The significance of genre conventions and ideology in John Wick (2014)

John Wick (Chad Stahelski, 2014) is at first glance easily defined as an action film. In an interview with the film’s director, a journalist refers to the film as a neo-noir action (2017, para.1). With a former stunt man at the helm and the proficiency of the violent set pieces throughout the film, this is an easily made assumption. However it becomes apparent on repeat viewing that there is more at play beneath the surface of John Wick, that it is actually a hybrid built on the conventions and traditions of several American film genres. The film could be described as a violent, revenge, action thriller set in a gangster film’s world using comic book and neo-noir tropes but, this essay will focus on the genre conventions that influence the film’s ideology, mainly those of the Thriller and the Gangster film.

This essay will argue that John Wick mixes conventions of both the thriller and gangster genres to critique the overtly Capitalist ideology exemplified in the modern America of the film. The film is built around John’s struggle to maintain his lifestyle and uses genre conventions to emphasise the difference between John’s civilian life and his life as part of the criminal underworld. Whilst the genre conventions used condemn the untrammelled individualistic (Langford 2005, p.138) lifestyle the gangsters lead, they uphold John’s seemingly conventional lifestyle. Both genre conventions and ideology are significant to the film as they are used to build upon its main tension between overtly and comparably normal capitalist lifestyles.

Initially, this essay will be argued through the establishment of ideas; genre films as having an ideological function; what is meant by the Capitalist ideology displayed in American genre films and particularly in John Wick, and John Wick as using tropes from both of these genres destruct and reaffirm the film’s capitalist ideology. The argument will end with an assessment of how far John Wick goes to push Hollywood’s ideological boundaries.

The notion that genre films have an ideological purpose is suggested by Rick Altman, when reviewing classical approaches to genre in Film/Genre. Altman writes that ideological genre critics suggest genre films deceive audiences into accepting non-solutions for society’s anxieties, whilst also serving the industry and government (1999, p.26). This is evidently true of John Wick, whose protagonist (Keanu Reeves), in response to the murder of his dog and theft of his car, takes extreme retribution in dismantling and killing the family responsible and all who work for them, which is (as the film is aware) not a particularly realistic solution to losing cherished possessions. By destroying the elements that threaten his conventional, civilian lifestyle, Wick fulfils the critics’ expectations in delivering an unrealistic solution, preserving the apparent social order at all costs whilst also serving industry and government interests in being a profitable genre film.

Having established genre films as having an ideological function, now is time to discuss which ideology Wick adheres to. As suggested earlier, this essay would argue that it is the capitalist system showcased in contemporary America. Robin Wood presents a definition of what is meant by capitalist ideology in Hollywood film in his work Ideology, Genre, Auteur (1977, pp.61-62). To establish John Wick as rooted within this ideology, it seems pertinent to briefly compare Wood’s list to the film. Number one on Wood’s list is Capitalism itself, which he defines as ‘the right of ownership’(1997, p.61) which evidently John does have. For example, he owns a modern and expensive looking home, a vintage car and tailored suits. ‘The work ethic: the notion that “honest toil” is in itself and for itself morally admirable’ (1997, p.61) is an interesting point in comparison to John Wick. Whether the way John has made his money (as a contract killer) can be described as ‘honest’ or as ‘morally admirable’ is questionable, but frequently throughout the film we do see John working with his hands, scrubbing floors, digging the grave for his puppy and smashing the concrete burying his past. By showing the audience this manual labour and the fervour with which he goes about killing those who have wronged him (not so far removed from doing his job) can be read as John having a strong work ethic. Next up is marriage, the ideal male and the ideal female. John is married, but loses his wife (Bridget Moynahan) to terminal illness within the first few minutes of the film. John, by Wood’s description, is the ideal male ‘the potent untrammelled man of action’ and his wife appears to be his ‘perfect companion’ (1997, p.61). ’Progress, technology, the city’ (1997, p.61) is covered in the film’s locations, a mix of John’s home in generic small town America and New York, the city being home to the Russian gangster family and the secret society of assassins. Success and wealth, in which Hollywood is ‘deeply ashamed’ (1997, p.62) is shown as above through the places the characters live, the cars they drive and the clothes they wear, it is ingrained within the film. Wood’s final point ‘America as the land where everyone is or can be happy; hence the land where all problems are solvable within the existing system’ (1997, p.62) has an ironic bearing in the film. John does solve his problems within his own existing system. A system which is a violent extension of the “fight your way to the top” analogy. In comparing parts of Wood’s list to narrative points of John Wick it becomes clear that the film works from the basis of the capitalist model Wood sets out in his writing, enabling this essay to move on to discuss how genre conventions are used to reflect upon this ideology.

