Postmodernism Cinema

New HollywoodFilm Foundation Degree

Postmodernism Ideas

Postmodern Ideas• Elevates popular culture• State of simulacrum: Media and reality

distinctions is blurred – Big brother. • Society defined by images and representation

Postmodern Ideas

• No longer anything new to produce or distribute: recycling culture • Feelings or alienation, insecurity,

uncertainties• Society of the spectacle • Three minute culture - MTV• Sense of reality dominated by popular

media images

What does it mean for film studies?

• Range of ways of thinking about a film• Can be used to analyse film style

and production• Advent of a postmodern aesthethic

in film

Lego Movie Trailer

Postmodernist film style

Kill Bill trailer

Intertextuality Fragmentation of linear narrative hybridity Blending high art and

popular culture Parody Pastiche Irony Bricolage Surface style metafiction

Intertextuality

The Scream (1893), Edward Munch

The Persistent to Time (1931), Salavdor Dali

IntertextualityThe multiple ways in which a text is entangled with or contains references to other texts

Intertextuality

• Borrowing and transformation of a prior text on to another • Relies on the audience's

understanding of media texts and pop culture to make a new meaning • Parody and pastiche are examples of

intertextuality

What is the difference between parody and pastiche?

Intertextuality

Parody Pastiche

IntertextualityParodyImitation of another work, artist, or period often with satirical event

IntertextualityPasticheUses imitation as a form of flattery rather than mockery and from plagiarism in its lack of deceptive intent

Parody PasticheImitates the characteristic style of an author or a work for comic effect or ridicule

Uses imitation as a form of tribute rather than mockery

Intertextuality

Analyse and compare the intertextuality of thetrailers Scary Movie and Kill Bill.

Parody or Pastiche?

Parody or Pastiche?

Scary Movie trailer Kill Bill trailer

Parody- Familiarity with a formula plot,

conventions and characters. - Violate genre expectations - Incorporate plot, characters and

conventions of dozens of filmsScary Movie trailer

Pastiche- Mixing and blurring of conventions and

boundaries. - Pays tribute to (imitating ) numerous

genres: pulp novels, blaxploitation, grind house, kung fu and western films

Kill Bill trailer

Discussion: Pastiche – controversial?Viewpoint 1Pastiche is just recycling of art thought of - and that it lacks creativity.

Viewpoint 2 Pastiche has a distinct purpose to put old and new things together to create.

Assembling artifacts from bits and pieces of other things- Genre Cross-over- Recycling old forms- Mixing high and low culture (kitsch)

Look at the following images. Bricolage? Why?

80’sPunks

90s Fashion

2000s Lady Gaga

In what era is the film in set? Look at costume and production design

Amelie trailer

Amelie’s trailer

Kill Bill clip Kill Bill scene

Something heterogeneous - from more than one source - in origin or composition

In one word…

HyperrealityTechnologically created realities are often more authentic or desirable than the real world. Reality and fiction are blended together – no distinction

Hyperreality

"The simulation of something which never really existed." (Baudrillard)

"The authentic fake." (Eco)

Las Vegas

Other examples of hyperreality...

• “Wild ice zest berry“ – flavor that doesn’t exist • A plastic Christmas tree, more real than the

real one• Almost all video games

Illustrate hyperreality in cinema and explainInception infinite steps Truman Shop final scene

Complete this presentation. Research the following postmodernism concepts and use examples to illustrate your points:

• Self-reflectiveness / self-referentiality & metafiction• Altered states• Flattening of affect• More human than human• Time bending

Self-reflectiveness / self referentiality & metafiction

Altered states

Flattening of affect

More human than human

Time Bending