AboutNell Minow Expertise Movies, especially classic movies, current movies, family movies, and movies for children.
Experience I am the movie critic for Beliefnet and radio stations across the country. I have written about movies for USA Today, Parents, Family Fun, Child, Slate, and Daughters, and am the weekly movie critic for twenty radio stations across the US and in Canada and write weekly parental advisories and some movie reviews for the Chicago Sun-Times and the Kansas City Star. I have appeared on Fox Morning News, the ABC Evening News, CBS This Morning, and NPR, and been profiled in the NY Times, Washingtonian, Chicago Magazine, and the Chicago Tribune. My book, The Movie Mom's Guide to Family Movies, was published by Avon in April 1999 and is now in its second edition. I can answer questions about movies for special interests, especially family concerns, handling questions from kids like "What do I do when he says everyone else has seen it?" to "My daughter got nightmares from a movie --how can I help her?" or "Why does my child want to see the DVD over and over?" to "What's the deal with Pokemon?" I am pretty good with trivia questions about movies, too, not as good with made-for-TV movies or miniseries.
Organizations Broadcast, Online, and Washington DC film critics associations, Internet Entertainment Writers Association
Question QUESTION: Nell Minow could you please explain to me what generic elements distinguish a romance film (pre 1950's) such as what are the plotlines, character types, iconic imagery and settings that characterize it to be a romance film?
Thanks kindly if you could help,
Heather
ANSWER: There's no simple answer to that one! Romance is often an element of other kinds of genres: comedy, action, drama, science fiction, western, war, epic. But here are a couple of thoughts. A romance film, whatever the genre, will have two people who are destined to be together but are kept apart by some force for most of the movie. That force could be external (a war, forbidding families, geographic distance) or internal (they don't realize they are meant for each other until the psychological journey of the film has been completed). Often, one will be more serious/repressed and the other will be more of a free spirit, representing psychic authenticity. Also often there will be a literal journey as well as a psychological one (as in "The African Queen").
I hope this is helpful.
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QUESTION: Sorry to bug you again, i was just wondering in the earlier years of romantic films (before 1950) were the settings of the movies based around the war and issues surrounding that?
ANSWER: In the early years, just as now, they were set in contemporary times and at just about every historical era imaginable, from the cave days through medieval times, colonial US, the Renaissance, ancient Egypt, ancient Greece, wartime, etc. etc.
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QUESTION: Could you explain iconic imagery to me and how it's seen in romantic films?
I'm not familiar with this term?
Sorry for all these question's,you are a lot of help though!
Answer Is this for a homework assignment?
"Iconic imagery" is a term that refers to the painted icons, portraits of saints. In films, it refers to the composition of the frame on screen that has additional power because it connects to our deepest notions of myth and story -- think of things like the big kiss scene in a romance, for example. And think of the other kinds of images you expect to see in a romantic film, the close-ups, the eyes misting with tears, the longing glances. Those are a part of the iconic imagery of romance in film.
