Romantic Genre in Film - Research Paper Example

There are however, movies that have attempted to appeal to crass sensibilities for the purpose of commercial benefits. This paper shall look at the Romantic genre in film, with a special focus on the film Titanic, which was directed by James Cameron and was released in 1997. The first movies of this genre were silent movies and were mostly released during the last decade of the nineteenth century. This also reflected the aesthetic movement that made an open discussion of love possible. The end of the Victorian era meant that in a certain sense, people were not as rigid in their worldviews or conservative as the Victorians were.

Films that were directed by Charlie Chaplin often featured a romantic element that served to highlight social issues. It would sometimes involve people of higher classes falling in love with the tramp, serving to highlight the intensely materialistic culture that had begun to develop during the middle of the twentieth century. The disparity in classes does not force the lovers apart, a feature that is common to many films of this genre. The opposition that the love faces from the establishment is something that is constantly critiqued in such movies.

Chaplin also looks at the way in which vulnerable sections of the society sometimes come together through love and mark their protest against an unjust manner of social grouping and running of the economy. This can be seen in several movies where both the lovers belong to marginalized sections of the society and are yet, not helpless, as a result of their awareness of their ability to revolt against unjust social systems. The ability of subaltern groups to create bonds amongst themselves owing to their common marginality is something that Chaplin explores through the premise of romance.

Following the conventional times of the Victorian era and its aftermath, there were many unusual couples that adorned the screen. Same-sex couples were one such type some were couched in terms of comedy and this served to avoid controversy and conflict with the conservative sections of the society. Unusual couples also involved those who were separated from each other through a difference in their ages. This resulted in controversial movies that sought to often push the barriers that the society had set.

An attempt to break out of stringent social norms that had followed the World Wars can be cited as a reason for this sense of liberation that people sought to experience. This period followed a period when filmmakers sought to explore the travails of couples whose love could not reach a culmination. One of the most famous examples of this is Casablanca. Films like this sought to look into the aspects of love that sought fulfilment and culmination. It felt the need for marriage while making the viewers seek one too.

This wish of the viewers was continually deferred by the filmmaker in favour of one that left a tragedy in its wake. This paradoxically, led to such movies becoming successes at the box office and the trend continued. This again was followed by a period that again had unusual couples that were sometimes based on the sexual misadventures of people. They were also sometimes based on books which had always had a history of being more controversial and open than the visual medium. This resulted