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Postmodernist film

Film genre

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  • 5 chapters

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Specific elements

Modernist film came to maturity in the era between WWI and WWII with characteristics such as montage and symbolic imagery, and often took the form of expressionist cinema and surrealist cinema (as seen in the works of Fritz Lang and Luis Buñuel) while postmodernist film – similar to postmodernism as a whole – is a reaction to the modernist works and to their tendencies (such as nostalgia and angst). Modernist cinema has been said to have "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." The auteur theory and idea of an author creating a work from their singular vision was a cultural advancement that coincided with the further maturation of modernist cinema. It has been said that "To investigate the transparency of the image is modernist but to undermine its reference to reality is to engage with the aesthetics of postmodernism." The modernist film has more faith in the author, the individual, and the accessibility of reality itself than the postmodernist film, and is generally more sincere in tone.

Postmodernism is in many ways interested in the liminal space that would be typically ignored by more modernist or traditionally narrative offerings. Henri Bergson writes in his 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.

Postmodernist film is often separated from modernist cinema and traditional narrative film by three key characteristics. One of them is an extensive use of homage or pastiche. 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. A self-referential film calls the viewer's attention – either through characters' knowledge of their own fictional nature, or through visuals – that the film itself is only a film. 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 unfold out of chronological order, deconstructing or fragmenting time so as to highlight the fact that what is appearing on screen is constructed. A third common element is a bridging of the gap between highbrow and lowbrow activities and artistic styles, 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. The use of homage and pastiche can, in and of itself, result in a fusion of high and low art. Lastly, contradictions of all sorts – whether it be in visual technique, characters' morals, etc. – are crucial to postmodernism.

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