Postmodernist film
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| - | '''Postmodernist film''' is a classification for works that articulate the themes and ideas of [[postmodernism]] through the medium of [[film|cinema]]. Some of the goals of postmodernist film are to subvert the [[mainstream]] [[Convention (norm)|conventions]] of [[narrative structure]] and [[characterization]], and to test the audience's [[suspension of disbelief]].<ref name=Susan1>{{cite journal|title=Generation Pulp|journal=Youth Studies Australia|date=Spring 1995|volume=14|issue=3|pages=14–19|author=Susan Hopkins}}</ref><ref name=Laurent1>{{cite journal|title=Is Cinema Renewing Itself?|journal=Film-Philosophy|volume=6|issue=15|date=July 2002|author=Laurent Kretzschmar}}</ref><ref name=Linda2>{{cite web|url=http://www.library.utoronto.ca/utel/criticism/hutchinp.html |title=Irony, Nostalgia, and the Postmodern |author=Linda Hutcheon|date=January 19, 1998|publisher=University of Toronto English Library}}</ref> Typically, such films also break down the cultural divide between high and low [[art]] and often upend typical portrayals of [[gender]], [[race (classification of humans)|race]], [[Social class|class]], [[genre]], and [[time]] with the goal of creating something that does not abide by traditional narrative expression.<ref>[https://www.thefreelibrary.com/Representing+Postmodern+Marginality+in+Three+Documentary+Films.-a0204861632 Representing Postmodern Marginality in Three Documentary Films. - Free Online Library]</ref> | + | {{Template}} |
| + | '''Postmodernist film''' describes the articulation of ideas of [[postmodernism]] through the [[Film|cinematic medium]]. Postmodernist film upsets the [[mainstream]] [[Convention (norm)|conventions]] of [[narrative structure]] and [[characterization]] and destroys (or, at least, toys with) the audience's [[suspension of disbelief]] to create a work in which a less-recognizable internal logic forms the film's means of expression. | ||
| - | ==Overview of postmodernism== | + | Postmodernism didn't break into cinematic mainstream until the advent of the [[French New Wave]] in the 1950s and 1960s, with such films as [[Jean-Luc Godard]]'s ''[[À bout de souffle]]'' (deeply indebted to [[Bertolt Brecht]]'s [[modernist]] epic theatre with its [[Alienation effect|Verfremdungseffekt or 'defamiliarization effect']]); and in Italy with Antonioni's ''[[L'avventura]]'' (1960) and Fellini's ''[[8 1/2]]'' (1963). [[Luis Buñuel]] and [[Salvador Dalí]]'s [[1928]] surrealist short ''[[Un Chien Andalou]]'' provides an important [[modernist]] precursor, although its extreme deconstruction of structure and character make its meaning almost entirely arbitrary. In order to convey some desired meaning, postmodernist films continue to maintain conventional elements in order for the audience to grasp them. Two such examples are [[Jane Campion]]'s ''Two Friends'', in which the story of two school girls is showed in episodic segments arranged in reverse order; and [[Karel Reisz]]'s ''[[The French Lieutenant's Woman]]'', in which the story being played out on the screen is mirrored in the private lives of the actors playing it, which we also see. |
| - | [[Postmodernism]] is a complex paradigm of different philosophies and artistic styles. The movement emerged as a reaction to high [[modernism]].<ref name=frederic1>{{citation|url=http://classweb.gmu.edu/sandrew3/misc/nlr142jameson_postmodernism.pdf|title=Postmodernism and Consumer Society|author=Frederic Jameson|publisher=George Mason University|access-date=2012-04-18|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111216030504/http://classweb.gmu.edu/sandrew3/misc/nlr142jameson_postmodernism.pdf|archive-date=2011-12-16|url-status=dead}}</ref> [[Modernism]] is a paradigm of thought and viewing the world characterized in specific ways that postmodernism reacted against. Modernism was interested in master and [[meta]] narratives of [[history]] of a teleological nature.