| So we've been looking at different genres of film over the past few weeks, |
| and today we're going to look at action film, |
| specifically discussing its history and characteristics in each era. |
| As you can see from the first slide, |
| action films featured historical themes during the 1920s and 1930s. |
| During this time, many filmmakers drew on history for inspiration, |
| so we can see that there were a number of action films, |
| with themes such as the French Revolution and the Roman Empire. |
| As a matter of fact, they also filmed popular legends, like Robin Hood, King Arthur and so on. |
| Now I want you to remember that just like any art movement, |
| the development of film is influenced by social and economic factors, |
| this is important |
| because it explains why action films revolved around themes of the second world war during the 1940s and 50s. |
| In this era, action films have an abundance of war adventures. |
| The movie Guns of Navarone is an example of this. |
| The second war also led to action films involving spies. |
| For example, the movie 'North by Northwest' which was filmed by Alfred Hitchcock, |
| but keep in mind that North by Northwest is not just a spy film, |
| it's more than that. |
| It has that famous perilous scene involving the crop-duster, |
| which definitely puts it into an action film category. |
| The famous director Albert R. Broccoli was presumably inspired by this movie, |
| so, shortly afterwards, he started creating films based on the novels of Ian Fleming, |
| and made James Bond a household name in the 1960s. |
| So, as you can see from the second slide, |
| in the 1960s, James Bond became the epitome of an action hero |
| and his films became the standard by which all action films are measured. |
| In these films, he was able to dispatch the villain and his henchmen single-handedly. |
| The character of the archetypal hero also came through here. |
| He's a ladies' man, but one who refuses to settle down. |
| Meanwhile, he's ready with one-liners, puns, and quips, |
| making him not only handsome and fearless but droll as well. |
| Because James Bond films depicted all corners of the globe, |
| Live and Let Die, for example, was partially set in China, and featured Asian martial arts. |
| Its popularity started to inspire more filmmakers to meld these two genres. |
| For example, Bruce Lee's 1973 film Enter the Dragon, |
| Jackie Chan's Rush Hour and Chuck Norris's Good Guys Wear Black to name but a few. |
| In the 1980s, we had the Star Wars films, |
| perhaps the most famous action movie series in recent history. |
| They were also an amalgamation of two genres of film: |
| action film fused with science fiction. |
| Hard core Star Wars fans might want to argue against that, |
| but there's no denying it, |
| although the earlier films had more sci-fi elements, |
| like star-ship chases and dog-fights, |
| the last film in the original trilogy had much more in the way of acrobatic stunts and hand-to-hand combat |
| and other features that we would generally associate with action films. |
| Into the 21st century, |
| one obvious change is the introduction of CGI. |
| As you can see from the textbook, |
| the CGI is referred to as computer graphic interface. |
| This has made action sequences far cheaper and easier to create, |
| and as a result, scenes that have once have been nigh-on impossible to film can be done quite easily. |
| However, some critics have said that significant amounts of CGI in a film can lessen its impact on the audience, |
| and I for one, agree with this. |
| I think that much of the drama and excitement is lost when filmmakers rely too heavily on the CGI effects. |
| A second, rather startling change in recent action films |
| is that we really don't have any action heroes any more. |
| I mean, which actors do you know who are really known as action heroes these days? |
| Jason Statham, is one perhaps, or Daniel Craig, the present Bond actor. |
| But these are rather dramatic, realistic sorts of hero, |
| a far cry from the previous Bonds who were - well,more fantastical and larger than life. |
| And that's why some of the popular action heros from the 90s... |
| Sylvestor Stallone, Bruce Willis, Harrison Ford... |
| are still, in many ways, going strong. |
| The Expendables, for example, a recent action film, parodies this aging crop of superstars. |
| And films like this are possible because no-one else... um.. well... |
| no other actors have stepped in to take their place. |
| The roles just aren't there for them, perhaps because the character of the archetypal action hero is changing. |