“Are You Talking to Me?”—New York and the Cinema of Urban Alienation

Abstract

ABSTRACT New York is a city in which a substantial number of films depicting urban alienation have been set and filmed, although New York films are neither exclusively nor exhaustive of such films. The conditions for alienation derive from several aspects of urbanism also addressed in this essay. This subject deals with the social and psychological estrangement that is often reflected in antisocial behavior in the City, but may also be an expression of idiosyncratic and esoteric lifestyle choices that result in an urban menagerie of rich and varied social types and groups, among them rogues and loners, and urban cowboys. The deepest problems of modern life flow from the attempt of the individual to maintain the independence and individuality of his existence against the sovereign powers of society, against the weight of the historical heritage and the external culture and technique of life. Georg Simmel, The Metropolis and Modern Life [1903]