<ref name=martin1>{{cite web|url=http://www9.georgetown.edu/faculty/irvinem/theory/pomo.html |title=The Postmodern, Postmodernism, Postmodernity: Approached to Po-Mo|author=Martin Irvine|publisher=Georgetown University}}</ref> Proponents of modernism suggested that sociopolitical and cultural progress was inevitable and important for society and art.<ref name=martin1/><ref name="dragan">{{cite web|url=http://critcrim.org/critpapers/milovanovic_postmod.htm|title=Dueling Paradigms: Modernist v. Postmodern Thought|author=Dragan Milovanovic|publisher=American Society of Criminology}}</ref> Ideas of cultural unity (i.e. the narrative of the West or something similar) and the hierarchies of values of class that go along with such a conception of the world is another marker of modernism.<ref name=frederic1/> In particular, modernism insisted upon a divide between "low" forms of art and "high" forms of art (creating more value judgments and hierarchies).<ref name=frederic1/><ref name="dragan"/> This dichotomy is particularly focused on the divide between official culture and [[popular culture]].<ref name=frederic1/> Lastly but, by no means comprehensively, there was a faith in the "real" and the future and knowledge and the competence of expertise that pervades modernism. At heart, it contained a confidence about the world and humankind's place in it.<ref name=frederic1/> | + | |
| - | Postmodernism attempts to subvert, resist and differ from the preoccupations of modernism across many fields ([[music]], history, art, cinema, etc.). Postmodernism emerged in a time not defined by war or revolution but rather by [[media (communication)|media]] culture.<ref name=Susan1/> Unlike modernism, postmodernism does not have faith in [[metanarrative|master narratives]] of history or [[culture]] or even the [[self]] as an autonomous subject.<ref name=Susan1/><ref name=frederic1/><ref name="dragan"/> Rather postmodernism is interested in contradiction, fragmentation, and instability.<ref name=Susan1/> Postmodernism is often focused on the destruction of hierarchies and boundaries. The mixing of different times and periods or styles of art that might be viewed as "high" or "low" is a common practice in postmodern work.<ref name=Susan1/><ref name=Laurent1/><ref name=Linda2/> This practice is referred to as [[pastiche]].<ref name=Susan1/> Postmodernism takes a deeply subjective view of the world and identity and art, positing that an endless process of signification and signs is where any "meaning" lies.<ref>"Postmodern Allegory and David Lynch's Wild at Heart" ''Critical Art: A South-North Journal of Cultural and Media Studies''; 1995, Vol. 9 Issue 1 by Cyndy Hendershot</ref><ref name=Mary1>{{cite book|title=A Postmodern Cinema|publisher=Scarecrow Press |location=Kent, England |year=2002|author=Mary Alemany-Galway}}</ref> Consequently, postmodernism demonstrates what it perceives as a fractured world, time, and art. | + | By making small but significant changes to the conventions of cinema, the artificiality of the experience and the world presented are emphasised in the audience's mind in order to remove them from the conventional emotional bonds they have to the subject matter, and to give them a new view of it. An example is [[Michael Winterbottom]]'s ''[[24 Hour Party People]]'' in which the character based on [[Tony Wilson]] frequently breaks out of the constructed world of the film and talks directly to the audience straight through the camera lens. Jarring in effect, it conveys the characters' pre-occupation with breaking free of the cultural and economic constructions of the world they live in. |
| - | ==Specific elements== | + | Winterbottom's postmodernist effect, however, is hardly new: [[Federico Fellini]], among other master filmmakers, used it memorably in ''[[Satyricon]]'' (1969) and ''[[Amarcord]]'' (1973). David Lynch's ''[[Mulholland Drive]]'' (2001) exploits postmodernist aesthetics to an unusual degree while [[Quentin Tarantino]]`s [[Pulp Fiction (film)|Pulp Fiction]] is considered one of the finest examples of Postmodernist film. |
