"Mud" and Genre

            I had no idea that movies were made to fit into genres. Yesterday my project was to view “Mud” and figure out how it was a coming-of-age story, which I had learned from a review.

            Genres are the patterns, forms, styles and structures that filmmakers depend on for the construction of films, and which audiences depend on to make sense of them (Johnston, 190). After I saw “Mud,” I glanced quickly at a website (it was almost time for dinner), which said: sex, loss, a rending of the veil of childhood illusions. I began to understand the patterns in coming-of-age films and remembered “Stand by Me.” I perceived: the protagonist has at least one pal; a chance occurrence draws the boys into a dangerous adult world; the protagonist boy’s emerging manhood is put to the test; a scene at the end underscores his successful negotiation of the threshold to manhood. With coming-of-age films, we are viewers of a ritual.

            The movie’s title gives the impression that it is about a renegade named Mud, who is hiding out on an island in the Mississippi River. Actually, Mud is the figure who opens the door to manhood for fourteen-year-old Ellis and his pal Neckbone. The boys go to the island to take possession of a boat that a flood has lodged high in a tree. Mud already lives there. By the end, Mud, sending the boys for supplies, has brought the boat to ground, repaired it, and escaped in it.

            During these few days, Ellis falls in love with the very attractive Meg Pearl, who gives him his first kiss. He discovers that his parents are going to separate and may divorce. And he finds out that the houseboat his family has occupied all his life is about to be seized and destroyed by the government. He has a lot to learn. Johnston advises viewers to note originality in filmmakers’ treatments of genre. In the realm of sex, Neckbone, who is being raised by his young, single uncle, is a source of information. But Ellis is an idealistic youngster who is more interested in the meaning of love between a man and a woman. As the movie progresses, this appears to him to be nothing but disaster. His parents split up; Neckbone has never known his own parents; Mud loves Juniper but they never get together; and Meg Pearl, who is a fully developed girl, bigger and older than Ellis, has a boyfriend her own age.

            Another pattern I perceived was wildness. The movie begins with the boys venturing into the wilderness of nature, where they meet the wild man, Mud. He inadvertently awakens the wild man in Ellis. An incredible four times Ellis socks a man in the jaw who is bigger and older than himself. Once he is slugged in return and gets a black eye. Then, along with Neckbone, he becomes a thief. The supplies they scrounge are from junkyards until finally they steal a working outboard motor. Ellis’ final assault is on Mud himself, who has turned his life upside down. He runs away and falls into a pit of cottonmouth snakes, where, when one of the snakes bites him, the wilderness turns on him.

            To be continued….

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