Postmodernist film is a classification for works that articulate the themes and ideas of postmodernism through the medium of cinema. Some of the goals of postmodernist film are to subvert the mainstream conventions of narrative structure and characterization, and to test the audience's suspension of disbelief.[1][2][3] Typically, such films also break down the cultural divide between high and lowart and often upend typical portrayals of gender, race, class, genre, and time with the goal of creating something that does not abide by traditional narrative expression.[4]
Specific elementsedit
Modernist film came to maturity in the era between WWI and WWII with characteristics such as montage and symbolic imagery, and often took the form of expressionist cinema and surrealist cinema (as seen in the works of Fritz Lang and Luis Buñuel)[5] while postmodernist film – similar to postmodernism as a whole – is a reaction to the modernist works and to their tendencies (such as nostalgia and angst).[6] Modernist cinema has been said to have "explored and exposed the formal concerns of the medium by placing them at the forefront of consciousness. Modernist cinema questions and made visible the meaning-production practices of film."[7] The auteur theory and idea of an author creating a work from their singular vision was a cultural advancement that coincided with the further maturation of modernist cinema. It has been said that "To investigate the transparency of the image is modernist but to undermine its reference to reality is to engage with the aesthetics of postmodernism."[8][9] The modernist film has more faith in the author, the individual, and the accessibility of reality itself (and is generally more sincere in tone[10]) than the postmodernist film.
Postmodernism is in many ways interested in the liminal space that would be typically ignored by more modernist or traditionally narrative offerings. Henri Bergson writes in his book Creative Evolution, "The obscurity is cleared up, the contradiction vanishes, as soon as we place ourselves along the transition, in order to distinguish states in it by making cross cuts therein in thoughts. The reason is that there is more in the transition than the series of states, that is to say, the possible cuts--more in the movement than the series of position, that is to say, the possible stops."[11]
Postmodernist film is often separated from modernist cinema and traditional narrative film[6] by three key characteristics. One of them is an extensive use of homage or pastiche.[7] The second element is meta-reference or self-reflexivity, highlighting the construction and relation of the image to other images in media and not to any kind of external reality.[7] A self-referential film calls the viewer's attention – either through characters' knowledge of their own fictional nature, or through visuals – that the film itself is only a film. This is sometimes achieved by emphasizing the unnatural look of an image which seems contrived. Another technique used to achieve meta-reference is the use of intertextuality, in which the film's characters reference or discuss other works of fiction. Additionally, many postmodern films tell stories that unfold out of chronological order, deconstructing or fragmenting time so as to highlight the fact that what is appearing on screen is constructed. A third common element is a bridging of the gap between highbrow and lowbrow activities and artistic styles[2][3][7] – e.g., a parody of Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel ceiling in which Adam is reaching for a McDonald's burger rather than the hand of God. The use of homage and pastiche can, in and of itself, result in a fusion of high and low art.
Lastly, contradictions of all sorts – whether it be in visual technique, characters' morals, etc. – are crucial to postmodernism.[2][12]
Specific postmodern examplesedit
Once Upon a Time in the Westedit
Sergio Leone's Once Upon a Time in the West has often been referred to by critics as an example of a postmodern Western.[13][14] The 1968 spaghetti Western revolves around a beautiful widow, a mysterious gunslinger playing a harmonica, a ruthless villain, and a lovable but hard-nosed bandit who just escaped from jail. The story was developed by Leone, Bernardo Bertolucci, and Dario Argento by watching classic American Westerns, and the final product is a deliberate attempt to both pay homage to and subvert Western genre conventions and audience expectations. Among the most notable examples of intertextuality are the plot similarities to Johnny Guitar, the visual reference to High Noon of a clock stopped at high noon in the middle of a gunfight, and the casting of Henry Fonda as the story's sadistic antagonist which was a deliberate subversion of Fonda's image as a hero established in such films as My Darling Clementine and Fort Apache, both directed by John Ford.[15][16][17]
Blade Runneredit
Ridley Scott's Blade Runner might be the best-known postmodernist film.[7] Scott's 1982 film is about a future dystopia where "replicants" (human cyborgs) have been invented and are deemed dangerous enough to hunt down when they escape. There is tremendous effacement of boundaries between genres and cultures, and styles that are generally more separate, along with the fusion of disparate styles and times, a common trope in postmodernist cinema.[2][7] The fusion of noir and science-fiction is another example of the film deconstructing cinema and genre.[10] This embodies the postmodern tendency to destroy boundaries and genres into a self-reflexive product. The 2017 Academy Award-winning sequel Blade Runner 2049 also tackled postmodern anxieties.[18]
Pulp Fictionedit
Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction is another example of a postmodernist film.[19][20][21][10] The Palme d'Or-winning film tells the interweaving stories of gangsters, a boxer, and robbers. The 1994 film breaks down chronological time and demonstrates a particular fascination with intertextuality: bringing in texts from both traditionally "high" and "low" realms of art.[1][2] This foregrounding of media places the self as "a loose, transitory combination of media consumption choices."[1][3]Pulp Fiction fractures time (by the use of asynchronous time lines) and by using styles of prior decades and combining them together in the movie.[1] By focusing on intertextuality and the subjectivity of time, Pulp Fiction demonstrates the postmodern obsession with signs and subjective perspective as the exclusive location of anything resembling meaning.
