This article is about the genre in general. For the specific movie genre, see Thriller film
Genre of literature, film, and💹 television
British director Alfred Hitchcock, known for his influences on action and suspense in film, appears alongside American actress Tippi Hedren,💹 who starred in his acclaimed thriller movies The Birds (1963) and Marnie (1964).
Thriller is a genre of fiction with numerous,💹 often overlapping, subgenres, including crime, horror, and detective fiction. Thrillers are characterized and defined by the moods they elicit, giving💹 their audiences heightened feelings of suspense, excitement, surprise, anticipation and anxiety.[1] This genre is well suited to film and television.
A💹 thriller generally keeps its audience on the "edge of their seats" as the plot builds towards a climax. The cover-up💹 of important information is a common element.[2] Literary devices such as red herrings, plot twists, unreliable narrators, and cliffhangers are💹 used extensively. A thriller is often a villain-driven plot, whereby they present obstacles that the protagonist or hero must overcome.
Some💹 examples of thrillers are the films of Alfred Hitchcock around the mid 20th century.[3] Some popular 21st-century mainstream examples include:💹 The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Gone Girl, The Girl on the Train, The Woman in the Window, and the💹 British television series Utopia.
Characteristics [ edit ]
Writer Vladimir Nabokov, in his lectures at Cornell University, said:
In an Anglo-Saxon thriller, the💹 villain is generally punished, and the strong silent man generally wins the weak babbling girl, but there is no governmental💹 law in Western countries to ban a story that does not comply with a fond tradition, so that we always💹 hope that the wicked but romantic fellow will escape scot-free and the good but dull chap will be finally snubbed💹 by the moody heroine.[4]
Thrillers may be defined by the primary mood that they elicit: suspenseful excitement. In short, if it💹 "thrills", it is a thriller. As the introduction to a major anthology says:
...Thrillers provide such a rich literary feast. There💹 are all kinds. The legal thriller, spy thriller, action-adventure thriller, medical thriller, police thriller, romantic thriller, historical thriller, political thriller,💹 religious thriller, high-tech thriller, military thriller. The list goes on and on, with new variations constantly being invented. In fact,💹 this openness to expansion is one of the genre's most enduring characteristics. But what gives the variety of thrillers a💹 common ground is the intensity of emotions they create, particularly those of apprehension and exhilaration, of excitement and breathlessness, all💹 designed to generate that all-important thrill. By definition, if a thriller doesn't thrill, it's not doing its job. James Patterson,💹 June 2006, "Introduction", Thriller[5]
Suspense [ edit ]
Suspense is a crucial characteristic of the thriller genre. It gives the viewer a💹 feeling of pleasurable fascination and excitement mixed with apprehension, anticipation, and tension. These develop from unpredictable, mysterious, and rousing events💹 during the narrative, which makes the viewer or reader think about the outcome of certain actions. Suspense builds in order💹 to make those final moments, no matter how short, the most memorable. The suspense in a story keeps the person💹 hooked to reading or watching more until the climax is reached.
In terms of narrative expectations, it may be contrasted with💹 curiosity and surprise. The objective is to deliver a story with sustained tension, surprise, and a constant sense of impending💹 doom. As described by film director Alfred Hitchcock, an audience experiences suspense when they expect something bad to happen and💹 have (or believe they have) a superior perspective on events in the drama's hierarchy of knowledge, yet they are powerless💹 to intervene to prevent it from happening.
Suspense in thrillers is often intertwined with hope and anxiety, which are treated as💹 two emotions aroused in anticipation of the conclusion - the hope that things will turn out all right for the💹 appropriate characters in the story, and the fear that they may not. The second type of suspense is the "...anticipation💹 wherein we either know or else are fairly certain about what is going to happen but are still aroused in💹 anticipation of its actual occurrence."[6]
According to Greek philosopher Aristotle in his book Poetics, suspense is an important building block of💹 literature, and this is an important convention in the thriller genre.[7]
Thriller music has been shown to create distrust and ominous💹 uncertainty between the viewer of a film and the character on screen at the time when the music is playing.[8]
Themes💹 and characters [ edit ]
Common methods and themes in crime and action thrillers are ransoms, captivities, heists, revenge, and kidnappings.💹 Common in mystery thrillers are investigations and the whodunit technique. Common elements in dramatic and psychological thrillers include plot twists,💹 psychology, obsession and mind games. Common elements of science-fiction thrillers are killing robots, machines or aliens, mad scientists and experiments.💹 Common in horror thrillers are serial killers, stalking, deathtraps and horror-of-personality. Elements such as fringe theories, false accusations and paranoia💹 are common in paranoid thrillers. Threats to entire countries, spies, espionage, conspiracies, assassins and electronic surveillance are common in spy💹 thrillers.[9]
