Rick Altman's ideas about Genre

Rick Altman came up with a theory that attempts to help the problems that the summary of genre faces. This is a more advanced approach, and in his book 'Film/Genre', he proposes this theory known as the 'Semantic/Syntactic' approach. This approach considers genre in two different ways:

  1. SEMANTIC - this is concerned with the conventions of the genre that communicate to the audience such as locations, characters, props, music, shooting style, and other signifiers. For example, in a horror movie, we would expect to see isolated locations, knives and blood, dark lighting, and intense and spooky music.
  2. SYNTACTIC - this is concerned with the relations between semantic elements and the structure of narratives in genres. For instance, in a romantic comedy, we expect the potential lovers to start off not liking each other. Then, there are a series of encounters and problems which culminate in their successful relationship.
By employing this semantic/syntactic approach, it allows us to produce a more sophisticated reading of any genre. This can also be developed considering audiences and institutions.

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