Fantasy as a genre and a product of the film industry

Abstract

The article examines the genre nature of fantasy, taking into account its conversion in cinema. The aim was to identify the literary origins of the genre and the reasons for its popularity in the popular culture of post-industrial society. The fantasy genre has a unique appeal due to its space-time and at the same time game narrative, which provides people with a balance that is lacking in reality, due to withdrawal into fictional worlds. Movies of this genre combine novelistic elements of fiction, magic and metaphysics, based on cultural myths, legends, fairy tales. Fantasy has a unique aesthetic appeal in terms of narrative structure (the unfolding of events in the “secondary” worlds of the author’s world or modernity, where there is a place for the manifestation of fantasy; actualization of the past), the arrangement of the main characters (building a circle of images and characters in relation to the main character), space-time organization (movement in time and space). The huge costs of film production make fantasy movies dependent on a marketing company on their way to audience and commercial success. Fantasy movies are of great practical importance for enriching the genres of modern cinema, expanding themes, and gaining a deeper understanding of our spiritual world.