Cult film
Cult Movies are movies to a loyal following runs a Fan - cult, often years or decades after the premiere in theaters. This manifests itself as by the regular viewing (eg Dinner for One New Year's Eve ), by rites at the screening ( The Rocky Horror Picture Show, sometimes with live performance in front of the screen, Blues Brothers or The Feuerzangenbowle ), by the quote of text passages ( the Godfather or Monty Python, for example, the Life of Brian ), to the acquisition of all philosophies, arts or languages uniforms (Star Trek and Star Wars ). Sometimes costumed fans meet on so-called conventions, where actors and other film Involved participate as guests of honor.
Cult film as a subjective feeling
Crucial for a cult film is only the reaction of the audience that needs to go beyond a "normal " Identification and therefore changes from generation to generation and is different in each country, which is why the creation of a list of cult films because of the individual relationship between individuals and the film hardly is possible. The fact that a large part of the audience rejects the film, which is not contradicted but often leads just to the special relationship of the lover to the work.
Die-hard fans of the films 2001: A Space Odyssey and see A Clockwork Orange this as groundbreaking and pioneering ( in A Space Odyssey, for example, in terms of knitting technology and the combination space with waltzes ), others find these movies just boring or off-putting.
But the economic success or failure of a film does not provide any measure of cult status dar. Frequently the term cult film has just been used to delimit the movie tastes of the mass audience. Not infrequently it is in cult films to films that were originally not commercial successes, and were discovered only later, thanks to the cult, such as in The Rocky Horror Picture Show, A Night at the Roxbury, Citizen Kane or Blade Runner, although all flopped in the cinema, but evidence obtained from video rental or DVD distribution cult status.
Independent films is therefore generally more of a " cult movie potential " awarded as Hollywood movies. Pulp Fiction is an example of a highly successful cult film that met through his considerable influence on subsequent gangster movies influence in the mainstream cinema. Other works of Quentin Tarantino enjoy a similar reputation. The films of Russ Meyer is often the status of cult awarded in their genre they are regarded as pioneers.
Sometimes it is relatively cheap productions (B- Movie) that attract with their trashy aesthetics and involuntary comedy a post-modern audience, which discovered unsuspected qualities in these films at first glance. Because these trash aesthetic was also deliberately used some film scholars speak of a private cult film genre. A classic example in this context are the films of American film director Ed Wood, who was posthumously elected to the " worst director of all time".
Ultimately, however, borrow many cult films, their dramatic structure from other genres, and some may take quite rightly undisputed status as a work of art.
Stimulating a cult formation seems to be a repetition rate or series broadcast as the hype around the TV movie Ijon Tichy: has pointed space pilot. A too can not get enough of is probably the main diagnosis.
Cult film as a sign of the Zeitgeist
Especially in the course of the zeitgeist of the decades advance films - even after - cult movies.
So the movies with actor James Dean such as were ... for they know not what they do from 1955 due to the action of the movies, because of the actor and his early death cult films. Beginning of the 1970s was the filming Schoolgirl Report: What not keep parents possible - accompanied by massive criticism from conservative circles - a " cult film of enlightenment and freedom of movement ." On the global peak of the disco era was seen by many young people in the film Saturday Night Fever by the film theme, the actors and the music became a cult film.
Cult film after film genres
Each movie also brings forth for certain groups of people cult movies.
So among the many western movies are playing at noon viewed me the song of death or 12 clock as a cult film. Also, the film adaptations of the Karl May stories of the Apache chief Winnetou were in the 1960s to " cult films of German cinema ."
Under Crime lovers often the Edgar Wallace and Alfred Hitchcock films are considered as cult films.
In the road movie genre became the film Thelma & Louise, also because of the woman character shown, a cult movie.
A very clear classification as a cult film often take the fans of certain bands in music films (eg Beatles movies, ABBA movie, The Doors movie) as well as groups of fans of cartoon characters or animated films (eg, The Peanuts, Asterix, Werner ) ago.
Demarcation of the terms cult movie and film classics
An exact definition of both terms is difficult. For some categories of a film can be a cult film and a classic film at the same time.
As a film classics are often considered films whose first performance was at least 30 years ago, the very high number of visitors in the cinemas had that have set standards in film production, which won several film awards or still have a measurable awareness.
Well-known examples are lights of the big city, King Kong, Casablanca or Jaws.
The successful film adaptation of a literary bestseller can become a classic film (eg in 80 days around the world, Quo vadis? , Ben Hur or Gone with the Wind ).
Term use as a targeted marketing tool
Today, the term cult film, regardless of previously valid definitions used in inflationary scale. More and more frequently it is used by the film studios / distributors as a marketing element, and movies are referred to at the very first performance with large advertising expense as a "cult film" in order to attract as many viewers to the cinema.
Even when private television old and well-known films are regularly blatantly as " THE cult film" announced to boost the ratings. Here is always forgotten that alone the audience decides on the status of " cult film" and not the dictates of the film distribution company or the TV channel.
In addition, some films ignite a hype over the first window, in which it turns out later that this excessive identification then flattens again or was premature. These films are not to be regarded as a cult, rather than blockbuster ( blockbuster ). Whether one succeeds in these films to become sustainably establish and later referred to as a "cult film", only later generations of movie viewers can decide, but not the actual producers or film distributors.