How far do the American films you have studied for this topic depend on well established narrative and/or genre conventions.
Discuss how 'lovers on the lam' conventions are used differently in Badlands and Natural Born killers.
Discuss narrative construction and/or genre convention by referencing what you have seen so far.
Relate your understanding of the genre/narrative to a relevant American Context.
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The work I have done so far bring great insight into the diversity and well roundedness of Americanised films and a well established narrative is graded highly upon an Americanised audience. If we look at both of the main films brought to us by the Topic of Lovers on the lam the typical conventions establish a much needed groundwork for American context.
The typical conventions of a Lovers on the Lam genre allow a clash of three different genres; Crime, Road movie and romance. These genres are VERY highly americanised especially a Road Movie as America is big enough and wide enough to allow the everyday audience to experience the vast, open land that is the USA. I feel as though American films do depend very heavily on a well established narrative but more so on it's genres conventions as we are constantly being bombarded with conventions that allow the audience to not only relate with the movie but understand the subtleties within the movie.
Genre Conventions, like previously noted, are constantly being hinted and highlighted at to provide a constant reminder of Americanised contextual problems ( Problems is not the right word here, not sure what to use ) we are constantly being shown Cars, the south of America, birdcages and the essence of being trapped and as our conventions and narrative overlap we are also being bombarded with the idea of the American Dream, Dysfunctional families and the typical problems that are a constant problem within American society.
We see a very different use of conventions throughout Badlands and Natural born killers comparatively. Badlands is slow, we see roads and cars, guns and death and the 'star crossed lovers' but they appear to not really have any emotion for each other. We see it in their movements especially when dancing, the music comes on and they aren't even looking at each other. They are both emotionless until true times of hardship. However in natural born killers we see them literally crazy, it's fast paced and will constantly cycle throughout different types of films and styles to address a much bigger problem around the time of release, the denouncement of TV, films and games as they were showing a much more violent America, the different film types are basically addressing a satire that no matter what film he uses no matter what technique, it is absurd to think that films could possibly lead to violence and influence people. Ironically there was a french copy cat killer that mimicked Mickey and Mallory.
In terms of narrative and as I've already previously highlighted, the main goal of lovers on the lam would be to address the American Dream, Dysfunctional Families, Racism, Violence, Rebelliousness and the influence film has on the public. NBK had been released just after the OJ trials and in the midst of an uproar that people can get away with anything along as they have achieved the American dream. They can get away with murder.
