Genre Conventions In 'The Wizard Of Oz'

The Wizard of Oz and Wicked are both very successful and well-known broadway musicals. Both of these musicals are based off of the same story, but each give a slightly different meaning to it. While they are both based on a similar tale, these two broadway musicals have many characteristics that are similar and differ from each other. This paper will compare and contrast the characters, theme, and plot.

Genre is a label that categorizes a film to the audience, but not to assess the artwork. It can be defined as a hint or trigger that makes the viewers willing to purchase the tickets and to spend their leisure time watching it. Sometimes movies contain more than one genres which is hard to be identified. Nonetheless, Singing in the Rain and La La Land, the two well-known musical films had created great impacts in the musical movie industry. Both films use “singing” to create love stories along with the plots and cinematographies by making the female character the famous movie star at the end. In fact, the audience can see how La La Land challenged and solidified the elements in Singing in the Rain into modern cinema.

There are many different genres in music. Each genre of music has its own distinct musical form and style. Different genres use different tempos, melodies, harmonies, pitch and dynamics to emphasize a certain theme or direct the music to a certain audience or purpose. Examples of different genres of music include rock and roll, jazz, classical, reggae and punk. Despite not even being created in the same era, certain musical genres have similarities in tempos, melodies, harmonies, pitch and dynamics. Romantic music from the romantic era, jazz and pop are all musical genres that have many differences but may also contain some similarities.

According to The Bedford Book of Genres “A genre is a composition’s kind, category, or sort. Genres give us a way to categorize or describe types of compositions”. (Braziller and Kleinfeld) One genre of music is country. There are two things we need to know about genres; “First, genres change according to the ways people use them” and “Second, genres are flexible”. (Braziller and Kleinfeld). Exactly what country music is today can be hard to define as the genre changes with each new artist that comes into it, but a look at the career of George Strait shows why, depsite all the changes in what represnts country mucic, he is known as the king of country music and is the ultimate example of what comes to mind when one speaks of the genre as

O Brother Where Art Thou? is a film that will take you on a perilous journey with Ulysses Everett McGill and his simpleminded cohorts. This film may be set amidst the early 1930’s Great Depression era, but it still has a Homer’s Odyssey feel to it. Down in the dusty and highly racial south, Everett recruits a couple of dimwitted convicts, Pete Hogwallop and Delmar O’Donnell, to help him retrieve his lost treasure and make it back home before his wife marries another suitor. These three convicts manage to stay one step ahead of the law while finding themselves in all sorts of trouble. It was nominated for 35 other awards, one of which was for best screenwriting. Released in December of 2000, this film won 7 awards, some of which for best soundtrack and score, album of the year, as well as best cinematography.

The word genre comes from the French word for 'class ', (Chandler, 1997). Film genre refers to a specific style or subject matter. A movie may have several different components that may make up a specific genre. Genres makes it easier for the audience, as the categorization of genres lets the audience pick what sort of movie they would like to watch. Film genres give the audience information into the type movie it may be, this in turn helps them to decide whether the movie is suitable for them or not.

A successful film requires a certain formula or combination of events. Depending on what your end desire is, the formula can change. If you want a thrill you would require explosions, fast cars and fight scenes. A good scary movie would require haunting music, night scenes and maybe some gore. If you are in the mood for a feel good flick you’d like to see a range of emotion, upbeat music and a happy ending. The movie Footloose has all of those things and also teaches us that being new doesn’t mean you have to be an outsider; in the end that you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover.

Genre movies, put simply, are "commercial feature films which, through repetition and variation, tell familiar stories with familiar characters in familiar" (Grant 1). Having a similar plot guideline categorizes the certain films into one genre and initiates a comparison of differentiations. Within the films What's Eating Gilbert Grape, Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium, and "Paperman", young age and struggle are some of the similar plot characteristics starting out the story. Both criteria can be interrelated concepts to one another when identifying realistic situations where the correlation occurs. Susan Charles and Laura Carstensen states "The most commonly reported daily stressors are interpersonal tensions and intrapersonal stressors that can lead to high levels of emotion distress" (Charles and Carstensen 392), which is what each main character encounters in

The best thing I know is to do exactly what you wish for a while (Roman Holiday):

The Wizard of Oz has revealed to be an exceptionally well thought out film when analysed. The film has made use of stylistic elements such as colour, light, sound and mise-en-scene which coincide with the various twists and turns of the plot as Dorothy moves from Kansas, to Oz, and back again. In The Wizard of Oz, the directors have employed the use of different unique editing techniques despite being an early film. It is obvious that the audience is able to notice the absence of colour in the beginning and ending of the film. The audience is able to identify the mood and overall feeling for Dorothy when she is in her family farm in Kansas. The lack of colour shows the audience how boring and normal her life is in Kansas where she wants to

Horror is a genre that is often overlooked due to vacuous reasons. Readers tend to think of vampires or werewolves, but it is so much more. Horror is a genre that if assimilated, can help the reader understand the correspondence to society. The Horror genre has been around since the 1890s when Georges Méliès was credited for creating the first horror film, which emphasized the idea that horror films have a deeper meaning. In Georges Méliès famous short film, Le Manoir du Diable, or The Haunted Castle, the main character confronts Satan and has nowhere to run. This represents self conflict within oneself and this idea of a deeper meaning is prevalent throughout Shirley Jackson's work. In the novel The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson,

Literary Genres, the definition is in the name. A type of writing that runs on nothing but one’s imaginations and in some cases worst fears. It is created to give the readers a type of escape from the real world, and keeps them up through through the night flipping pages until they are finally finished the novel. Within literary genres comes a couple fan favourites, the Horror Genre, and the Romance Genre. The two tend to alternate reality in a way that creates a fantasy, or nightmare for us living in the novels of each genre.

Over the past century, film has served as a powerful means of communication to a global audience and has become a vital part of the contemporary culture in a world that is increasingly saturated by visual content. Due to the immediacy and the all-encompassing nature of film, the process of watching a film, is widely perceived to be a passive activity by the general masses. However, quoting Smith in his article about the study of film, “nothing could be further from the truth.” The study and understanding of film as an art form enhances the way we watch and appreciate films. It requires the audience's active participation and interaction with the film in order to fully comprehend the directors' intention behind every creative decision. With

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee is a masterful novel that dives into the life of Scout as a child. In the novel, Lee goes into much depth about Scout’s life so that the reader can always keep up with what is happening. When a book is converted into a movie, many things often change no matter what book it is. This remains true for To Kill a Mockingbird between the book and the film. The film is a wonderful work but there were still many things cut out that were in the book. Overall, the film and book share many similarities but there are also many differences between the two

Genre is like a language that used by directors and it encodes some important messages about movies. If you understand the genre, you can decode the movies and you can have more information about subtle realities are related with the films. In this article, I will explain the genre differences between John Woo and Ramesh Sippy movies.