History of Drama Movies
History of Drama Movies
Drama and comedy were the earliest genres of cinema, and they're still the most popular genres today. Comedies entertain us by making us laugh, but dramas entertain us by telling interesting stories. A good drama does more than just tell a good story, however. It makes us care about the characters and feel many emotions. If something good happens we feel like smiling, if something sad happens we feel like crying, and if something bad is done to a character we like we might even feel angry. If we feel emotions like these we'll get involved in the story and find it more entertaining. But dramas can do even more than this. They can also make us think about important issues and teach us important lessons about life and how to live.
There are many different genres of Drama movie and one of the most popular is the mystery genre. In this genre, suspense keeps us anxious while we watch what happens. A classic example is Alfred Hitchcock's Rear Window in which a photographer sees something suspicious through a neighbour's window and then tries to discover what's happened. In many mysteries a private detective is hired to help a client who's in trouble, as in The Long Goodbye and Chinatown. A similar genre is the police drama in which crimes are often investigated by police detectives. Two good examples are In The Heat of the Night about an African American detective who faces racism while investigating a murder, and Mystic River in which something terrible happens while police are trying to solve a serious crime.
A popular genre that focuses on criminals rather than the police is the gangster movie. Francis Ford Coppola's famous gangster series that begins with The Godfather is about an Italian-American crime family while Martin Scorsese's Goodfellas is about low-level gangsters who work for the mafia. Movies about gangsters and other criminals can also be called crime dramas, and one of the most violent crime dramas is 1983's Scarface in which Al Pacino plays the part of a brutal cocaine dealer. One of the most realistic crime dramas is City of God, a powerful film about teenage drug dealers in a Brazilian slum, while dramas like Drugstore Cowboy and The Basketball Diaries teach us about the dangers of using hard drugs. But not all crime dramas are as serious as these. American director Quentin Tarantino has made highly-acclaimed crime dramas like Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction and the Kill Bill series that mix drama, action and comedy in exciting new ways.
