SOURCE: "Genre Conventions and Visual Style in The Crying Game," in Cineaste, Vol. XX, No. 1, 1993, pp. 31, 33, 35.

In the following essay, Lugowski asserts, "What is original and special about The Crying Game is its execution, the mileage Jordan gets from the conventions he respects and those he upsets, and the complexity of its discourse on racial and gender issues."

Much of the talk surrounding the considerable critical and popular success of writer-director Neil Jordan's latest film, The Crying Game, speaks of how unusual the film is: one critic went so far as to term it "unclassifiable," while Miramax executive Gerry Rich attributes its popularity to audience hunger for "unconventional films." Truth to tell, The Crying Game is nothing of the kind. It actually treads some well-worn territory. Like Jordan's last notable success, Mona Lisa (another effort, The Company of Wolves, unfortunately received very little attention), it is a neo-...