Other selected examplesedit
Aside from the aforementioned Once Upon a Time in the West, the Blade Runner sequels and Pulp Fiction, postmodern cinema includes films such as:
^ abcHutcheon, Linda (January 19, 1998). "Irony, Nostalgia, and the Postmodern". University of Toronto English Library.
^"Representing Postmodern Marginality in Three Documentary Films. - Free Online Library". www.thefreelibrary.com.
^"Characteristics of a Modernist Film". Our Pastimes.
^ abBetz, Mark (March 23, 2009). "Beyond the subtitle : remapping European art cinema". Minneapolis : University of Minnesota Press – via Internet Archive.
^ abcdefBeginning Postmodernism, Manchester University Press: 1999 by Tim Woods
^Milovanovic, Dragan (15 March 2009). "Dueling Paradigms: Modernist v. Postmodern Thought". American Society of Criminology.
^"Reading the Postmodern Image: A Cognitive Mapping," Screen: 31, 4 (Winter 1990) by Tony Wilson
^ abcdefghijklmnWhy Do Movies Feel So Different Now? - Thomas Flight on YouTube
^Bergson, Henri; Mitchell, Arthur (March 23, 1911). Creative Evolution. H. Holt. ISBN 9780827421110 – via Google Books.
^Alemany-Galway, Mary (2002). A Postmodern Cinema. Kent, England: Scarecrow Press.
^"ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST (1968) • Frame Rated". Frame Rated. 2018-11-26. Retrieved 2021-01-11.
^"50 years, 50 films: Once Upon a Time in the West (1968) | Screenwriter". www.irishtimes.com. Retrieved 2021-01-11.
^"Once Upon a Time in the West (1968) – Deep Focus Review – Movie Reviews, Critical Essays, and Film Analysis".
^"50 years, 50 films: Once Upon a Time in the West (1968) | Screenwriter". www.irishtimes.com.
^"Once Upon a Time in the West - Library of Congress" (PDF). Library of Congress.
^"Blade Runner 2049" proves Denis Villeneuve as the closest we have to a modern-day Kubrick - Highlander
^Tincknell, Estella (2006). "The Soundtrack Movie, Nostalgia and Consumption", in Film's Musical Moments, ed. Ian Conrich and Estella Tincknell (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press). ISBN 0-7486-2344-2
^King, Geoff (2002). Film Comedy (London: Wallflower Press). ISBN 1-903364-35-3
^Weekly, Fort Worth (February 11, 2015). "Love Jones".
^Henderson, Eric (November 17, 2005). "DVD Review: The Looney Tunes Movie Collection on Warner Home Video". Slant Magazine.
^"The Looney Tunes Golden Collection (DVD)". The A.V. Club. 11 November 2003.
^ abcdefghijk"The Case for Douglas Sirk as the First Postmodern Filmmaker". Collider. September 11, 2021.
^Bruce Conner: In the Estheticization of Violence - Google Books (pg.8)
^Whelan, Nicola. "Place, Memory and History: A Construction of Subjectivity in Alain Resnais and Marguerite Duras' 'Hiroshima Mon Amour'". NCAD – via www.academia.edu.
^ abcdA Primer on Postmodernism - Google Books (pg.33)
^Anastasova, Maria (Oct 12, 2018). The Suspense of Horror and the Horror of Suspense. Cambridge Scholars Publishing. ISBN 9781527519046. Retrieved Feb 2, 2023 – via Google Books.
