LANDER, THE CREATOR: GENRE RESEARCH: Drama

TW: Some cringe yet good drama movies explained

Let's talk about dramas, that genre that always manages to catch the audience's eye. If I'm being honest, this is my least favorite genre, because I don't like drama at all in any type of way, but what better way to learn and maybe change my perspective on this genre by doing research about it?

The drama genre was and still is pretty popular today. It is such an impactful genre that even some directors rather write dramas than write anything else, these directors choose to do this because some of their movies have done pretty well on the screen. Some examples of these directors are Woody Allen, Damien Chazelle, and Juan Antonio Bayona. Since we never talked about what drama was, this genre depends mostly on the in-depth development of realistic characters dealing with emotional themes that are often lived by people in real life. In Dramatic movies, we see a lot of different themes like: Drug addiction, Alcoholism, infidelity, moral problems, sexuality, class divisions, poverty, racial problems, and others. These themes are key to the films since they are what puts the character into conflict with society and themselves, which is usually the plot of the movie. Moreover, drama is also one of the broadest genres in the film industry, these subgenres are romantic dramas, sports films, drama, and crimes. The target audience for these films are often the young to middle-aged community for which it is marketed. These pieces span a variety of ages that fall between 13 and 15 years old and it offers something all the way to people in their 20 or 30s or over, due to its often strong script language. A solid case of a cutting edge dramatization film that earned over $446 million is La Land, made by Chazelle, which engaged this gathering of individuals.

Often in these films, the main role is owned by one character or a set of 2 characters no matter the gender. The plot of the drama genre varies from romance to social inequality as stated before, there are other themes as well. Regardless of the plot, the constant in these movies are the realistic scenarios that are generated. The plot and characters take what is happening around them as a possible situation, regardless of whether the world or characters are fictional, and that determines how they behave. Almost like if Lukes Skywalker from "Star Wars" would pull out a lightsaber on you, the audience does not stand and stare at the idea, they take it as a threat instead.

Drama productions also appear to use certain techniques. The use of dialogue as the center of a film benefits from all these film strategies. In many drama films, the driving points are not fast-paced and they let the dialogue decide what will happen in the scenes and with this, the speed of it in the film will change accordingly. The movie After that was recently released is an excellent example of this, the scene is intimate since they're both alone and we can see both of their intentions.

Although these scenes are incredible examples of these certain techniques, these famous techniques would not be used if it wasn't for how these films are marketed. Usually, the marketing campaigns often consist of propaganda or trailers, one can watch these before the movie is released to get a headstart on what you're going to be watching soon. Another form of marketing is posters, every time people go to a movie theater, the first thing you want to see are the new movies posters, which often include the main characters and their relationship. In the picture below we can see the two main characters of the movie 'call me by your name" both, Timothee Chalamett (Elio) and Armi Hammer (Oliver) are very close and this conveys the relationship of both characters in the movie.

SAMPLES:

THE UPSIDE

The upside is a Comedy/Drama movie released in 2017 and was directed by Neil Burger. This movie consists of a white paralyzed but wealthy man who did not saw any point in keep going with his life in life but stumbles upon a great friendship. An African American with a criminal record that changes his perspective in life completely. The white man" Philip" hires "Del" to take care of him and they both try to live life to the fullest. An unlikely relationship begins to blossom, despite coming from two separate worlds, as Dell and Phillip rediscover the joy of living life. The characters in this movie are very realistic, as we see how freely they both live their lives together and enjoy each other's company while learning to live. As we can see this film includes problems of real-life that not everyone lives, so the audience gets to see the problems of a paralyzed person with a kind heart that is willing to help an African American, who wants their family back. This film is very eventful, yet very easy to watch, the audience sees all the adventures both of the characters go through, and although it is quite slow, it has its sped up moments.

ROCKETMAN

Rocketman is a 2019 film that was directed by Dexter Fletcher and falls into the category of a Musical Drama. This movie is basically about the life of the iconic Elton John, whose character was played by Taron Egerton and was nominated and won a Golden Globe for best actor. In this movie, we can see all the struggles Elton went through in his life, at first living in London, where no one in his family believed in him, and his success, then his life living in the States. He wrote and recorded all his music, it shows how great of a lyricist he is. Elton starts to find himself through his music and course drugs. Drugs and Alcohol are a common theme in dramatic films, as well as sexuality and in this movie, we see the reality of Elton's life as an artist who was in a horrible place thanks to the drugs and alcohol. Although we see him overcome himself and become sober until the present day. This movie has a very interesting plot because it's fast and entertaining thanks to the musical touch it has, and although it only focuses mainly on Elton, the secondary characters are greatly shown as the movie goes on.