends, they are seperated and so Forrest leaves to go to Vietnam, they return to Alabama, get married after first declining the first time he asked years previous and spend a short time together as Jenny is ill and later dies. This is unconventional as romance usually ends by the couple ending happily ever after however you get the impression that Forrest and his child are going to have a happy life after all of the good he has done in his past. In this story there is an equilibrium that can be applied as the equilibrium is how things were in the beginning, the disequilibrium is when the couple part and the new equilibrium is when they are reunited when Jenny and their child come back to Forrest and they move back to Alabama. Or it could be argued there is two equilibriums in this film as there is the life when Jenny is sick, she dies and then the new equilibrium is Forrest and his childs life after her death.
Romeo and Juliet is a about how a couple meet unfortunately their families don't see eye to eye and so have to hide their love from their family, there are many fights between the two families, they make a plan so that the two can be together. Romeo goes away, Juliet pretends to die by takes a druf that stops the heart, making people think she is dead, she then awakes unfortunately not before Romeo finds her lifeless body and takes his life by drinking the poison he had aquired after hearing of his partners death, he cannot be alive knowing he cannot be with his true love and so takes his life just after this Juliet wakes and finds his body and as she feels the same as him she takes her life by stabbing herself. The film was made in 1996 however it is believed to be wrote in 1580 however the theme of this film best fits the development of the date the film was made because romance films in these years have a story that go accordingly: they meet, they are apart for reasons that seemed important at the time, they then end up get back together and unfortunately one of the main characters dies and leaves the remaining character left alone. The way in which Romeo and Juliet has developed from the previous film (Forrest Gump) is that neither the main characters survive and so there can be no additional to the story.
Only a year later the genre has developed further as Titanic is about a couple that meet each other under unforseen circumstances, they were of different class and so shouldn't have met each other on this cruise as class' are kept seperately, people try to seperate them especially her friend as he wanted her for himself, they spend time in each others company - falling in love, the boat gets hit by an iceburg, they end up in the sea, she is on a piece of debris whilst he is in the water holding her hand, he end up dying and ends up at the bottom of the ocean. The story doesn't end there as you then see Rose, in current time, as an old lady telling you the story of her life because in the beginning of the film you see her telling people about the story and its not until the end you realise that the story is about her life not someone else she knows or a made up thing. This film has a lot of equilibriums as you could say Rose had an equilibrium before she met Jack, Disequilibrium when she was parted from her current partner and a new equilibrium when Jack and Rose become a couple or you could look at the bigger picture and say that the equilibrium is when Jack and Rose meet, the disequilibrium is when her partner tries to break them up and you could argue that it is also the iceburg as that is what takes you onto the new equilibrium, Rose without Jack. The genre has developed as although both characters die they die at different stages in their life as Jack dies with her, after the iceburg, whereas Rose dies because of old age and you can see she then re-joins him in the after life where as Romeo and Juliet die together in each others arms one after each other.
The Notebook is more recent film is about a love story however the film has been presented as if it were a book, as the actor reads an old woman in a nursing home a book about a couples love, it is then remembered that the people in the book are actually the man next to her and herself. The film tells us how young people meet, the parents don't approve, she then has to move to go to college, she gets engagement, whilst getting her wedding dress fitted she sees an image of Noah and so goes to find him in a house which they have fond memories, there is some confusion as to whether she should continue her fiance or go with her one true love Noah. The scene then brakes and it goes back to the couple which brings the audience realisation that the story was about the person reading the book and the woman in the nursing home.Noah is found unconscious in bed and he is rushed to the hospital; he later returns to the nursing home's intensive care ward. He goes to Allie's room later that night, and Allie remembers again. The next morning, a nurse finds them in bed together, having both died peacefully holding each other's hands.
Things have changed in terms of genre in a film as things need to be changed so that it keeps the audience guessing about what is happening as you don't want to watch something and know exactly what is going to happen in the end - live happily ever after, but if they do live happily ever after there may be some long and interesting tale as to how they got their happy ever after.
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