| - | Modernist film came to maturity in the eras between [[WWI]] and [[WWII]] with characteristics such as [[montage (filmmaking)|montage]], symbolic imagery, [[expressionism]] and [[surrealism]] (featured in the works of [[Luis Buñuel]], [[Fritz Lang]] and [[Alfred Hitchcock]])<ref>[https://ourpastimes.com/characteristics-of-a-modernist-film-12545688.html Characteristics of a Modernist Film|Our Pasttimes]</ref> while Postmodernist film – similar to [[postmodernism]] as a whole – is a reaction to the modernist works of its field, and to their tendencies (such as nostalgia and angst).<ref>[https://archive.org/details/betz_beyond-the-subtitle-remapping-european-art-cinema Beyond the subtitle: remapping European art cinema: Betz, Mark - Internet Archive (pg.34)]</ref> Modernist cinema, "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."<ref name=woods>''Beginning Postmodernism'', Manchester University Press: 1999 by Tim Woods</ref> The [[auteur]] theory and idea of an author producing a work from his singular vision guided the concerns of modernist film. "To investigate the transparency of the image is modernist but to undermine its reference to reality is to engage with the aesthetics of postmodernism."<ref name="dragan"/><ref>"Reading the Postmodern Image: A Cognitive Mapping," ''Screen'': 31, 4 (Winter 1990) by Tony Wilson</ref> The modernist film has more faith in the author, the individual, and the accessibility of reality itself 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. The idea is that the meaning is often generated most productively through the spaces and transitions and collisions between words and moments and images. [[Henri Bergson]] writes in his book ''[[Creative Evolution (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."<ref>[https://books.google.com/books/about/Creative_evolution.html?id=_DkZAAAAYAAJ ''Creative Evolution'']</ref> The thrust of this argument is that the spaces between the words or the cuts in a film create just as much meaning as the words or scenes themselves. | + | The antithesis of postmodern cinema is [[remodernist film]] in which emphasis is placed on a subjective emotional connection to the film. Remodernism rejects postmodernism because of its perceived "failure to answer or address any important issues of being a human being". This so-called "failure" is debatable. One such remodernist film is [[Jesse Richards]] short ''[[Shooting at the Moon]]''. |
| - | Postmodernist film is often separated from modernist cinema and traditional narrative film<ref>[https://archive.org/details/betz_beyond-the-subtitle-remapping-european-art-cinema Beyond the subtitle: remapping European art cinema: Betz, Mark - Internet Archive (pg.34)]</ref> by three key characteristics. One of them is an extensive use of [[homage (arts)|homage]] or [[pastiche]],<ref name=woods/> resulting from the fact that postmodern filmmakers are open to blending many disparate genres and tones within the same film. 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.<ref name=woods/> A self-referential film calls the viewer's attention – either through [[meta-reference|characters' knowledge of their own fictional nature]], or through visuals – that the movie itself is only a movie. 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 [[nonlinear narrative|unfold out of chronological order]], deconstructing or fragmenting time so as to, once again, highlight the fact that what is appearing on screen is constructed. A third common element is a bridging of the gap between [[highbrow]] and [[low culture|lowbrow]] activities and artistic styles<ref name=Laurent1/><ref name=Linda2/><ref name=woods/> – 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. This would exemplify the fusion of high and low because Michelangelo is widely regarded as one of the greatest of all painters, whereas fast food is commonly named among the lowbrow elements of modern society. | + | These two styles of filmmaking, however, need not be mutually exclusive. Since postmodernism has been absorbed into the contemporary lexicon of filmmakers, it has become just another way to explore themes and characters. |