Characters may include criminals, stalkers, assassins, innocent victims (often on the run), menaced women, psychotic individuals, spree killers, sociopaths, agents,💹 terrorists, cops and escaped cons, private eyes, people involved in twisted relationships, world-weary men and women, psycho-fiends, and more. The💹 themes frequently include terrorism, political conspiracy, pursuit, or romantic triangles leading to murder. Plots of thrillers involve characters which come💹 into conflict with each other or with outside forces.[10]
The protagonist of these films is set against a problem. No matter💹 what subgenre a thriller film falls into, it will emphasize the danger that the protagonist faces. The protagonists are frequently💹 ordinary citizens unaccustomed to danger, although commonly in crime and action thrillers, they may also be "hard men" accustomed to💹 danger such as police officers and detectives. While protagonists of thrillers have traditionally been men, women lead characters are increasingly💹 common.[11] In psychological thrillers, the protagonists are reliant on their mental resources, whether it be by battling wits with the💹 antagonist or by battling for equilibrium in the character's own mind. The suspense often comes from two or more characters💹 preying upon one another's minds, either by playing deceptive games with the other or by merely trying to demolish the💹 other's mental state.[11]
Story and setting [ edit ]
An atmosphere of menace and sudden violence, such as crime and murder, characterize💹 thrillers. The tension usually arises when the character(s) is placed in a dangerous situation, or a trap from which escaping💹 seems impossible. Life is threatened, usually because the principal character is unsuspectingly or unknowingly involved in a dangerous or potentially💹 deadly situation.[12]
Hitchcock's films often placed an innocent victim (an average, responsible person) into a strange, life-threatening or terrorizing situation, in💹 a case of mistaken identity or wrongful accusation.[13]
Thrillers take place mostly in ordinary suburbs and cities,[citation needed] although sometimes they💹 may take place wholly or partly in exotic settings such as foreign cities, deserts, polar regions, or the high seas.💹 These usually tough, resourceful, but essentially ordinary heroes are pitted against villains determined to destroy them, their country, or the💹 stability of the Free World (especially if it is set during the Cold War). Often in a thriller movie, the💹 protagonist is faced with what seem to be insurmountable problems in his mission, carried out against a ticking clock, the💹 stakes are high and although resourceful, they face personal dilemmas along the way forcing them to make sacrifices for others.[citation💹 needed]
History in literature [ edit ]
Ancient epic poems such as the Epic of Gilgamesh, Homer's Odyssey and the Mahābhārata may💹 have used similar narrative techniques to modern thrillers.[citation needed] The Three Apples, a tale in the One Thousand and One💹 Nights (Arabian Nights), is a murder mystery[14] with multiple plot twists[15] and detective fiction elements.[16] In this tale, a fisherman💹 discovers a heavy, locked chest on the banks of the Tigris river and sells it to the Abbasid Caliph, Harun💹 al-Rashid, who has it broken open - only to discover inside it the dismembered body of a young woman. Harun💹 then orders his vizier, Ja'far ibn Yahya, to solve the crime and find the murderer within three days. This whodunit💹 mystery has also been considered a detective story, though it lacks a sleuth.[14][17]
The Count of Monte Cristo (1844) is a💹 swashbuckling revenge thriller about a man named Edmond Dantès who is betrayed by his friends and sent to languish in💹 the notorious Château d'If. His only companion is an old man who teaches him everything from philosophy to mathematics to💹 swordplay. Just before the old man dies, he reveals to Dantès the secret location of a great treasure. Shortly after,💹 Dantès engineers a daring escape and uses the treasure to reinvent himself as the Count of Monte Cristo. Thirsting for💹 vengeance, he sets out to punish those who destroyed his life.
The first recognizable modern thriller was Erskine Childers' The Riddle💹 of the Sands (1903), in which two young Englishmen stumble upon a secret German armada preparing to invade their homeland.[18]
Fritz💹 Lang's M is regarded as a groundbreaking psychological thriller, introducing innovative suspense-enhancing audiovisual techniques that have become standard and ubiquitous💹 ever since.[19]
The Thirty-Nine Steps (1915) is an early thriller by John Buchan, in which an innocent man becomes the prime💹 suspect in a murder case and finds himself on the run from both the police and enemy spies.[citation needed]
The Spy💹 Who Came in from the Cold (1963) by John le Carré is set in the world of Cold War espionage💹 and helped to usher in an era of thriller fiction based around professional spies and the battle of wits between💹 rival spymasters.[citation needed]
Television [ edit ]
There have been at least two television series called simply Thriller, one made in the💹 U.S. in the 1960s and one made in the UK in the 1970s. Although in no way linked, both series💹 consisted of one-off dramas, each utilising the familiar motifs of the genre.
The Twilight Zone consists of suspenseful unrelated dramas depicting💹 characters dealing with paranormal, futuristic, supernatural, or otherwise disturbing or unusual events. Characters who find themselves dealing with these strange,💹 sometimes inexplicable happenings are said to have crossed over into "The Twilight Zone".[20] Each story typically features a moral and💹 a surprise ending.[21]
See also [ edit ]
References [ edit ]
