Watching a film necessarily leads us to its immediate classification, to its placement in an easily memorable context. Unlike other arts or sciences, cinema often escapes its easy identification in an exactly circumscribed area and sometimes it happens that it can be the object of contamination between different languages, styles and narrative techniques. Nonetheless, in the general economy of cinematographic art, it is convenient and convenient to assign to each film its belonging to a specific "genre". It being understood that this concept can be fully defined in a dynamic sense, in space and time, more exactly in its own social, cultural, political and historical context. It could be argued that a certain "genre" will be represented with certain characteristics in a certain country and have nothing similar in another country with another language, another culture. Similarly, a certain "genre" can have its place in a certain period in a certain area and no longer be recognizable with the same criterion in a completely different temporal context. Furthermore, once a genre has been defined, it is possible that sub-genres derived from a specific narrative key can be defined (for example comedy: Italian-style, comical, dramatic, etc.).
For an exhaustive definition of the concept of genre in cinema it is useful to read the contribution of Treccani, signed by Roberto Campari (Enciclopedia del cinema, 2003).
The cinematographic genres commonly understood and used are: adventure, drama, comedy, yellow / black, fantastic and musical. Then there are other genre concepts that could fall within some of the previous ones or constitute original ones such as: animation, biographical, comedy, documentary, erotic, war or historical and western.
Abel Gance is to silent cinema what Stanley Kubrick is to modern cinema. The common thread linking the two great directors is in the unscrupulous and revolutionary use of special effects for its time. Gance, self-taught, has perceived since the beginning of his career that a film can take on greater liveliness through the use of innovative shooting tricks, capable of substantially broadening the perception of the story through images. His masterpiece is the Napoleon, monumental work both for the duration (over 6 hours of projection compared to the 50 of shots) and for the significant number of special effects used: from the camera mounted on a running horse, to the screens on the film, from the close-ups mounted in close sequence , to be projected on three large screens. This latest novelty anticipated cinemascope by many decades and made it a show beyond cinema, even when the use of an orchestra was added to support the soundtrack. Few other noteworthy works remain by Gance and the Napoleon alone is sufficient to place him among the great directors in the history of cinema.
A director of the last century and a contemporary one: Pietro Germi and Matteo Garrone. The first made his debut in the height of Italian neorealism after the Second World War. He is strongly influenced by them but immediately seeks his own original path that looks more to US productions than to his Italian colleagues. His first work is from 1945, The Witness, followed shortly after by Lost youth which projects him among the leading directors of that period. He continues on his path between news cinema and moral film. In 1961 he won the Academy Award for Best Screenplay with Italian divorce. In 1965 he won the prize at Cannes with ladies and gentlemen.
Matthew Garrone he is considered one of the best directorial signatures in the new generations of national cinematography. His debut on the national scene takes place with L'imbalsamatore of 2020, with which he won the David di Donatello. He is characterized by a dry, formal style, not inclined to narrative frills, direct and substantial (he often uses the shoulder camera, live audio). His great success comes in 2008 with Gomorrah, taken from Roberto Saviano's best seller, with which he won several national and international awards. In the year it produces Mid-August lunchdirected by his screenwriter and assistant Gianni Di Gregorio. In 2012 he won an award in Cannes with Reality, where he deals with the subject of the television show and the influence it has on the people who participate in the games. This year's success achieved again in Cannes with Dogman, where the prize is awarded to its leading actor, Marcello Fonte.