| - | The use of homage and pastiche can, in and of itself, result in a fusion of high and low. For this reason, homage is sometimes accompanied by characters' value judgments as to the worth and cultural value of the works being parodied, ensuring the viewer understands whether the thing being referenced is considered highbrow or lowbrow. | + | {{GFDL}} |
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| - | Lastly, contradictions of all sorts – whether it be in visual technique, characters' morals, or other things – are crucial to postmodernism, and the two are in many cases irreconcilable. Any theory of postmodern film would have to be comfortable with [[paradox]]es or contradictions of ideas and their articulation.<ref name=Laurent1/><ref name=Mary1/> | + | |
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| - | ==Specific postmodern examples== | + | |
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| - | === ''Once Upon a Time in the West'' === | + | |
| - | [[Sergio Leone]]'s ''[[Once Upon a Time in the West]]'' has often been referred to by critics as an example of a postmodern [[Western (genre)|Western]].<ref>{{Cite web|date=2018-11-26|title=ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST (1968) • Frame Rated|url=https://www.framerated.co.uk/once-upon-time-west-1968/|access-date=2021-01-11|website=Frame Rated|language=en-GB}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|title=50 years, 50 films: Once Upon a Time in the West (1968) {{!}} Screenwriter|url=https://www.irishtimes.com/blogs/screenwriter/2013/08/11/50-years-50-films-once-upon-a-time-in-the-west-1968/|access-date=2021-01-11|website=www.irishtimes.com}}</ref> 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 countless classic American Westerns, and the final movie 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 (film)|Fort Apache]]'' directed by [[John Ford]].<ref>[https://deepfocusreview.com/definitives/once-upon-a-time-in-the-west/ Once Upon a Time in the West (1968) — Deep Focus Review]</ref><ref>[https://www.irishtimes.com/blogs/screenwriter/2013/08/11/50-years-50-films-once-upon-a-time-in-the-west-1968/ 50 years, 50 films: Once Upon a Time in the West (1968)|Screenwriter]</ref><ref>[https://www.loc.gov/static/programs/national-film-preservation-board/documents/once_time_west.pdf Once Upon a Time in the West - Library of Congress]</ref> | + | |
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| - | ===''Blade Runner''=== | + | |
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| - | [[Ridley Scott]]'s ''[[Blade Runner]]'' might be the best known postmodernist film.<ref name=woods/> Ridley 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 that is a common trope in postmodernist cinema. "The futuristic set and action mingle with drab 1940s clothes and offices, [[punk rock]] hairstyles, pop Egyptian style and oriental culture. The population is singularly multicultural and the language they speak is agglomeration of English, Japanese, German and Spanish. The film alludes to the [[private investigator|private eye]] genre of [[Raymond Chandler]] and the characteristics of [[film noir]] as well as [[Biblical]] [[motif (narrative)|motif]]s and images."<ref name=Laurent1/><ref name=woods/> Here is a demonstration of the mixing of cultures and boundaries and styles of art. The film is playing with time (the various types of clothes) and culture and genre by mixing them all together to create the world of the film. The fusion of noir and [[science-fiction]] is another example of the film deconstructing cinema and genre. This is an embodiment of the postmodern tendency to destroy boundaries and genres into a self-reflexive product. | + | |
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| - | ===''Pulp Fiction''=== | + | |
