Film and postmodernism

Key concept approach -
. Generic blurring
. Intertexuality
. Playfulness - parody, pastiche
. Hypereality etc.

Audience:

Alain J.-J. Cohen has identified a new phenomenon in the history of film, the ‘hyper-spectator’. ‘Such spectator, who may have a deep knowledge of cinema, can reconfigure both the films themselves and filmic fragments into new and novel forms of both cinema and spectatorship, making use of the vastly expanded access to films arrived at through modern communications equipment and media. The hyper-spectator is, at least potentially, the material (which here means virtual) creator of his or her hyper-cinematic experience’ (157)

‘VCRs and laserdisc-players or newer DVDs have produced, and are still producing, a Gutenberg-type of revolution in relation to the moving image.’

Anne Friedberg has argued that because we now have much control of how we watch a film (through video/dvd), and we increasingly watch film in personal spaces (the home) rather than exclusively in public places, ‘cinema and televison become readable as symptoms of a “postmodern condition”, but as contributing causes.’ In other words, we don’t just have films that are about postmodernism or reflect postmodern thinking. Films have helped contribute to the postmodern quality of life by manipulating and playing around with our conventional understanding of time and space. ‘One can literally rent another space and time when one borrows a videotape to watch on a VCR….the VCR allows man to organize a time which is not his own…a time which is somewhere else – and to capture it.’

Anne Friedberg: ‘The cinema spectator and the armchair equivalent – the home-video viewer, who commands fast forward, fast reverse, and many speeds of slow motion, who can easily switch between channels and tape; who is always to repeat, replay, and return – is a spectator lost in but also in control of time. The cultural apparatuses of television and the cinema have gradually become causes for what is now…described as the postmodern condition.’

Institution:

Convention:

Typically, such films also break down the cultural divide between high and low art and often overturn typical portrayals of gender, race, class, genre, and time with the goal of creating something different from traditional narrative expression.

Representation:
Some representations associated with film and postmodernity:
Meta-textual-ism - characters are aware they are characters
Other Realism elements become fluid, such as time (plot)
Perhaps the major feature of Postmodern works are their emphasis on play or games. 

Post-Modernism Session1 from kingedmedia

Film Case Study - Maleficent

Key scenes:

These scenes include intertextual references to the original Disney movie, meaning the scenes are very similar...
- Maleficent visiting the castle and approaching the king (Aurora's father)
- Maleficent has the same type of powers (this can be seen by the green glow in both Maleficent and the original film)
- Both films also include scenes of Sleeping Beauty becoming friends with animals/creatures within the forest
- Of course, Aurora sleeping and touching the spinning wheel by being cursed are included in both as these are significant parts of the original tale
- The dark forest forming around the castle as part of the curse
- The dragon towards the end of the film

Postmodernism - Film Case Study

 Maleficent, a film about the untold story of the villain in Sleeping Beauty, is an example of a postmodern film due to many factors. Maleficent includes many intertextual references which is a main convention within postmodernity. For example, it is based on the famous Disney Film Sleeping Beauty although it focuses in on a completely different character. This portrays how the film is using past ideas to create a new story and in some way has recycled the fairy-tale to produce a new film. Maleficent can also been seen as pastiche for similar reasons as it imitates the work of another Disney film; clearly it uses the same or similar characters from the original Sleeping Beauty as well as locations and buildings.

 The film also includes a sense of hyper reality through the way it is presented. This is another well-known convention of postmodernity and refers to the inability to distinguish between what is real and what is not. The film is based on a myth created in a realistic landscape however the landscape is in fact not real and is magical made-up land. These specific scenes in the movie have been edited in order to appear real to the view, therefore creating the sense of hyper reality.

 More obviously Maleficent is also very artificial. This is because it uses CGI in order to create mystical characters that the viewer would never see in real life. For example, Maleficent herself is very mystical due to her features including her stunning black wings. This also emphasises the fact it is a fairy-tale as sometimes postmodern films like to draw attention to the fact that they are fictitious. However, the use of CGI is to make fairy tales such as these look believable to the audience – making the audience engage more with the characters and what is happening in the film. This describes how technology in particular is important within the world of postmodernity.

 One of the other main conventions of postmodernism is that is questions any claim to moral truth. This is cleverly expressed within Maleficent as it is somewhat harder to identify the hero and villain than it was in the original tale. In a way, the movie producers are attempting to subvert objective moral categories, highlighting how postmodern films can be challenging. Compared to Sleeping Beauty where the audience easily recognises Maleficent as the evil and heartless villain, in Maleficent they see much more complicated approaches towards the character. For example, in the scene where her wings are taken from her by her own childhood friend, the viewer automatically sympathises with the character suggesting that in fact she is the victim, not the villain.  Throughout the film the audience is urged to witness the story from a different perspective to understand why Maleficent went ahead with the things she did. In the end, she is seen as both a hero and a villain; this also explains a character who appears to be disconnect from their environment – another convention of postmodern films.

Film and Postmodernity

Postmodernism as a style is described as a renewed appreciation for popular culture that often remixes other art works and pop culture in order to create something new. 

Postmodern films may play like a collage of tropes and stereotypes, and may mix different forms of media (such as animated sequences) and could integrate an element of melodrama played as camp. For example, '500 Days of Summer' is a postmodern film due to its nonlinear storyline, and the way it plays on to and subverts tropes of love stories. It serenades popular music culture through its musical number and the way it uses music to advance the plot – “You like the Smiths?” — although it plays the emotion straight instead of going for camp. Postmodernist films attempt to subvert the mainstream conventions of narrative structure, characterization and destroys (or toys with) the audience's suspension of disbelief.

Conventions of postmodern films:

- They often draw attention to the fact they're fictitious e.g. characters will talk directly to the camera

- They often rearrange or disrupt linear narratives and use circular ones and open ended closures.

- They often involve characters that feel alienated or disconnected from their environment and distrust authorities.

Landmark examples of postmodern film: The birth of late capitalism (1973), the postmodern condition being published (1979) etc.

Postmodernism applied to film has four main concepts to think about:

-Simulation- taking what has been made, and reusing it. -Through pastiche: intentionally replicated style. -Through parody: drawing irony from styles to make new styles

-Pre-fabrication- similar to simulation, draws even closer to already existing and noticeable scenes, and simply reuses them, in narrative, dialogue, etc.

-Intertextuality- similar to prefabrication, it’s a text that draws upon other texts. The clearest example is the blatant remake.

-Bricolage- building a film like a collage of different film styles and genres

Postmodern films treat the audience as all knowing because of the intertextual references they include therefore they are active viewers, not passive.

Some say that postmodern films are meaningless because it adds nothing to analytical and empirical knowledge. It has also been said that postmodern society is associated with moral relativism and contributes to deviant (different) behaviour.

Postmodern film didn't break into mainstream until the 'French New Wave' in the 1950s and 60s although it was a popular movement in theatre.