Now that the ideological function of genre films and a definition of capitalist ideology in Hollywood films in relation to John Wick has been established, it seems relevant to asses the thriller genre conventions depicted within the film. In Thrillers, Martin Rubin, brings together critical perspectives to give an overt sense of what he feels marks a film as a thriller (1999, pp.9-38). He presents the idea that the world of the thriller is a current, modern and mundane one and yet is imbued with a sense of adventure and ruled by the hero of the romance novel. Through Northrop Frye’s insights Rubin sees the ‘enchanted forest of romance as being supplanted by the prime thriller locale of the city’ (1999, p.18) and from G.K Chesterton, Rubin understands that the thriller, though it takes place in modern times and is situated in the mundane, realistic world, ‘is filled with the spirit of older, larger, wilder, more marvellous, and more adventurous realms (1999, p.15). Rubin emphasises the contrast between these dimensions as being a crucial condition for the thriller and it is the interaction between the two, the mundane and the adventurous, that is skilfully depicted in John Wick.

The film makes clear definitions between the two worlds and allows them to interact through the use of colour and sound. The film first creates these definitions using colour palettes. When John is initially shown in his home, his current modern world, his alarm goes off at 6am and his bedroom is a sea of grey and black objects. As he comes downstairs, the pallette is repeated, grey sofas, black tiles, grey photo frames, black ornaments. The repetition and the muted colours emphasise not only the mundanity of his world, but also its bleakness. In John’s memories, his wife becomes associated with warm colours. Where he remembers feeling content they have a warm, bronze filter. The memories are cut together, interspersed with those of Helen in hospital which feature the same grey filter as John’s home. John’s warm brown leather jacket serves as a connection between the two, as do the chocolate, caramel patches on his puppy. These colour tones emphasise John’s ‘mundane’ world, his civilian life and are contrasted with those of his ‘adventurous’ life, when he re-enters the city and the secret society of assassins. This begins at his wife funeral, where clad all in black (in a suit remarkably similar to his ‘work’ suit) John blends with the colour scheme which will come to define his adventurous world. The film touches for the first time on John’s previous life at his wife’s funeral, by introducing former colleague Marcus (Willem Dafoe) thus hinting at the relationship between the colour and John’s other life. John’s black Mustang serves as the link between the two and the scene between John and Iosef (Alfie Allen) acts as the bridge. Iosef clad all in black and John in his brown leather jacket visualises an interaction between the realms of John’s life. When John dons his black suit and enters the Continental (the hotel where assassins can stay undetected) the transfer between the two realms is complete. This not to say the two realms do not interact further from this point on, but that this is when John is seen fully immersed in the adventurous world for the first time.

