Section 1: The Thriller Genre

Codes and Conventions of a thriller.

Genre refers to a type of film and categorises them based on similarities in the narrative elements in which films are constructed.
Codes and Conventions of a thriller are such things like suspense and tension building music and cliffhangers, the camera angles in thrillers often are low angle to show someone higher and quick cuts are also used for tension.

Thriller is a genre of film that uses tension, excitement and suspense as main elements. There are also many subgenres of thrillers:

• · Psychological
• · Crime
• · Supernatural
• -  Action
• · Erotic
• · Horror
• · Political
• · Drama
• · Disaster and many more

There are many theories about thrillers:

G.K Chesterton: he is a British author and writer of thriller stories, he discovered the thriller genre in the early 1990’s and introduced his theory The Transformed city. G.K Chesterton believed that thrillers took a urban environment and transformed the ordinary into the extraordinary, we see examples of this in Seven as we see establishing shots of buildings and visual and verbal references to the buildings we also see this with all the vehicles passing by the non-stop noise.

Northrop Frye introduced a theory called Heroic Romance, he argued that it took ordinary people and thrown them into extraordinary situations and he believed that the hero was always an ordinary person like ‘us’ he believed it “moved the world in which ordinary laws of nature are slightly suspended”. We see an example of heroic romance theory in seven as the two detectives seem normal as one even has a child on they way, they go about in ordinary life but then murders start to happen and before long they seem themselves thrown out of their comfort zone to deal with extraordinary situations, they are even offered an ultimatum by the killer.

The exotic Theory was developed by John Cawelti he believed that within a film the modern city became enchanted and full of mystery; he had the belief that objects and props within a thriller is not what we expect to see in everyday life. The artefacts, objects and props within the thriller often originated from the Middle East. We see an example of the Exotic theory taking place in seven as the character Tracy doesn’t fit into place, the city is exotic to her and she doesn’t like to be there.

WH Matthews introduced the theory Mazes and Labyrinths, this theory originated from Greek mythology. The thriller studies that a hero within a thriller often found themselves in some sort of predicament and they are faced with metaphorical are sometimes literal mazes full of dead ends and twist. An example of the theory is sued in seven when they discover the killer is killing people by the seven deadly sins; they reach a lot of dead ends and are thrown in different directions.

Pacal Boniter created a theory called Partial Vision this believed to be used in the thriller genre because there are hidden elements within a genre – the audience can only see so much. The theory studies that blind spots were in the thriller to introduce and build suspense and leave unanswered questions for the audience. We see an example of this in Seven when Detective Somerset opens the box and as the audience we are curious to what is in the box therefore we are left asking questions until later in the film when those questions are answered.

Lars ole Saurberg introduced concealment and protraction this works in a thriller to build suspense and pull the audience in different directions as they are not sure what to expect. Concealment works to deliberately hide something from the audience. Protraction works to deliberately delay a suspected outcome so the audience isn’t sure if it’s going to happen. We see this in seven when we cant see what’s in the box and we also see it when they deliberately delay the time on the bomb, they used 15 seconds of film for 3 three seconds on the bomb.

Noel Carroll created the theory question and answer mode this takes place in a thriller when the audience are presented with questions that they wait in suspense for the answer. There are two ways the thriller can go according to Noel Carroll’s theory, you have the probability factor: a sure thing that what the audience think is going to happen, happens. And you have the moral factor which is the morally right outcome and it increases audience involvement. We see an example of this theory in Seven as we, as the audience, are constantly asking questions such as “what’s in the box” and “who is the killer”.