By Mondo Times editors
Boulder, Colorado USA
Posted on August 11, 2009 at 12:24am

TCM Launches New Series About Cinematic Genres

-- Turner Classic Movies (TCM) is launching a new series of one-hour specials that will provide a Film Studies 101 look at top cinematic genres.

The series - called "A Night At The Movies" - will debut Friday, Oct. 2, 2009 at 8 p.m. (ET) with "The Suspenseful World of Thrillers." Future installments of A Night At The Movies will include a look at other genres, including a December special on epic cinema.

The Suspenseful World Of Thrillers was written, produced and directed by award-winning filmmaker and author Laurent Bouzereau.

"This new series will continue TCM's commitment to offering great insights into the world of classic film," said Michael Wright, executive vice president, head of programming for TCM, TNT and TBS.

A Night At The Movies: The Suspenseful World Of Thrillers will look at thrillers from all sides, including different types of thrillers and the stylistic tools filmmakers use to give their audiences a shot of adrenaline.

The special will feature interviews with such figures as TCM host Robert Osborne; Ken Follett, author of Eye of the Needle; Bryan Singer, writer and director of The Usual Suspects and Valkyrie; Diablo Cody, writer and producer of the upcoming film Jennifer's Body; Kenneth Branagh, director and star of Dead Again; Mel Brooks, writer, director and star of the Hitchcock spoof High Anxiety; David Koepp, writer-director of Stir of Echoes; Norman Lloyd, star of Hitchcock's Saboteur and producer and director for the Alfred Hitchcock television series; Martin Landau, co-star of Hitchcock's North by Northwest; Ileanna Douglas, co-star of Cape Fear and Stir of Echoes; Scott Frank, screenwriter of Minority Report and director of The Lookout; Heywood Gould, screenwriter of The Boys from Brazil; Paul Hirsch, editor of Brian De Palma's Obsession and Blow Out; Hawk Koch, assistant director on Marathon Man and The Parallax View, and producer of Untraceable; Guy Hendrix Dyas, production designer for Indiana Jones & The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull; and John McCarty, author of the books Thrillers and Bullets Over Hollywood.

The program will explore such topics as the origin of thrillers and development of stylistic conventions; the use of a wrongly accused everyman as a protagonist; the range of female roles, from damsel in distress to femme fatale; the creation of classic villains and the actors who relished playing them; the impact of World War II on the genre; the emergence of more violent thrillers in the 1960s; the rise of the paranoid thriller in the 1970s; and how the genre continues in popularity by latching onto the current zeitgeist.

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