Exploitation film

Exploitation film (of English. Exploitation → "utilization" or "exploitation") is a categorizing term for films that exploit lurid basic situations to by the exploitative representation, especially of sex and violence, on the thus achieved show values affectively toward the viewer Act.

Characteristic

In the film in particular, there is a complex system of secondary exploitation with flowing boundaries from trash to cultural counter-designs. The 1960s, 1970s and 1980s were the heyday of the so-called exploitation film in the cinema. These films include films produced at low cost, which wanted to swim with the waves of success of more successful " sandal films ", westerns , police , sex and horror films . Exploitation productions therefore mostly had comparatively low technical and acting standards. Therefore the term exploitation film is sometimes used synonymously with the term trash film .

Features of the exploitation film are the often subversive changes in the role models, especially in the Italo or Spaghetti Western , in which the hero is often just as depraved as his opponents ( Django , 1966), as well as the sensational enrichment with sex and violence, blasphemy , hostility to the church, witch hunted respectively the lurid portrayal of elements of National Socialism . As a rule, the choice of title or subtitle is also characteristic, often trying to emphasize or even exaggerate the presence of the respective elements for advertising purposes (e.g. Nuns to the Blood , 1974).

reception

Since exploitation films often try hard and unsuccessfully to provide a reasonable explanation of the plot for the sensational depictions, they often enjoy a high cult status among fans of B-movies due to the involuntary comedy that results from them .

Subgenres

Cinematologically, taking into account the focus of the content, a classification into a sub-genre is often made, e.g. B. " Sexploitation ", " Nunsploitation ", women's prison films , " Naziploitation " or " Bruceploitation ". Another subgroup of the exploitation film are the so-called blaxploitation films of the 1970s, which transferred common thriller patterns and other genres to the world of the black US population and thus created an independent “black cinema” of its time. Typical representatives are Shaft  (1971) and Foxy Brown  (1974).

In recent years, exploitation cinema has also had an increased influence on productions that are part of the mainstream .

Sample works

Appearance	Movie title	Subgenres
1945	Mom and dad	Sexploitation
1957	I Was a Teenage Werewolf	Teens Sploitation
1963	Scum of the Earth!	Roughie
1972	Deep throat	Sexploitation
1974	The Bruce Lee Story	Bruceploitation
1974	Ilsa, She Wolf of the SS	Naziploitation , sexploitation
1975	Mandingo	Blaxploitation
1979	Mad Max	Ozploitation, carsploitation
1981	Mad Foxes - fire on wheels	Sexploitation, Naziploitation
1983	Bloody summer - the camp of horror	Slashploitation
1993	Dragon - The Bruce Lee Story	Bruceploitation
2001	The Fast and the Furious	Carsploitation

literature

• Felicia Feaster, Bret Wood: Forbidden Fruit. The Golden Age of the Exploitation Movie. Luminary Press, Baltimore MD 1999, ISBN 1-887664-24-6 .
• Keyvan Sarkhosh, Winfried Menninghaus : Enjoying trash films: Underlying features, viewing stances, and experiential response dimensions. In: Poetics , 57 (2016), pp. 40-54, doi: 10.1016 / j.poetic.2016.04.002 .
• Eric Schaefer: “Bold! Daring! Shocking! True! ”: A History of Exploitation Films, 1919–1959 . Duke University Press, Durham NC, London 1999, ISBN 0-8223-2374-5 .
• Marcus Stiglegger : Sadiconazista. Fascism and Sexuality in Film (= Film Studies. Vol. 10). 2nd Edition. Gardez! -Verlag, St. Augustin 2000, ISBN 3-89796-009-5 (also: Mainz, University, dissertation, 1999).

Documentaries

• Elijah Drenner (director): American Grindhouse (80 min.), Lorber Films, New York (NY) 2010. - One of the most well-founded documentaries on the genre.

Web links

• Filmreference.com: Exploitation Films (ed. 2012, checked. 2012-0223-1901). - With bibliography.
• Grindhousedatabase.com , English-language encyclopedia and magazine of international cult and exploitation cinema

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Marcus Stiglegger: Exploitation film. In: Thomas Koebner (Ed.): Reclams Sachlexikon des Films. 2nd, updated and expanded edition. Reclam, Stuttgart 2007, ISBN 978-3-15-010625-9 , p. 182.
2. ↑ Cf. Keyvan Sarkhosh, Winfried Menninghaus: Enjoying trash films: Underlying features, viewing stances, and experiential response dimensions. In: Poetics , 57 (2016), pp. 40-54, doi: 10.1016 / j.poetic.2016.04.002
3. ↑ Cf. Marcus Stiglegger: Sadiconazista. Stereotyping the Holocaust in the exploitation cinema , lecture at the Cinegraph annual conference "Cinematography of the Holocaust" in Hamburg, January 2001. - On: Ikonenmagazin.de.
4. ↑ Rüdiger Suchsland: "An extremely large number of women see these films". On the boom in torture in Hollywood , heise.de, June 20, 2007.