Genre, style, and accent are expressions of individualism.

David Lynch has a pastoral, surrealist approach to filmmaking. In some ways, his films are extremely simple. This ‘style’ of filmmaking has much in common with the religious tradition he was raised in, Presbyterianism.

Francis Ford Coppola’s “Godfather” trilogy is an expression of Roman Catholic culture. The films are grandiose, each one beginning and ending with a family gathering, such as a baptism, or a funeral. Religious ceremony is foremost, to both the director, and to the characters in his film.

The same can be found in music, painting, and literature.

There are, though, works of television, literature, film, and music, that I would define as “without genre”. These include:

– Michael Cimino’s film The Deer Hunter

– HBO’s television series The Wire

– Denis Leary’s stand up comedy special No Cure For Cancer

– The album Love Junk by The Pursuit of Happiness

– Joseph Conrad’s novel Heart Of Darkness

All of these works have a certain form; The Deer Hunter is made like a New Hollywood film; Heart of Darkness is written like a Victorian adventure novel.

But there is an absence of a message in these works, and the message, the stylized presentation of good and evil, the moral of the story, defines the genre.