What's so intriguing about Crime?

        Over the years many viewers have found themselves entranced by crime and gangster films. It mixes so many different genres all into one allowing for drama, romance, comedy, and action to meld into one story where viewers never know how to feel about their characters. Crime can either be gangster crime such as the infamous The Godfather or it could be a show of investigation such as the TV show Hannibal or the show Pretty Little Liars. While all of these examples could be put under different genres, they're overall based on crime and investigation.

    The genre has become so infamous for the way it builds suspense within the viewers, wanting viewers to beg for more, just so they can find out inevitably who did it? Director Martin Scorsese is probably the best known for these kinds of films such as The Departed and Goodfellas. These kinds of films have grossed billions of dollars for the film industry as they entrance you.

    These films focus on acts of breaking the law and tend to be psychological thrillers as you never know who's guilty. Most of the time it revolves around the criminals but can also revolve around victims or the actual investigators. The most common plotlines could be murder, theft, or kidnapping investigations as well as betrayal and the lives of criminals. The genre especially explores guilt or pride in crime as well as the dilemma of what is good and what is bad. The movie Ocean's Eight shows the pride criminals can have in their crimes but musicals such as Les Misérables can leave you questioning whether they were bad people or just people in need. 

    Crime films in a broader subject use realistic lighting and muted tones as they want to create neutrality and suspense. On the other hand, films such as gangster films darker lighting to up the suspense even more and create a certain aura around the characters. The sound design consists of echoing and suspenseful sounds and music, building and building on the suspense needed for these films. They're based in urban settings as you wouldn't usually see big crimes done on the Moon, fictional situations aren't exactly used in crime films often but their storylines may be entirely fictional. There's a lot of different perspectives in editing as crime films tend to want to show the suspense of the runner and the chaser.

    Crime films tend to marketed with the slight reveal of a betrayal or plot twist, building suspense for the viewers before they ever go to watch the film. They use voiceovers over scenes of scrambling and action as well as using suspenseful music to entrance viewers by allowing them to think that they may figure out the mystery on their own. 

    An incredible example of this is Zodiac with Jake Gyllenhaal as it follows detectives and journalists as the follow the crimes of the non-fictional serial killer, The Zodiac Killer, it's a widely muted film in terms of colors using a lot of blues to show the depressing tone throughout as Gyllenhaal's character begins to spiral. It's also incredibly realistic as it has the urban setting of San Francisco and uses a real killer as their protagonist. The film focuses on building frustration and tension in the characters as they fail over and over again to find their killer. 

    Another amazing example would be The Silence of the Lambs which similar to Hannibal focuses on the character Hannibal Lecter, while the film is largely known for its' horror aspects, the way it plays with the investigations of Clarice Starling and the help of Lecter makes it fall under the crime genre umbrella. The movie surrounds itself in a complex investigation that builds suspense and makes you think that if Hannibal is helping, is he so awful? The use of dark tones and close-ups build incredible tension between the characters and builds suspense the entire film.