Black Boys : The Social Aesthetics of British Urban Film

Black Boys is the first dedicated analysis that explores the emergence and allure of the Black urban film genre for filmmakers, broadcasters and audiences in the contemporary British mediascape. Clive Nwonka draws on film studies, sociological and media studies perspectives, while also looking at the historical context. This book illuminates how filmic, socio-political and media relations and modes of production are intertwined with political, legislative and cultural agendas within film industry and public service broadcasting frameworks. Nwonka also examines a range of case studies of key films from the urban genre such as Attack the Block and Bullet Boy to provide a strong textual analysis of the films in question, including discussions of architecture and space, allegory, crime discourses and popular music. Black Boys poses empirical questions not only of what constitutes British Urban Cinema, but whether inherited understandings of the genre, however defined, can present an authentic analysis of the social, cultural and political realities of Britain s urban youth within film culture.