^ abConnie Field's 'The Life and Times of Rosie the Riveter'|International Documentary Association
^8 European Film Movements You Should Know - The Odyssey Online
^As Delightful As It Insufferable: On the Complex Joy of Diva - Roger Ebert
^ abcThe Postmodern Presence - Google Books (pg.157)
^Arnzen, Michael A. (Feb 2, 1994). "Who's Laughing now? The Postmodern Splatter Film". Journal of Popular Film and Television. 21 (4): 176–184. doi:10.1080/01956051.1994.9943985. Retrieved Feb 2, 2023 – via www.academia.edu.
^Willett, Cynthia (1996). "Baudrillard, "After Hours", and the Postmodern Suppression of Socio-Sexual Conflict". Cultural Critique (34): 143–161. doi:10.2307/1354615. JSTOR 1354615 – via JSTOR.
^Historical Dictionary of Postmodernist Literature and Theater - Google Books (pg.346)
^Ten Must-See 80s Sci-Fi And Fantasy Films|AMC Talk|AMC
^‘The Princess Bride’: Revisiting Rob Reiner and William Goldman’s Paean to Pure Storytelling|The Film Stage
^RIP William Goldman, creator of beloved film, The Princess Bride - Ars Technica
^FUNNY `INNERSPACE` DOMESTICATES ROGUE DIRECTOR – Chicago Tribune
^Caldwell, David; Rea, Paul W. (1991). "Handke's and Wenders's Wings of Desire: Transcending Postmodernism". The German Quarterly. 64 (1): 46–54. doi:10.2307/407304. JSTOR 407304 – via JSTOR.
^MUBI on Twitter: "A postmodern cult classic from Indian filmmaker Kamal Swaroop."
^10 Films To Watch When You’re Stoned - High On Films
^Postmodernity and the city: Blade Runner, Dark City, Akira - High on Films
^"30 years later and Beetlejuice is still the ghost with the most". Mar 30, 2018. Retrieved Feb 2, 2023.
^ abA Primer on Postmodernism - Google Books (pg.32)
^David and David at the Movies: Sorry to Bother You - Indiana University Cinema
^ abcdefghijkPostmodern Chick Flicks: The Return of the Woman's Film - Google Books
^Bruyn, Dirk de. "Coming in from the Culled: A Review of A Postmodern Cinema: The Voice of the Other in Canadian Film by Mary Alemany-Galway – Senses of Cinema".
^New Working-class Studies - Google Books (pg.160)
^ abcdefgRoddis, Zach. "20 Great Postmodern Films You Should Watch".
^Tavasoli, Sara (May 22, 2015). "Postmodernism in". Research in Contemporary World Literature. 20 (1): 23–39. doi:10.22059/jor.2015.54213 – via jor.ut.ac.ir.
^"Postmodern Need Not Mean Post-Human: Abbas Kiarostami and the Paradox of Cinema". The Village Voice. July 5, 2016.
^Gremlins 2: The New Batch (1990) Movie Review from Eye for Film
^Watch: In-Depth Dissection Of The Coens' Postmodernism|The Playlist
^"Barton Fink (Joel and Ethan Coen, 1991) • Senses of Cinema". Retrieved 2018-07-30.
^"The Coen Brothers: The Postmodern Films - Barton Fink - Film Closings". Retrieved 2018-07-30.
^ abcPalmer, Joy (December 1, 2000). "Conventionalizing the Postmodern". Film-Philosophy. 4 (1). doi:10.3366/film.2000.0001 – via Edinburgh University Press Journals.
^ŽiŽek, Slavoj. "The Double Life of Véronique: The Forced Choice of Freedom". The Criterion Collection.
^ abcLedingham, John. "10 Great Postmodern Sci-fi Movies To Blow Your Mind".
^Postmodernism in the Cinema - Google Books (pg.45)
^REVIEWER, M. FAUST NEWS BOOK REVIEWER, M. FAUST NEWS CONTRIBUTING. "A FIRST MOVIE WITH PLENTY OF BITE QUENTIN TARANTINO LETS 'RESERVOIR DOGS' DO THE TALKING FOR HIM". Buffalo News.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
^Arnold Schwarzenegger's Experimental Postmodern Film That Almost Worked - Collider
^'The Nightmare Before Christmas' (PG) - The Washington Post
^ abcdefRoddis, Zach. "20 Great Postmodern Films You Should Watch".
