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.