66 CHAPTER 3TYPES OF MOVIES
When it comes to cinema, nothing is absolute.
In the world of movies, a narrative might be a type
of movie, the story that a particular film tells, the
particular system by which a fictional story is
structured, or a concept describing the sequential
organization of events presented in almost any kind
of movie. Once you become familiar with these dif-
ferent ways of looking at narrative, you will be able
to recognize and understand almost any usage that
you come across.
A narrative is a story.When we think of any
medium or form—whether it’s a movie, a joke, a
commercial, or a news article—that tells a story,
we consider that story a narrative. Journalists will
often speak of finding the narrative in a news item,
be it coverage of a city-council meeting, a national
election, or an Olympic swimming competition. By
this, they mean that under the facts and details of
any given news item is a story. It is up to the
reporter to identify that story and organize his
reporting in such a way as to elucidate that narra-
tive. Journalists do this because we are a story-
telling species. We use stories to arrange and
understand our world and our lives. So, of course,
news articles are not the only place you’ll find nar-
rative. Scientists, songwriters, advertisers, politi-
cians, comedians, and teachers all incorporate
narrative into the ways they frame and present
information. This semester, you will likely hear
your professor refer to the narrative of a particular
movie. Depending on the context she uses, she
might be talking about the story that the film tells,
whether that movie is a science-fiction film or a
documentary about science.
Narrative is a type of movie.Our most common
perception of the word narrativeis as a categorical
term for those particular movies devoted to convey-
ing a story, whether they are works of pure fiction
like J. J. Abrams’s Super 8(2011) or a fictionalized
version of actual events such as The King’s Speech
(2010; director: Tom Hooper). As we have made
clear in previous chapters, these narrative films are
the focus of this book. We’ll discuss the narrative
film as a type of movie (along with experimental and
documentary films) later in this chapter.
Narrative is a way of structuring fictional or fic-
tionalized stories presented in narrative films.Story-In this chapter, we will discuss the three major
types of movies: narrative, documentary, and
experimental. Within narrative movies, we will look
at the subcategory of genre films, and we will explore
six major American film genres in particular. Finally,
we will look at a technique—animation—that is
often discussed as if it were a type but that is actu-
ally used to make movies of all types.
The Idea of Narrative
The word narrativeis much more than simply a
general classification of a type of film. As you will
soon see, depending on when and how we use the
term, narrativemight mean several slightly differ-
ent things. Since we will be using the term narra-
tivein a variety of ways throughout and beyond our
exploration of the three essential types of movies,
let’s discuss some of the ways to approach the term.
Learning Objectives
After reading this chapter, you should be
able to
✔explain how and why movies are classified.
✔define narrative, documentary, and experi-
mental movies, and appreciate the ways
these types of movies blend and overlap.
✔understand the approaches to document-
ing actual events employed by documen-
tary filmmakers.
✔discuss the characteristics that most
experimental films share.
✔understand what genre is and why it is
important.
✔explain the most significant (or defining)
elements of each of the six major Ameri-
can genres featured in this chapter.
✔understand where animation fits into the
movie types discussed in the chapter.
✔explain the most commonly used animation
techniques.