Romance film
Romance films involve romantic love stories recorded in visual media for broadcast in theatres or on television that focus on passion, emotion, and the affectionate romantic involvement of the main characters. Typically their journey through dating, courtship or marriage is featured. These films make the search for romantic love the main plot focus. Occasionally, romance lovers face obstacles such as finances, physical illness, various forms of discrimination, psychological restraints or family resistance. As in all quite strong, deep and close romantic relationships, the tensions of day-to-day life, temptations (of infidelity), and differences in compatibility enter into the plots of romantic films.[1]
"Love film" redirects here. For the UK-based video service, see LoveFilm.
Romantic films often explore the essential themes of love at first sight young and mature love, unrequited love, obsession, sentimental love, spiritual love, forbidden love, platonic love, sexual and passionate love, sacrificial love, explosive and destructive love, and tragic love. Romantic films serve as great escapes and fantasies for viewers, especially if the two leads finally overcome their difficulties, declare their love, and experience their "happily ever after", often implied by a reunion and final kiss. In romantic television series, the development of such romantic relationships may play out over many episodes or different characters may become intertwined in different romantic arcs.
Screenwriter and scholar Eric R. Williams identifies Romance Films as one of eleven super-genres in his screenwriters' taxonomy, claiming that all feature length narrative films can be classified by these super-genres. The other ten super-genres are action, crime, fantasy, horror, science fiction, comedy, sports, thriller, war and western.[2]
Film types, macro genres and the filmmaker's voice[edit]
The screenwriters taxonomy creates additional categories beyond "subgenre" when discussing films, making the argument that all narrative Hollywood films can be delineated into comedies or dramas (identified as a "film type").[11] The taxonomy also identifies fifty "macro genres", which can be paired with the romance super genre.[12] Using this approach, films like Gone with the Wind (noted above) would be classified as a dramatic (type) historical/family (macro genres) romance (genre) rather than simply a historical romance; while The Notebook would be identified at dramatic (type) disease (macro genre) romance (genre) rather than simply a romantic drama.[13]
Similarly, musicals are categorized as one option for a filmmaker's "voice" because the artistic choice to have the characters sing does not affect the story or the characters – it simply alters how the story and characters are conveyed.[14] Therefore, a romance film like Grease would be categorized as a dramatic (type), romance (super genre), high school / coming of age (macro genres), musical (voice) – rather than simply as a "musical romance".[15]