Right, I've got an essay on what consitutes a postmodern movie due for Friday as a pretty important end of term college essay. I've just ran into one irritating snag along the way... I can't remember some of the terms or find the notes I had them written down on! I know, I know, I'm a fvcking idiot for doing that and leaving the essay so late, but I've been snowed under with a lot of other stuff, but in college and out of it. Anyway, the terms I am looking for are the ones used when referring to postmodern movies, such as pastiche (the only one I can remember off the top of my head, since my brain has turned to mush over this incredibly hectic week). If anybody can lend a hand and name some of the other terms, I would be infinitely thankful and owe them a big favour. I don't necessarily need a description of what they mean or anything; I can find that stuff in my textbooks or on the internet once I've got the words... but it's the words that I just cannot find anywhere. Many thanks, A very stressed out and in-need Billy.
I'm sure your prof is looking for movies that mix genres and film styles(pastiche), don't have clear logical story lines (incoherence), and favor medium over substance (reflexivity). Recent examples would be Pulp Fiction, All that Heaven Allows, Scream.
It's not necessarily postmodern, but you might also include movies that are nonlinear (i.e., the story isn't told chronologically, as in Pulp Fiction and Mystery Train). Metafilms are those that are about their own creation or in which the artiface is emphasized; the viewer is not expected to suspend disbelief. Some of Lars von Trier's movies are probably the clearest examples. Irony has existed for nearly as long as art has existed, but no discussion of postmodernism is complete without it. What seems to be new re: irony is its use to make the cheesy excesses and pop culture phenomena of past generations hip, as in Samuel Jackson's jheri curl and the Neil Diamond remakes in Pulp Fiction or the discussion about the meaning of "Like a Virgin" in Reservoir Dogs. Classically, irony meant a difference in what is said and the meaning of what is said (i.e., what a character thinks he means vs. what the audience knows is meant). One of my favorite recent examples is Election, in which Matthew Broderick's character is dedicated and totally sincere, yet the audience recognizes that his actions indicate immaturity. Gringo, what term would be used to descibe movies that subvert the expectations/cliches/tropes of a particular genre? I'm thinking "anti-Westerns," like Dead Man, or the anti-50's melodrama Far from Heaven.
Well to an extent yeah, since we had to stick with Blue Velvet, Nadja or Blade Runner. I used blue Velvet primarily, and it's all over & done with. Huge thanks to yourself and Bojendyk, and rep has hopefully been spread (I am on a TERRIBLE connection at the moment). And that irony/blurring of timelines element was certainly noticeable in Blue Velvet, Bojendyk. Strange how that movie goes from being weird on first viewing to distgusting but very intelligent through psychoanalysis, and then deeply, darkly humorous through postmodernist analysis.
Actually, I meant Far from Heaven when I wrote All That Heaven Allows above (Haynes film is actually a remake of Sirk's All That Heaven Allows). Far From Heaven definitely qualifies as "post-modern," although I want to stress that it's not anti-50s melodrama- it reimagines it from a present day racial and sexual perspective. I consider Dead Man a strictly modernist film, because it's grounded in the Western tradition even as it subverts it. Post-modern westerns would include Posse and Tombstone, which are based on nothing I recognize.
Lacan - is the the one who espouses signifier and signified? I could Google this I suppose, but....I'm too lazy to read the text and if he's the one of whom I'm thinking, I know I wouldn't understand it anyway.