However, because the action film has only been recently recognized as a distinct cinematic phenomenon, most of the major overviews of the genre have been published since the 2000s and constitute a new avenue of scholarship in film studies. This has been particularly true since the early 2000s, as the “pure action film” has been largely displaced by an increasing focus on action-oriented science fiction narratives and adaptations of comic books featuring superhero protagonists.Īction films are built around a core set of characteristics: spectacular physical action a narrative emphasis on fights, chases, and explosions and a combination of state-of-the-art special effects and stunt-work. However, even though the so-called “pure action film” is now recognized as a distinct genre that has become a staple of mainstream Hollywood cinema, as well as numerous international film industries (particularly Asian cinema), the genre remains problematic from a definitional perspective because it continues to overlap and interface with numerous other genres, including fantasy, science fiction, and war films. Since the 1970s, though, the action film has emerged as a distinct genre in which physical action and violence have become the organizing principle, from the plot, to the dialogue, to the casting. Although not labeled as such at the time, recognizable action films stretch back to the course comique or “comic chase films” of the 1910s, while for marketing purposes, the term “action-adventure” can be traced back to at least 1927 when Film Daily used it to describe a Douglas Fairbanks film called The Gaucho. When the term “action” was used as a generic descriptor prior to the 1970s, it was typically conjoined with “adventure” to describe a range of films, particularly exotic types such as swashbucklers and jungle adventure films that were either set in the past or took place in a distant and unfamiliar locale. Because physical action and movement have always been a fundamental part of the cinema-they aren’t called “movies” for nothing-for decades there was no explicit recognition of a separate “action genre” among either producers or audiences.
A hybrid genre that fuses the moral landscape of the western and the urban settings of film noir and police procedurals, the action film as we know it today is a relatively new genre, having taken shape in the late 1960s and early 1970s and become a fully recognized and immensely popular cinematic form in the 1980s.
0 kommentar(er)