As previously mentioned, these two realms also intersect with one another using sound. In the opening sequence of the film, credits appear backed by the sound of a radio weather report, layered with the noise of a helicopter. The fade in from black shows an industrial storage unit with sky scrapers in the background. As a car rolls into frame, crashing into a wall, the weather report continues from its speakers ‘Get out there, enjoy the sun, get outside’ suggesting that John partially exists in a world where people lead normal lives. The sound of the helicopters adds a different layer, often associated in film with wealth and criminality via police chases. The contrast between the civilian and another, more exciting, world is then immediately apparent. From then on, sound is continually used throughout the film to mix the two realms. When Viggo (Michael Nyqvist) tries to make amends with John, the scene in which he calls him directly follows the pivotal scene where John unearths his own buried stash. Viggo is seen taking a book from a safe and dialling John’s number, there is a cut and the camera pans up from John’s gold coins and weapons to him answering the phone and the audience have a sense that for a moment, John and Viggo have switched roles. Viggo’s gangster world has a moment of civilian banality and John’s neat home has been smashed and strewn with weapons. The sound of the phone, stretching between the two, intercuts, bringing them together. This technique is repeated later in the film, where whilst John is engaged in a vicious fist fight in his hotel room, concierge rings from reception, the phone ringing and ringing emphasising the implausibility of the two happening at the same time. The polite conversation John has with concierge, before neutralising his enemy mirrors the one he has with a police officer who knocks on his door directly after he has finished fighting multiple assailants. These moments serve to intermingle the realms John inhabits seamlessly and successfully. The use of the thriller convention of the contrast between the two realms brings the ideology of John Wick into focus, on the one side the safe yet bland conventional world and on the other, the dark and brutal world of doing whatever it takes to reach the top, the mundane and the adventurous. The interplay between the two reflects how easily it is for John to slip into the latter, his struggle to return to his civilian world, set up with colour and sound in the first few scenes of the film, indicating where the audiences ideological allegiances should also lie.

Setting up the Tarasov family as John’s adversaries ensures John Wick is rooted in the conventions of the gangster genre. In doing so, it opens the possibility for the film to be read with similar connotations to that of a gangster film. To generalise, gangster films are associated with crime, morality and money. Douglas Kellner makes a sufficiently concise introduction in his essay Hollywood Film and Society, emphasising that they are as much about crime as they are about the tensions in the American capitalist system (2000, p.131). Kellner defines the idea that gangsters can be seen to act as prototypical capitalists, ‘allegorical stand-ins for capitalist energy and will’ (2000, P.131). The same can be said of the Tarasov family in John Wick, except taken to an extreme level. The right of ownership has pervaded their sense of self so completely that everything from material items to family has been reduced to an object, with no meaning apart from that of being owned. This is depicted through dialogue and editing. It is made clear throughout the film that John values his possessions, he keeps hold of his wife’s bracelet following her death and later it is joined by Daisy’s dog collar on his bedside table, kept as shrines to them. Following the theft of his car and murder of his dog editing is used to imbue these objects with a further sense of meaning. Cutting from John placing the collar next to his wife’s bracelet, the audience is faced with a close up of John’s hands, before panning up to his face, the next few cuts are a quick fire montage of the attack, his wife’s bracelet, her collapsing in the street, the murder of his puppy and Iosef’s face. As well as combining the injustices of his wife’s death and of the attack by Iosef in John and the audience’s mind this serves to visualise John’s sense of attachment to the material objects he holds onto, they are filled with a residual meaning from their original owners who in turn John also valued. Iosef and Viggo Tarasov on the other hand, place no value on objects or the people around them, as made clear through their dialogue. Iosef initially when he says in Russian;

Iosef: Everything’s got a price, bitch.

and Viggo when he later states;
Viggo: It was just a fucking car, just a fucking dog.

The Tarasov’s do not understand John’s sentimental attachment to things, whereas the audience already knows they are significant to him because of who they belonged to. This reduction of meaning extends from Viggo as far as his own family. He is dismissive and violent towards Iosef, treating him as an employee and eventually giving up his location to John. He values nothing and no-one except money, when John sets fire to Viggo’s private stash the comparison between them is made clear. Viggo is devastated about the money and where John could have chosen to keep it and when Viggo’s employee (ironically dressed as a priest) explicitly asks him what he is going to do with it, he burns it. John doesn’t value money, John values his family and the objects related to them, whereas Viggo does not. By the film’s culmination the Tarasov family has been sufficiently punished to warrant critique of their untrammelled individualistic ideology. By setting up the Tarasovs as a gangster family, they take on the genre convention of being metaphorical stand-ins for wider systems, as earlier proposed by Kellner. Their violent ends, serve as condemnation for the extreme capitalist ideology they come to represent. Ensuring they are significant to the wider tension of the film, John’s loss of, and struggle to maintain, his civilian lifestyle.

