Urban Drama

A type of drama that focuses on issues and problems caused by modern and contemporary urban life. Often in these films, the city itself becomes a character, something that affects, changes, or hinders a protagonist as much, or more so, than any other element of the film. These films study or depict the effects of race, multi-culturalism, labor, over-population, filth, chaos, and corruption on their central characters. Because the advent of film coincided with the first major rush of people moving from the country into cities, cinema has always been fascinated with urban dramas. D.W. Griffith (A Child of the Ghetto, A Corner of Wheat), Charlie Chaplin (City Lights, Modern Times) and King Vidor (The Crowd) were just a handful of early filmmakers to probe the sudden population of American cities and the subsequent problems that followed. The city was transformed from problematic to menacing and deadly with the arrival of film noir in the ‘40s and ‘50s. Rain-swept, covered in shadows and darkness, and filled with corruption, city life trapped numerous protagonists into lives of immorality and crime in noirs like On Dangerous Ground, Night and the City and The Naked City. Contemporary depictions haven't been as homogenous. Examinations often tend to vary depending on the focus groups and the filmmaker. For example, the works of Martin Scorsese (Mean Streets), Spike Lee (Do The Right Thing, Crooklyn) and Abel Ferrara (Bad Lieutenant) all focus on urban dilemmas and pressures but have little else in common. These, plus other films such as Dog Day Afternoon, Short Cuts, and City of Hope, prove that city life has become increasingly difficult to stereotype as time moves on.

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