Response #4 - Adam O'Rourke

The Power of Genre

In film, genre is a very powerful tool that shapes the viewer’s expectations and interpretations. If watching a comedy, the viewer will be expecting to laugh; horror and the viewer will be expecting something scary, etc… Laughton’s 1955 film, The Night of the Hunter makes full use of shifts in genre and style to, often abruptly, change the audience's perceptions and interpretations of what is happening on screen.

The shift to to the gothic genre is an important such shift. The start of the film has a rather light feel, using flying landscape shots of a bright and sunny day with children playing. Most of the scenes are during the daytime and the music is light. As the progresses though, the film takes on a much darker feel. Starting with the scene were Willa overhears her daughter being questioned by Harry, the film shifts into the gothic genre. The house is shown in a dark scene, surrounded in thick fog. The lights from the windows cut through, to make a very creepy and ominous shot. This style pops up again when Harry kills Wila. The scene is in a tight interior of the bedroom, with sharp sloping walls covered in shadows. Again this shift into the gothic gives the scene a very ominous feel. This gothic style pops up again  and again throughout the film, and is used to unsettle the audience.

Another prevailing genre shift in this film can be seen through the camerawork for Harry. Harry seems to be presented as a silent film character. His shots are distinct from the rest of the film, and pervade throughout. He is often shot at a low angle, and given lots of closeups on this face in order to convey exaggerated facial expressions. He is often shot from a low angle to convey his power through the camera. These are all common cinematography techniques used in the silent era.

Sound is another element used to facilitate shifts in genre and viewer expectations. When Harry appears onscreen, he is often accompanied by a dark and booming theme to indicate to the audience that he is a dangerous character and the clear villain of this film. Similarly, Miss Cooper is often accompanied by a light, bright, and happy theme, conveying to the audience that she is a good character. Perhaps this is again a nod to silent film, that often relied heavily on themes to convey to the audience what they should think of the character on screen.

One of the more obvious genre shifts comes when Ruby meets Harry at the newsstand, where the film noir genre is used. The scene is lit by neon lights, and Ruby is used to represent the ditzy noir female. Ruby is presented as a highly vain and materialistic character, getting Harry to buy here a magazine and ice cream, and asking him “Ain’t I pretty?”. Harry is all nice and good to Ruby until he gets the information that he wants, and then he splits. Constrained to this ditzy genre stereotype, Ruby can give up the information Harry needs and the plot can progress. In addition to just shifting the audience's perceptions, this scene also aims to poke fun at the genre it’s imitating, presenting laughable dialogue and idiotic characters representative of film noir.

    So Laughton uses gerne to shape the viewer’s perceptions, but going beyond that I think this film seeks to be a sort of mashup. It takes elements from many different genres and styles and splices them together. Perhaps Laughton’s goal was to create a film for the movie aficionados. There is a certain pleasure to be gained in recognizing all the external references to Hollywood that Laughton is making here, so perhaps that was the real goal.