appendix one: the thriller genre

What is a thriller?

When watching a film of the thriller genre there are many codes and conventions that are used. These codes and conventions are clues to the audience that what they are watching is of the thriller genre. The things that you usually expect in a thriller film are, tense moments and situations causing fear to the audience, there usually is a potential danger in the story. This danger is usually represented in the form of a victim and this brings in another convention that is some one has to ‘save the day’. There is also another party involved in this which is the villain, this doesn’t necessarily have to be a ‘bad guy’ but can come in the form of a deadly disease. You expect to see action in a thriller and this can come in many forms such as, war, guns, or fights. Supernatural things can also be related to a thriller film, as this can cause suspense to the audience. There are many authors and critics that have taken it upon them selves to write about the thriller genre. The first of many to write about this topic was a man called G K Chesterton. At the time when he was writing the thriller genre was just immerging. At this time the thriller genre wasn’t appreciated and wasn’t classed as an ‘appropriate’ type of literature, as most genres in this period were set around more realistic storylines. So G K Chesterton described this genre as modern. He described the main setting for this genre was an urban, city landscape, and this added to the idea of the genre being modern. His thoughts on the thriller genre were that it was an attempt to bring the ‘poetry’ to the ordinary person’s life, and bring excitement to a monogamous life. He believed this genre turned ordinary to extra-ordinary. Some one that built further on to Chesterton’s critique was Northrop Frye, he said that often the ‘hero’ of the film is usually an ordinary person and has to become extraordinary to ‘save the day’. He explained that often the audience is happy to except these extreme situations similar to the way they can accept the stories of romantic fiction. He said “the hero or romance movie in a world in which the ordinary laws of nature are slightly suspended” this means that in a film you are allowed to make things that wouldn’t usually happen in real life and people will believe it. He also states that this is almost bringing the enchanted forest to the city. The next critic, John Cawelti, combines both the views of Chesterton and Frye. He also agrees with the ideas that the thriller genre is about a modern city and all the usual things about a hero and villain, but he introduces ‘the exotic’. This is the Idea that something is introduced to an ordinary life and changes it. This ‘exotic’ makes life more exciting and this provides the material for a thriller film. The ‘exotic’ can also be a place not only an object. Other films that have included an ‘exotic’ are Jimanji, lost, click etc. W H Mathews relates the thriller genre to the story of the labyrinth. This is the image of descending down underground in to a maze full of, twists, turns, puzzles and dead ends. This relates to the twists and turns in a thriller genre as it is important to make sure the audience never really knows what is going on as this creates the atmosphere of suspense. There is also this idea that there should be clues in the thriller to allow the audience to deduce some outcomes but not to actually be able to work out the outcome. A thriller is this idea of a “puzzling journey”. clues are again important in the triller as it makes sure that the audience don’t become too lost inside the story line of things. He also describes how usually the thriller isn’t introduced to the audience until the end of the film, as this relates in with the idea that the audience have reached the end of the maze and have to over come one last puzzle. To expand further on this idea that you don’t see the outcome until the end of the story, Pascal Bontizer thought that what Mathews was describing was ‘partial vision’. This is the again the idea that something isn’t revealed to the audience until the end of the story. But this can also be that something can be with in the camera shot or within the storyline that the audience never get to see. This adds fear and tension to the audience and always leaves them asking questions. Lars Ole Saurberg believed that it was important to deliberately hide some thing form the audience, ad this ties in with Bontizer’s and Mathew’s theory again. He believed that to delay something created tension and kept the audience interested. Also this idea of have the delayed outcome jump out at the audience or to be revealed to them will cause the audience shock, this was called ‘patracted’ outcome. Another person who wrote on the thriller genre was Noel Carroll. He believed that the thriller genre had to follow a question and answer theme, and there had to be time delaying the audience from the real outcome. E.g. will the character survive? He also states that in the case of a battle the stakes usually have to be against the odds of the ‘good guy’ and this again causes suspense. Carroll said that as the story line had to be unpredictable there was also a ‘morality factor’ involved, meaning that the hero could sometimes become the villain or the other way around. This again follows this idea of Mathew’s maze idea. Therefore the outcome will always be tension and fear among the audience.