Genre and Performance: Film and Television

Abstract

Christine Cornea's collection is a useful addition to the field of film and television studies, offering a range of perspectives on the way in which genre (and medium) informs performance. Across the volume, the chapter authors provide an array of approaches to studying performance: from textual analysis of generic cycles and movements (Cynthia Baron and Richard J. Hand), to close analysis of specific scenes or episodes (Steven Peacock and Brett Mills), through to production studies (Roberta Pearson), reception studies (Cornea) and explicit engagements with genre theory (Rayna Denison). Cornea's introduction promises an interdisciplinary approach to performance, and this is best demonstrated by the variety of lenses through which genre is viewed by the contributors. There is perhaps a dominance of film studies and an absence of some other key fields in this otherwise varied collection, a matter that I shall return to at the end of this review. I have, however, concentrated on the essays focusing on television, as this is where I feel the volume's greatest intervention and productive limitations might be.

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