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| - | [[Quentin Tarantino]]'s ''[[Pulp Fiction]]'' is another example of a postmodernist film.<ref>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}}</ref><ref>King, Geoff (2002). ''Film Comedy'' (London: Wallflower Press). {{ISBN|1-903364-35-3}}</ref><ref>Wood, James (November 12, 1994). ''[[The Guardian]]''.</ref> The 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.<ref name=Susan1/><ref name=Laurent1/> This foregrounding of media places the self as "a loose, transitory combination of [[media consumption]] choices."<ref name=Susan1/><ref name=Linda2/> ''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.<ref name=Susan1/> 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. | + | |
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| - | ===Other selected examples=== | + | |
| - | Aside from the aforementioned ''Blade Runner'' and ''Pulp Fiction'', postmodern cinema includes films such as: | + | |
| - | *''[[8 1/2]]'' (1963)<ref>[https://sites.lafayette.edu/fams202-sp15/2015/04/26/8-12-as-a-postmodernist-film/ 8 1/2 as a Postmodernist Film|Critical Film Theory:The Poetics and Politics of Film]</ref> | + | |
| - | *''[[Alphaville (film)|Alphaville]]'' (1965)<ref>[https://www.nybooks.com/daily/2019/01/26/godards-conflagration-of-images/ Godard's Conflagration of Images|by J. Hoberman|The New York Review of Books]</ref> | + | |
| - | *''[[Monty Python and the Holy Grail]]'' (1975)<ref>[http://www.tasteofcinema.com/2014/20-best-postmodernist-movies/ The 20 Best Postmodernist Movies of All Time « Taste of Cinema]</ref> | + | |
| - | *''[[Taxi Driver]]'' (1976)<ref>[http://www.tasteofcinema.com/2014/20-best-postmodernist-movies/ The 20 Best Postmodernist Movies of All Time « Taste of Cinema]</ref> | + | |
| - | *''[[Blue Velvet (film)|Blue Velvet]]'' (1986)<ref name=Laurent1/><ref>[https://sites.google.com/a/fiu.edu/britlitmod/modernism-and-post-modernism-in-pop-culture Modernism and Post-Modernism in Pop Culture - Modernism and Post-Modernism in British Literature]</ref> | + | |
| - | *''[[Barton Fink]]'' (1991)<ref>{{cite web| title = Barton Fink (Joel and Ethan Coen, 1991) • Senses of Cinema |url =http://sensesofcinema.com/2017/cteq/barton-fink/| access-date = 2018-07-30}}</ref><ref>{{cite web| title = The Coen Brothers: The Postmodern Films - Barton Fink - Film Closings |url =http://www.tasteofcinema.com/2017/pulling-focus-barton-fink-1991/| access-date = 2018-07-30}}</ref> | + | |
| - | *''[[Chungking Express]]'' (1994)<ref>[http://www.tasteofcinema.com/2014/20-best-postmodernist-movies/2/ The 20 Best Postmodernist Movies of All Time « Taste of Cinema]</ref> | + | |
| - | *''[[The Big Lebowski]]'' (1998)<ref>[http://www.tasteofcinema.com/2014/20-best-postmodernist-movies/2/ The 20 Best Postmodernist Movies of All Time « Taste of Cinema]</ref> | + | |
| - | *''[[Run Lola Run]]'' (1998)<ref>[http://www.tasteofcinema.com/2014/20-best-postmodernist-movies/2/ The 20 Best Postmodernist Movies of All Time « Taste of Cinema]</ref> | + | |
| - | *''[[The Truman Show]]'' (1998)<ref>[https://www.studiobinder.com/blog/what-is-postmodernism-definition/ What is Postmodernism? Definition and Examples for Filmmakers|StudioBinder]</ref> | + | |
| - | *''[[Fight Club]]'' (1999)<ref>[http://www.tasteofcinema.com/2014/20-best-postmodernist-movies/2/ The 20 Best Postmodernist Movies of All Time « Taste of Cinema]</ref><ref>[https://sites.google.com/a/fiu.edu/britlitmod/modernism-and-post-modernism-in-pop-culture Modernism and Post-Modernism in Pop Culture - Modernism and Post-Modernism in British Literature]</ref> | + | |
| - | *''[[American Beauty (1999 film)|American Beauty]]'' (1999)<ref>[http://www.tasteofcinema.com/2014/20-best-postmodernist-movies/2/ The 20 Best Postmodernist Movies of All Time « Taste of Cinema]</ref> | + | |
| - | *''[[The Blair Witch Project]]'' (1999)<ref>[https://decider.com/2015/10/24/10-best-postmodern-horror-films/ 10 Savvy Postmodern Horror Films That Helped Reinvent The Genre|Decider]</ref> | + | |
| - | *''[[The Matrix]]'' (1999)<ref>{{cite web| title = The Matrix and Postmodernism |url =https://prezi.com/m/ybxwvr21r9lz/the-matrix-and-postmodernism/| access-date = 2012-11-28}}</ref><ref>[https://sites.google.com/a/fiu.edu/britlitmod/modernism-and-post-modernism-in-pop-culture Modernism and Post-Modernism in Pop Culture - Modernism and Post-Modernism in British Literature]</ref> | + | |
