The Martian: an experiment on multilayered genre construction

Let’s start with a (too) simplistic equation:

Western + Stand-up comedy + 21st century deep space movie =The Martian

The-Martian-Official-Trailer-2-3

Drawing from Star Trek’s concept “Space: the last frontier”, The Martian starts as a deep space movie that follows some of the patterns of the Western, a genre that is grounded on the idea of the collision between settlers and nature (or the inhabitants of the land who live in a natural way). The striking depiction of the Martian landscape created for the movie (see screenshot below) in conjunction with a guitar melody accompanied by a warm string section in the soundtrack act as a compelling overture that serves to establish this concept: it is a movie about the potential problems of colonizing Mars.However, the main plotline of the movie moves around the fact that the main character (Matt Damon) is left behind and alone in Mars. As a consequence, Damon needs to figure out a way to survive at the same time that people on Earth try to design a strategy for rescuing him. After Gravity (2013) and Interstellar (2014), in addition of the colonization of Mars being a mid-term project for humanity, space movies seem to have evolved into being much more scientifically accurate. In other words, outer-space was treated before as if it were almost another layer of our atmosphere, whereas nowadays the physics that apply in outer space are beginning to become a part of our reality. By accepting that, we have started to virtually colonize the solar system by changing our mindset from being contained to Earth into acknowledging outer-space as a dangerous reality. That does not mean that The Martian does not make the characters do almost impossible things. However, these actions are now based on the appropriate physical laws that govern the reality beyond Earth.Therefore, The Martian is not really a science-fiction space film but a fiction film that happens in the space. Yet, this is not the most striking and innovative element in terms of genre-design that the movie possesses. From the very beginning, we realize that Matt Damon’s character will also provide several comical scenes that are closer to the stand-up comedic style. As a natural consequence, we know from the beginning that he is going to be rescued and he will return safe to Earth. At the end, Matt Damon is not Leonardo DiCaprio, who frequently ends-up dead. Therefore, assuming that Damon will survive does not significantly alter the narration devices involved in constructing the film.In the other hand, the continuous utilization of comedy disrupts, I would guess, most of the expectations that the audiences brought into the movie. As Steve Neale described in Questions of Genre (1990), audiences bring a set of expectations depending on the genre they assume the movie to be. This is especially true in both science fiction and comedy, two genres in which the generic verisimilitude (what we accept as plausible in a movie by being in a particular genre) distances most from the cultural verisimilitude (what we accept as plausible in our society). If the result is successful or not will depend on each spectator. Nevertheless, the movie should be acknowledged for doing an interesting work on cross-genre development. A priori, the comical elements seem to contribute to detach the audiences from the critical elements that constitute the main narrative ark of The Martian. Audiences should empathize with the complexities, suffering and fear of the main character to survive, at the same time they sympathize with the non-stop work being done back to Earth, attempting to keep him alive and eventually rescuing him. Even the two most critical moments of the narrative are extremely anticlimactic (the first one is anticipated by an almost narrator alerting us, and the second is diluted by using a funny reference to Iron Man).The result is a relaxing and entertaining movie that deep down communicates and presents the high risks involved in the process of colonizing Mars and the outer space. If this new mode of narration works or not will depend on how the audiences react to it and, in a certain way, how they get used to it. The result is not exactly the union of different genres, but a multilayered generic structure. This means that the genres are not mixed together but they work simultaneously at different levels of narration, generating different narrative planes.As a final remark, I would recommend everyone to read Kip Thorne’s book The Science of Interstellar, which seems to have become a sort of codex that compiles the set of physical knowledge needed to understand 21st century deep space films. Personally, I was happy to have read the book before seeing The Martian, which has allowed me to better understand key elements of the plot and the action.