^Dudková, Jana (March 23, 2013). "An Image of Recurrent Time: Notes on Cinematic Image and the Gaze in Béla Tarr?s Sátántangó". Human Affairs. 23 (1): 21–31. doi:10.2478/s13374-013-0103-y. S2CID 144067281 – via PhilPapers.
^ abcdefDeo, Kanishka. "The 20 Best Postmodernist Movies of All Time".
^Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer - Google Books (pg.121)
^FALLEN ANGELS | Cleveland Institute of Art College of Art | 800.223.4700
^"Emir Kusturica's "Underground," text version". www.ejumpcut.org.
^"Is Narrative Overrated? Finding New Ways to Engage With Cinema". the-artifice.com.
^ abcd"10 Savvy Postmodern Horror Films That Helped Reinvent The Genre". October 24, 2015.
^Schizopolis and the Chaos of American Suburban Living|25YL
^20 Great Postmodern Films You Should Watch - Taste of Cinema
^Chang, Kai-man (2008). "Gender Hierarchy and Environmental Crisis in Tsai Ming-liang's "The Hole"". Film Criticism. 33 (1): 25–44. JSTOR 24777368 – via JSTOR.
^Escaping the Panopticon: Utopia, Hegemony, and Performance in Peter Weir's The Truman Show - Dusty Lavoie - jstor
^ abA Retrospective of the 50s through Postmodern Cinema - Google Books (pg.125)
^Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai - The Criterion Channel
^Revising the Postmodern American Road Movie: David Lynch's The Straight Story on JSTOR
^"The Matrix and Postmodernism". Retrieved 2012-11-28.
^ abcThe 20 Best Postmodernist Movies of All Time « Taste of Cinema
^Dancer in the Dark (2000): Von Trier’s Cannes Fest Top Prize-Winning Film Starring Bjork|Emanuel Levy
^"The Postcolonial Self and the Other in Béla Tarr's Werckmeister Harmonies".
^ abcdefgBooker, M. Keith (March 23, 2007). "Postmodern Hollywood: what's new in film and why it makes us feel so strange". Praeger – via Open WorldCat.
^It's Such a Beautiful Day — Brattle Theatre Film Notes
^ abBooker, M. Keith (March 23, 2007). Postmodern Hollywood: What's New in Film and why it Makes Us Feel So Strange. Praeger. ISBN 9780275999018 – via Google Books.
^ abcdDeo, Kanishka. "The 20 Best Postmodernist Movies of All Time".
^"Film releases: All About Lily Chou-Chou". the Guardian. August 30, 2002.
^"Views of Modern and Postmodern Tokyo: Dehumanization, Urban and Body Changes". ResearchGate.
^O'Hehir, Andrew (November 9, 2002). ""Far From Heaven"". Salon.
^"Unhappily ever after". the Guardian. March 1, 2003.
^"All That the Neighbors Allow: Todd Haynes's FAR FROM HEAVEN | Cinematheque". cinema.wisc.edu.
^The Quietus|Film|Film Features|Modern Masterpiece: 20 Years Of 24 Hour Party People
^ abcdefCinema Studies: The Key Concepts - Google Books (pg.289)
^Between Comedy and Kitsch: Kitano's Zatoichi and Kurosawa's Traditions of "Jidaigeki" Comedies by Rie Karatsu, Massey University, New Zealand
^The Humanity of 2000s Postmodernist Cinema - Flip Screen
^ abcdef"Elements of Mise en Scene in Postmodern Cinema". December 22, 2016.
^ abcdBoggs, Carl; Pollard, Tom (March 1, 2001). "Postmodern Cinema and Hollywood Culture in an Age of Corporate Colonization". Democracy & Nature. 7 (1): 159–181. doi:10.1080/10855660020028818 – via Taylor and Francis+NEJM.
^ abcd“New Hollywood” and the 60s Melting Pot|Jonathan Rosenbaum
^ abcdHaider, Asad. "Me and You and Everyone We Know: The Postmodern Happiness of the Contemporary Art Film – Senses of Cinema".
^Hassannia, Tina (December 11, 2013). "The Nature of Truth: Errol Morris's The Thin Blue Line". Slant Magazine.
^Dilley, Whitney Crothers (August 23, 2017). "The Cinema of Wes Anderson: Bringing Nostalgia to Life". Wallflower Press – via Columbia University Press.
^Book cover Postmodernism, Parody and Smart Cinema: Case Studies of Lynch, Tarantino and Soderbergh|SpringerLink
^"The Evolution of Pedro Almodóvar". The New Yorker. November 28, 2016.