| - | *''[[American Psycho (film)|American Psycho]]'' (2000)<ref>[https://decider.com/2015/10/24/10-best-postmodern-horror-films/ 10 Savvy Postmodern Horror Films That Helped Reinvent The Genre|Decider]</ref> | + | |
| - | *''[[Memento (film)|Memento]]'' (2000) <ref>[http://www.tasteofcinema.com/2014/20-best-postmodernist-movies/2/ The 20 Best Postmodernist Movies of All Time « Taste of Cinema]</ref><ref>[https://sites.google.com/a/fiu.edu/britlitmod/modernism-and-post-modernism-in-pop-culture Modernism and Post-Modernism in Pop Culture - Modernism and Post-Modernism in British Literature]</ref> | + | |
| - | *''[[Mulholland Drive (film)|Mulholland Drive]]'' (2001)<ref name=Laurent1/><ref>[https://books.google.com/books/about/Postmodern_Hollywood.html?id=QluEtNUBblUC Postmodern Hollywood: What's New in Film and why it Makes Us Feel So Strange - M. Keith Book - Google Books]</ref> | + | |
| - | *''[[Donnie Darko]]'' (2001)<ref>[http://www.tasteofcinema.com/2014/20-best-postmodernist-movies/3/ The 20 Best Postmodernist Movies of All Time « Taste of Cinema]</ref> | + | |
| - | *''[[Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind]]'' (2004)<ref>[http://www.tasteofcinema.com/2014/20-best-postmodernist-movies/3/ The 20 Best Postmodernist Movies of All Time « Taste of Cinema]</ref> | + | |
| - | *''[[Shaun of the Dead]]'' (2004)<ref>[https://decider.com/2015/10/24/10-best-postmodern-horror-films/ 10 Savvy Postmodern Horror Films That Helped Reinvent The Genre|Decider]</ref> | + | |
| - | *''[[Marie Antoinette (2006 film)|Marie Antoinette]]'' (2006)<ref>[https://books.google.com/books/about/Postmodern_Hollywood.html?id=QluEtNUBblUC Postmodern Hollywood: What's New in Film and why it Makes Us Feel So Strange - M. Keith Book - Google Books]</ref> | + | |
| - | *''[[Synecdoche, New York]]'' (2008)<ref>{{cite web| title = The ultimate postmodern novel is a film |url =https://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2009/may/13/synechdoche-postmodern-novel-film| access-date = 2018-07-30}}</ref> | + | |
| - | *''[[Inception]]'' (2010)<ref>[http://www.tasteofcinema.com/2014/20-best-postmodernist-movies/3/ The 20 Best Postmodernist Movies of All Time « Taste of Cinema]</ref> | + | |
| - | *''[[Her (film)|Her]]'' (2013)<ref>[http://www.tasteofcinema.com/2014/20-best-postmodernist-movies/3/ The 20 Best Postmodernist Movies of All Time « Taste of Cinema]</ref><ref>[https://sites.google.com/a/fiu.edu/britlitmod/modernism-and-post-modernism-in-pop-culture Modernism and Post-Modernism in Pop Culture - Modernism and Post-Modernism in British Literature]</ref> | + | |
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| - | ==See also== | + | |
| - | *[[Remodernist film]], one of the many [[criticism of postmodernism|critical stances against postmodernist cinema]] | + | |
| - | *[[Cinephilia]] | + | |
| - | *[[Art film]] | + | |
| - | *[[New Hollywood]], similar in content | + | |
| - | *[[Social thriller]] | + | |
| - | *[[Vulgar auteurism]] | + | |
| - | *[[Auteur theory]] | + | |
| - | *[[Extreme cinema]] | + | |
| - | *[[Independent film]] | + | |
| - | *[[Hyperlink cinema]] | + | |
| - | *[[Slow cinema]] | + | |
| - | *[[Arthouse action film]] | + | |
| - | *[[Remix culture]] | + | |
| - | *[[American Eccentric Cinema]] | + | |
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| - | ==References== | + | |
| - | {{reflist}} | + | |
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| - | ==External links== | + | |
| - | *[http://www.britishfilm.org.uk/lynch/blue_velvet.html Post-modernism and Authorship in David Lynch's Blue Velvet] | + | |
| - | *[http://www.filmreference.com/encyclopedia/Independent-Film-Road-Movies/Postmodernism-POSTMODERNISM-AND-FILM.html For a comprehensible introduction] | + | |
| - | *[https://web.archive.org/web/20120308174739/http://www.ihabhassan.com/postmodernism_to_postmodernity.htm From Postmodernism to Postmodernity: the Local/Global Context] | + | |
| - | *[http://pages.gseis.ucla.edu/faculty/kellner/pomo/ch1.html In Search of The Postmodern: Chapter 1] | + | |
