Class Notes

05.11.2012

Blade runner as a postmodern text:

• Decard is white American Male - conforming to stereotypical views of a "hero" or protagonist

• Technology is percieves as negative - due to replicars being "out fo control" etc...

• Decard reads the newspaper - why isnt he getting information through technology? - old fashioned.

• Sci fi film - technology and narrative - confusion of cultures: noodle scene; speaks to chinese man in english and ge doesnt understand

• Film Noir genre features: typical protagonist, setting (busy city)m cvlimax (industrial setting), lighiting is dark (typical shot using blinds as shadows etc...)

• Generic Hybridity due to mixture of genres...

 

 

 

02.10.2012

What makes films postmodern?

Postmodernist film attempts to subvert the mainstream conventions of narrative structure, characterization and destroys (or, at least, toys with) the audience's suspension of disbelief. It might also disfigure typical portrayals of gender, race, class, genre, and time with the goal of creating something different from traditional narratives.

Features that are often shown in postmodern films are:

·         Intertextuality – when one media references another

·         Parody – mocking something in an original and comical way

·         Pastiche – an artistic work in a style that imitates another work, artist or period. This is self-conscious imitation

·         Bricolage – mixing up and using different genres and styles – ‘Shaun of the Dead’ is a mixture between zombie horror and comedy and romantic comedy.

·         Homage – imitation from a respectful standpoint, for example the remake of Psycho in 1998 was imitating Psycho from 1960

·         Blurring of boundaries – distinctions between the past and the present are blurred/unclear due to the lack of structure or chronological order in the story.

·         Mediatisation – the way television and the media causes a loss of history by changing historical events to make them ‘retro’

Examples of postmodern films:

- Pulp fiction
- Blade runner
- The matrix
- Looper
- Kick ass

 

 

 

 

10.09.2012

Post modern texts are:
-ironic
-black comedy
-magic realism (looks like animation but is real)
- intertextuality

Definitions of postmodernism:
- A general and wide ranging term that is applioed to many diciplines.
- 'Post' means to come after. In other words, a thought that comes after a modernistic thought.
- Post modernists attitude is playful with a sense of history.
- Post modernists dont like big narratives - "increduility toward metanarrative". E.g. science, religion, ways of thinking how the world works.
- So, modernists view the world as scientific, religion and purpose. But Post modernists dont believe this, they think the world is identified through langugae. 

Main Theorists:

- Lyotard
- Baudrillard
- Jameson 

ALL OFFER INTERPRETATIONS OF POSTMODERNISM.

• Jean Francois Lyotard - be skeptical of what you believe as the truth e.g. science, religion.
• Jean Baudrillard - there is no difference between reality and its representing image of 'simulacrum'. The surface value is everything, e.g. the look is more important than the meaning or story.
• Frederic Jameson - postmodernism is a development of modernism. He is a marxist. Believes media can white-wash, erase historical depth by creating products e.g. films that change the meaning or view on a historical event. 

Key Concepts of the theory:

- generic blurring

- intertextuality and bricolage

- playfulness e.g. parody and pastiche

- hyperreality

- eclecticism

- death of representation

- uncertainty and the loss of context. 

Post modernism explanations:
- Language changes the meaning of things - calling a chair a 'pipe' means it is a pipe. 

- Everyone has different interpretations of reality, which means the truth is vague and changing.