Despite the appeal of an evolutionary model that allows for easy film categorizations, the history of genre development suggests a more cyclical approach in which films revisit themes and motifs from the beginnings of the genre to its latest manifestations.
This is particularly apparent in science fiction film where the impact of technology is explored in a variety of contexts, from alien invasions to dystopic future societies to android technology. The science fiction film has not evolved so much as adapted to different social, political and industrial factors, which in turn impact the genre’s general exploration of technology-related themes.
The Evolutionary Model
In the 1970s several genre theorists began to propose evolutionary models of generic development. John Cawelti, for example, suggests four phases in the life cycle of a genre: articulation and discovery; creator and audience self-awareness; generic exhaustion; and finally parody and satire. Thomas Schatz develops a similar theory, proposing generic evolution from an experimental stage to a classical period to a phase of refinement and finally to a mannerist stage of formalistic self-consciousness and reflexivity. In Film Genre: Hollywood and Beyond, Barry Langford suggests that for this kind of evolutionary model to be workable it must, at the very least, be extended to include an additional stage where “self-consciousness intensifies yet further and mutates into outright genre ‘revisionism.’”
Yet, as Langford points out, even such a modified evolutionary model is fraught with problems, including undervaluing the so-called “classic” films compared to their supposedly more complex successors and ignoring the social, cultural and industrial factors, such as the filmmaker’s modulation of generic conventions and the audience’s role as both participant and arbiter, that impact generic development.
In “Shoot-Out at the Genre Corral,” Tad Gallagher goes even further to suggest that every argument for an evolutionary model is based on “bald assertions” or “invidious comparisons between a couple of titles.” He suggests that there is little evidence for a growing self-consciousness or any other form of linear evolution in the history of film; instead, genre development appears to be cyclical and closely tied to external factors: films vacillate between realism, escapism, surrealism and extremism depending on the historical period.
Science Fiction Film
The life cycle to date of the American science fiction film appears to support criticisms of the evolutionary model. Langford suggests that science fiction‘s abiding concern has been “the consequences of technological change on human society and identity.” This theme does appear to mark the beginnings of the genre and to be revisited in different ways throughout the history of science fiction film.
In films of the Machine Age, from the start of World War I to the beginnings of World War II, there is a preoccupation with technology and its impact on both individuals and society. Though it is a German film, Metropolis (Fritz Lang, 1927), with its dystopic vision of class division, mass production and machine domination, is a seminal production in this period. In America, horror themes tended to predominate (e.g., Frankenstein 1931) until the low-budget science fiction serials—with their rocket ships, space travel and death rays—became popular in the late 1930s (Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers, in particular).
Starting in the 1950s, when science fiction film really began to take off, cinema explored alien invasions, the consequences of atomic experimentation or warfare, and space exploration, often in the context of cultural fears of Communist infiltration and cataclysmic world war. In the 1960s and 1970s, science fiction film increasingly explored computers and robotics and how they might impact human identity. These films, such as Stanley Kubrick’s landmark 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), tend to present dystopic visions of the future where human culture is dehumanized, banalized and dominated by technology.
In the late 1970s and 1980s, filmmakers returned to science fiction as a vehicle for myth and epic scope; films like the Star Wars saga showed what the latest special-effects technology could produce and at the same time re-established science fiction as a highly profitable genre. By the 1990s, science fiction film’s preoccupation with technology began to focus on themes related to robots, cyborgs, and androids, especially in relation to human identity.
Changing Context
However, these changes in the genre do not appear to mark evolutionary stages. Rather, as J.P. Telotte points out, each film or period “responds as much or more to its immediate industrial and cultural context than to prior stages of generic development.” The style, structure and content of science fiction film, though clearly evolving in terms of special effects, has developed in cycles where the predominant theme of technology is explored in new ways that are intimately related to the external social, cultural and industrial context of each film.
It is easy to see why critics began to propose an evolutionary model for the development of film. Science fiction film, as with other genres, looks much different today than it did in the 1930s, with advances in special-effects technology creating worlds often far beyond our imaginings. But to suggest that films today have evolved in terms of style, structure or content ignores the complexity of earlier films and the relationship between film and social, political and industrial factors. Science fiction film continues to revisit themes and motifs that have been popular since the beginnings of the genre. What changes is the context in which the films are made.
References
- Gallagher, Tad. “Shoot-Out at the Genre Corral: Problems in the ‘Evolution’ of the Western.” Film Genre Reader III. Ed. Barry Keith Grant. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 2007.
- Langford, Barry. Film Genre: Holeyond<. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2005.
- Telotte, J.P. Science Fiction Film. Port Chester, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2001.
Jennifer McNeil Bertrand - Jennifer McNeil Bertrand is an association professional with a background in English Literature and Communications.
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