Just as John Wick mixes conventions of a number of genres, it also mixes who these conventions apply to. The conventions of the gangster genre do not just relate to the Tarasov family, John too has criminal bearings and so is open to take on conventions that wouldn’t typically be associated with the hero of the film. John G. Cawelti in his essay ‘Chinatown’ and Generic Transformations in Recent American Films explores, using Chinatown (Roman Polanski, 1974) as an example of how recognisable genre films are developing and giving way to the creation of new allegories, new myths, to suit modern anxieties (1979, pp.243-261). Chinatown for instance, undermines the hard-boiled detective genre with Gitte’s character, who gets in way over his head and eventually allows organised crime to go unpunished. Cawelti describes one of the ways the film achieves this transformation is by giving an already established character type, new and less desirable attributes, in-sighting the idea that generic elements can be transferred to shed new light on the way a genre is read (1979, p.247) . Edward Mitchell suggests some characteristics the gangster shares across films, some of which relate to John. Mitchell sets up three factors as having influence over the gangster film, Puritanism, Social Darwinism and the Horatio Alger myth (1976, pp.219-228). Mitchell defines Puritanism as the belief that people are born in sin, without hope of redemption and without election, the onus of choice cannot be escaped (1976, p.219-220). Derek Kolstad writer of John Wick says of the film, ‘what if the worst possible man in existence could find salvation? What happens to that man? Does he change? […] Would he remain that way even when the source of his salvation is ripped from him?’ (2014, 00:24-00:48).The film then, is tied up in the idea of inescapable morality and illustrates this nicely through a piece of mis-en-scene. In a shower scene the tattoos on John’s back are visible (see Figure.1) as a version of Albert Dürer’s praying hands, backed by a cross and topped by the latin Fortis Fortuna Adiuvat, translatable as Fortune Favours the Bold. John then, can be seen to hold some stead by religious iconography but by pairing the religious with the latin words, which suggest that by being bold you create your own fate, he undercuts the puritanical connotations that are being placed upon him. John does not feel that he lives without election, he escapes that moral damnation through his bold action, returning to take on Isosef and Viggo rather than accepting his fate. Mitchell also highlights that there is something ‘fated about the main character in American gangster films’ (1976, p.222), an element that is reflected in the structure of the film. The aforementioned opening scene narratively belongs near the end of the film. By choosing to place it as the beginning, the film develops a cyclic quality. John is destined to repeat these actions again and again, encouraged by the 2017 and further planned sequels. But the cycle is, and this is key to the generic transformation, not without hope. Mitchell in the same quote, goes on to say ‘we know that no matter what happens, somehow the gangster will “get his”’ (1976, p.222). Importantly, John does not “get his”. Mitchell writes that ‘more than any other film genre, gangster films are the home of the conflict between good and evil’ (1976, p.222) but John Wick is not, Wick is the home of the conflict between evil and evil. While John takes on qualities associated with the gangster, he is not one and he escapes the fate of Iosef and Viggo, breaking the generic pattern of criminals, particularly gangsters, dying for their actions (1976, p.222). In John Wick we see a development on what Cawelti talks about in relation to Gittes and Chinatown, John, the hero of the story, is associated with qualities that should (in genre terms) damn him, but rather he lives to fight another day. He, like the gangster genre expects him to do, expresses one of the tragedies of modern life (Warshow, 1948, p.582) of losing loved ones, undercutting the neat solution capitalism promises. By associating the conventions of a gangster film with John, but supplanting his ending John Wick transforms the genre and the film’s ideology. In killing the gangsters, but allowing the assassin to remain alive, the film condemns the previously discussed, emotionally reductive, overtly capitalist life the gangsters lead and upholds the civilian lifestyle John is aiming for.

