Romance film
Romance films are love stories that focus on passion, emotion, and the affectionate involvement of the main characters and the journey that their love takes through courtship or marriage. Romance films make the love story or the search for love the main plot focus. Occasionally, lovers face obstacles such as finances, physical illness, various forms of discrimination, psychological restraints or family that threaten to break their union of love. As in all romantic relationships, tensions of day-to-day life, temptations (of infidelity), and differences in compatibility enter into the plots of romantic films.[1]
Romantic films often explore the essential themes of love at first sight, young with older love, unrequited love, obsessive love, sentimental love, spiritual love, forbidden love, sexual and passionate love, sacrificial love explosive and destructive love, and tragic love. Romantic films serve as great escapes and fantasies for viewers, especially if the two people finally overcome their difficulties, declare their love, and experience life "happily ever after", implied by a reunion and final kiss.
Subgenres
- Romantic drama is the quintessential romantic film. These films will typically place greater emphasis on the sex act and the figures of the lovers than do romantic comedies, and there is less use of the "trusted confidant" device. Music is often employed to indicate the emotional mood, creating an atmosphere of greater insulation for the couple. The conclusion of a romantic drama typically does not indicate whether a marriage will occur. An example of the romantic drama film is Bridges of Madison County.[2]
- Chick flick is a term often associated with romance films as many are targeted to a female audience.[3][4] Although many romance films may be targeted at women, this is not a defining characteristic of a romance film and a chick flick does not necessarily have a romance as a central theme, revolve around the romantic involvement of characters or even contain a romantic relationship. As such, the terms cannot be used interchangeably. Films of this genre include Dirty Dancing, The Notebook, Dear John, A Walk to Remember, and Romeo + Juliet.
- Romantic comedies are films with light-hearted, humorous plotlines, centered on romantic ideals such as that true love is able to surmount most obstacles. Humor in such films tends to be of a verbal, low-key variety or situational, as opposed to slapstick. [5] Films within this genre include, Love Actually, Moonstruck, It Happened One Night, When Harry Met Sally..., The Family Stone, 27 Dresses, and The Holiday.
- Romantic thriller is a genre of film which has a storyline combining elements of the romance film and the thriller genre. Some examples of romantic thriller films are, The Adjustment Bureau, Mr. & Mrs. Smith, The Phantom of the Opera, Super 8, The Tourist, The Twilight Saga, Unfaithful, and Wicker Park [6].
Examples
Note: Not all romance films are about heterosexual couples. There is a history of romance films about same sex couples going back to 1919 with Anders als die Andern a.k.a. Different from the Others
See also
References
- ^ http://www.filmsite.org/romancefilms.html
- ^ Dixon, Wheeler W. (2000), Film genre 2000: new critical essays, The SUNY series, cultural studies in cinema/video, SUNY Press, p. 238, ISBN 0791445143, http://books.google.com/books?id=dgzACTHIAcsC&pg=PA238
- ^ Simpson, John, ed (2009). Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd edition, on CD-ROM Version 4.0. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780199563838.
- ^ Stevenson, Angus; Lindberg, Christine A., eds (2010). New Oxford American Dictionary, Third Edition. New York: Oxford University Press. p. 300. ISBN 9780195392883.
- ^ http://www.allrovi.com/movies/subgenre/romantic-comedy-d529
- ^ http://www.allrovi.com/movies/movie/wicker-park-v286560
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