A Reflection on Movie Styles – Then and Now

Over the years, movie genres have fluctuated in popularity. There are all sorts of genres from adventure to thriller and much more in between. Currently, there is a high interest in adventure and action movies. For example, the movies Endgame, Shazam, and Captain Marvel are just a few of the new action movies in 2019. Without a dull scene, these movies reel people in and keep them wondering what will happen next.

Action movies especially have greatly improved through the advances in editing technology. The fighting, stunts, and explosions that take place in an action movie are much more entertaining after they have been edited. Many film buffs consider The Great Train Robbery to be the very first action movie. This silent film was a Western movie and was produced in 1903. It was only 12 minutes long but audiences were amazed by the new techniques like composite editing which combines multiple images into one, on-location filming instead of shooting on a soundstage, and frequent camera movement unlike the stationary camera angle of the past. If you can imagine watching this movie with a 1903 audience, you would be surprised by their reactions to the film. By today’s standards, this movie is unremarkable and rather boring, but in 1903, you would be watching a cutting edge film, and the audience would be gasping.

What often overlooked movie genre made silent films obsolete? The musical. Musical movies were very popular from the 1930’s through the 1950’s. The very first musical film was called The Jazz Singer. It was produced in 1927, starring Al Jolson, and had a massive impact on the motion picture industry. The Jazz Singer was the first full-length movie with synchronized recorded music instead of an orchestra or person playing live music along with the movie as it played. It was also the first to have lip-sync singing and speaking together in scenes. These new developments led to greater audience engagement, and the people loved it! Over the course of the next few years, Hollywood’s silent film production slowed dramatically and all but stopped.

People have loved to be scared since ancient storytelling began. Experiencing the physical reactions of terror but none of the gory reality is very appealing to human beings. The horror movie genre has changed greatly over time. It started in 1896 with Georges Méliès’ The Haunted Castle, a 3-minute movie where two royal men encounter the devil and his cast of characters. It was meant to be amusing and entertaining but the devil and other disagreeable characters got the movie the horror label. Jump ahead 100+ years, and you have movies focused on terrifying the audience. Classic horror movies and those reaching back to the beginning of this movie genre are less terrifying because they tend to be missing aspects of reality that play important roles in the scariness of current horror films. The audience identifies with the victim and takes that terror home with them.

Some movie genres had their peak time where they reached high popularity. In the 70’s, drama and crime movies were favored. Popular movies of the time were The Godfather, Jaws, and Rocky, all of which fall under the drama category. Dramatic films keep the attention of their audience because the drama is exclusively on the screen instead of being in their personal lives. Knowing juicy information that another character has yet to discover gives the viewer a sense of power. The climax of these types of movies is normally during the reaction of the clueless character. Overall, popular genres are constantly fluctuating from time to time. The technology is improving and new filming techniques are being introduced in order to keep people interested. In the future, we can expect the theatrics of movies to be even more extravagant than they are now.