From its beginnings in the 1960s and 70s genre criticism has

been one of the most exciting and fruitful areas of enquiry in Film

Studies, surviving and morphing into the various tendencies and

schools of criticism that have succeeded one another in the course

of the still short life of the discipline. Generic Attractions offers a fresh

look at the topic and, through a series of original essays, maps out

the complex panorama of approaches existing at the beginning of

the 21^st century. Although theoretical speculation abounds in many

of the essays, the emphasis overall in this volume is on practical

criticism: traditional genres are revisited, new genres are described,

specific periods of individual genres are reappraised and various

combinations of generic conventions are used to look at individual

directors and individual movies.

The four parts into which the volume is divided attempt to

suggest the variety of the field and the multiplicity of perspectives

from which it can be explored. Part 1 focuses on individual genres,

some of them well established within the genre system, others

newcomers to it, advocating the flexibility and constant fluidity

of generic categories. Part 2 sees genres as historical phenomena

and looks at particular moments in the history of genres. Part 3

analyses specific cases of auteurs that have contributed or continue

to contribute in interesting ways to the individual genres that they

have worked with. Finally, the essays in part 4 examine the ways in

which generic conventions are used by individual films or groups of

films and the impact they have in our interpretations of the texts.

In its variety and the dialogue that it allows between various

schools of thought, Generic Attractions reenacts once again the

vibrancy and continued relevance of film genre criticism.