| - | *[https://philosophyinfilm.com/2017/11/27/10-lesser-known-postmodern-films/ 10 Lesser-Known Postmodern Films|Philosophy in Film] | + | |
| - | *[http://www.onpostmodernism.com/movies Postmodern Movies] and [http://www.onpostmodernism.com/television TV] | + | |
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| - | {{Film genres}} | + | |
| - | {{DEFAULTSORT:Postmodernist Film}} | + | |
| - | [[Category:Postmodern films| ]] | + | |
| - | [[Category:Postmodern works| ]] | + | |
| - | [[Category:Film genres]] | + | |
| - | [[Category:1960s in film]] | + | |
| - | [[Category:1970s in film]] | + | |
| - | [[Category:1980s in film]] | + | |
| - | [[Category:1990s in film]] | + | |
| - | [[Category:2000s in film]] | + | |
| - | [[Category:2010s in film]] | + | |
| - | [[Category:Visual arts]] | + | |
| - | [[Category:Postmodern art]] | + | |
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Postmodernist film describes the articulation of ideas of postmodernism through the cinematic medium. Postmodernist film upsets the mainstream conventions of narrative structure and characterization and destroys (or, at least, toys with) the audience's suspension of disbelief to create a work in which a less-recognizable internal logic forms the film's means of expression.
Postmodernism didn't break into cinematic mainstream until the advent of the French New Wave in the 1950s and 1960s, with such films as Jean-Luc Godard's À bout de souffle (deeply indebted to Bertolt Brecht's modernist epic theatre with its Verfremdungseffekt or 'defamiliarization effect'); and in Italy with Antonioni's L'avventura (1960) and Fellini's 8 1/2 (1963). Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dalí's 1928 surrealist short Un Chien Andalou provides an important modernist precursor, although its extreme deconstruction of structure and character make its meaning almost entirely arbitrary. In order to convey some desired meaning, postmodernist films continue to maintain conventional elements in order for the audience to grasp them. Two such examples are Jane Campion's Two Friends, in which the story of two school girls is showed in episodic segments arranged in reverse order; and Karel Reisz's The French Lieutenant's Woman, in which the story being played out on the screen is mirrored in the private lives of the actors playing it, which we also see.
By making small but significant changes to the conventions of cinema, the artificiality of the experience and the world presented are emphasised in the audience's mind in order to remove them from the conventional emotional bonds they have to the subject matter, and to give them a new view of it. An example is Michael Winterbottom's 24 Hour Party People in which the character based on Tony Wilson frequently breaks out of the constructed world of the film and talks directly to the audience straight through the camera lens. Jarring in effect, it conveys the characters' pre-occupation with breaking free of the cultural and economic constructions of the world they live in.
Winterbottom's postmodernist effect, however, is hardly new: Federico Fellini, among other master filmmakers, used it memorably in Satyricon (1969) and Amarcord (1973). David Lynch's Mulholland Drive (2001) exploits postmodernist aesthetics to an unusual degree while Quentin Tarantino`s Pulp Fiction is considered one of the finest examples of Postmodernist film.
The antithesis of postmodern cinema is remodernist film in which emphasis is placed on a subjective emotional connection to the film. Remodernism rejects postmodernism because of its perceived "failure to answer or address any important issues of being a human being". This so-called "failure" is debatable. One such remodernist film is Jesse Richards short Shooting at the Moon.
These two styles of filmmaking, however, need not be mutually exclusive. Since postmodernism has been absorbed into the contemporary lexicon of filmmakers, it has become just another way to explore themes and characters.
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