It is evident then, that John Wick does not criticise the capitalist ideology of modern America entirely, which it needs to be said is not in the Hollywood genre film’s nature. What it does instead, is what Cawelti describes as reaffirming the myth, ‘traditional genre and its myth are probed and shown to be unreal, but then the myth itself is at least partially affirmed’ (1979, p.258). Robert Warshow describes how gangster films reject Americanism, and the demands of modern American life (1948, p.4583) and Wick in picking the genre conventions it uses, can do this (rejecting excessive consumerism in replacement for family) as well as celebrating its fundamental elements (security, ownership, marriage). The film addresses the concern of having the life capitalist ideology promises (security, ownership, marriage) ripped away by outside forces with the absurd solution (Hess, 1974, p.42) of enacting violent retribution on the perpetrators, joining Leon: The Professional (Luc Besson, 1994) and Kill Bill: Vol. 1 (Quentin Tarantino, 2003). It also addresses the struggle to return to that ideal life once it has been lost. John Wick critiques part of the society it is built on, upholding another and this contradiction is rooted in its creation from a combination of genres.

This essay, initially establishes genre films as having ideological functions and John Wick as referring to American capitalist ideology. From there it explores how conventions of particular genres, namely the thriller and gangster genres are used to reflect upon this ideology. The thriller convention, of contrasting the mundane and an adventurous realms of the protagonists world creates the tension between the levels of capitalist ideology John is caught in, developed through frequent visual and audio references throughout the film. Then discussed is how setting John Wick within the limitations of the gangster genre enables to audience to supplant the Tarasov family as stand-ins for capitalist energy, and how through editing and dialogue, the division between the levels on which John and the Tarasov’s live capitalist lives becomes further intensified. Finally, in transferring conventions generally associated with gangsters onto John and subverting them, the film reflects its central conflict, John is allowed to survive because he is struggling to maintain a civilian lifestyle reaffirming it as a myth to aspire to. Genre conventions are used to develop the ideology of the film, fleshing out its central critique of modern American capitalism.

Works Cited
Altman, R, (1999), Film/Genre. London: British Film Institute

Cawelti, J., ‘Chinatown and Generic Transformation in Recent American Films’ in Genre Reader III ed. by Barry Keith Grant. USA: University of Texas Press, pp. 243-261

Hess, J., ‘Genre films and the status quo’ in Genre Reader III ed. by Barry Keith Grant. USA: University of Texas Press, pp. 42-50

Kellner, Douglas., ‘Hollywood and Society’ in American Cinema and Hollywood: Critical Approaches ed. by John Hill and Pamela Church Gibson. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Langford, B., (2005), Film Genre Hollywood and Beyond. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press

Mitchell, E., ‘Apes and Essences: Some Sources of Significance in the American Gangster Film’ in Genre Reader III ed. by Barry Keith Grant. USA: University of Texas Press, pp.219-228

Rubin, M., (1999) Thrillers. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press

Shepherd. J., John Wick: Chapter 2 interview: Director Chad Stahelski talks TV series, superhero movies, and Chapter 3, Independent, 2017, http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/features/john-wick-2-3-director-chad-stahelski-interview-tv-series-superhero-movie-chapter-prequel-a7786406.html, [2/1/2018]

The Movie Times, Derek Kolstad: JOHN WICK, Youtube, 2014, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2s58YG39sq0, [8/12018]

Warshow, R., ‘The Gangster as Tragic Hero’ in The Oxford Book of Essays, ed. by John Gross. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 581-586

Wood, R., ‘Ideology, Genre, Auteur’ in Genre Reader III ed. by Barry Keith Grant. USA: University of Texas Press, pp. 60-74

Audiovisual Works
John Wick, [feature film], Dir. Chad Stahelski. US, 2014, 97 min.