Chapter 15

The Postmodern Film

So far we have seen what postmodernism is and how it influenced arts, particularly literature. In this chapter we will understand how cinema has responded to this phenomenon.

In his The Dismemberment of Orpheus (1982), Ihab Hassan constructed a list to compare & contrast the differences between modernism and postmodernism. This goes as following:

Postmodern cinema

Postmodernism as a literary/cultural phenomenon is characterized by: delegitimation and dedifferentiation, leading to indeterminacy and erosion of authority.

Some key features of postmodernist cinema are:

Narrative fragmentation which can be exemplified in films such as: Moulin Rouge, Run Lola Run, Zelig , Memento, Fight Club, and Requiem for a Dream.

Nostalgia as a prevalent mode: Velvet, Cry-Baby, Hairspray, Pleasantville, Edward Scissorhands, The Truman Show, and also in pastiches of Hitchcock films (for instance, Gus Van Sants Psycho).

Fragmented psyche/delusion as seen in David Lynch films, Dead Ringers, Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind, Being John Malkovich, Synecdoche New York, A Serious Man, Shutter island, and Inception.

Resistance to closure: Pulp Fiction, The Bladerunner, Natural Born Killers, Inception, contemporary Iranian cinema, cinema of Wong kar Wai

Self-referentiality: 8 , Wag the Dog, Stardust Memories, The Purple Rose of Cairo, Barton Fink, Ed Wood, and To Die For.

Hyperlink is a term coined by author Alissa Quart for films which are multilinear in a metaphorical sense. Examples of this kind of cinema are: Pulp Fiction, Adaptation, Sliding Doors, Amore Perros, 21 Grams, Babel, Syriana, Crash , and City of God.

Anthology or omnibus or portmanteau film is a film consisting of several different short films, often tied together by only a single theme, premise, or brief interlocking event (often a turning point). Some notable examples include: Coffee and Cigarettes, Paris, I love you, New York, I love you, The New York Stories, Tokyo Stories, and Toronto Stories. Sometimes there is a theme, such as a place /city symphonies(e.g. New York Stories, Paris, je t'aime, New York, I Love You), a person (e.g. Toronto Stories, Four Rooms), or a thing (e.g. Twenty Bucks, Coffee and Cigarettes), that is present in each story and serves to bind them together.

Hollywood also has anthologies of horror films. Recent examples from Bollywood include Ram Gopal Varma's Darna Mana Hai and its sequel Darna Zaroori Hai (2006).

Paris Jtaime (2006)

A collection of 18 short films by 21 celebrated directors from around the world. The film tells of an incident or an encounter in various Paris neighborhoods. Thematically, It covers the range from drama, romance, comedy, mime, and even vampire movies, and offers a stunningly beautiful postcard view of a Paris that a tourist may/may not usually visit. The film is an ode to the romantic dislocations of urban life.

The two-hour film is set in different arrondissements of Paris, and captures the essence of the city of Paris to its inhabitants, and the world at large. The fragmented narrative provides snapshots of the most romantic city in the world, which is not necessarily the glamorous setting of films and novels.

Coffee & Cigarettes (2003)

Writer/director Jim Jarmuschs anthology film was originally, a 12 minute black-and-white short film in 1986. The film consists primarily of a conversation between Steven Wright and Roberto Benigni in a coffee shop, which would later be included in the feature-length Coffee and Cigarettes released in 2003.

A common thread that runs through the several stories is a sense of power plays between people based on nationality, attitudes, gender and social status. A recurring idea of the movie is that the entire world is a kind of instrument, a ''transmitter of acoustical resonances, (attributed to the physicist Nikola Tesla).

John Woos Face Off (1997)

The Hong Kong born director John Woo explores the issue of blurred identities, where hyper-real violence makes the film a cinematic spectacle. The film , starring John Travolta and Nicholas Cage, offers a representation of masculinity which can be perceived as the self-conscious acting out of gender roles.

Fredric Jameson sees the reliance on the styles of the past as an indication of the particular kind of nostalgia that is one of the defining characteristics of postmodern art and states, random cannibalization of all the styles of the past reduces the past to a series of spectacles, a collection of images disconnected from any genuine sense of historical process (in Postmodernism; or, The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism). The opening scene in sepia colour tone quotes from the climax of Hitchcocks Strangers on a Train, with plenty of intercutting between the credit shots.

Woo also makes use of Music as pastiche with a blend of Diegetic (or the music within), high brow music (Handels Hallelujah) and Somewhere over the rainbow from The Wizard of Oz; and extradiegetic (music which is not a part of the narrative but is located outside) rock music at various places.

The films basic premise, of Swapping identities through technological advancements, too is quite postmodernist. Again as a self-referential device, Cages transformation into Archer (Travolta) evokes memories of his earlier roles as a haunted hero, for example, in Moonstruck, Con Air. Likewise, Travolta into Pollux (Cage ) comes with his customary fluid movements, reminiscent of his turns as a cool, dancing star in Grease, Saturday Night Fever, and Pulp Fiction.

Oliver Stones Natural Born Killers (1994)

Walter Benjamin in his essay, The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction describes film as the most powerful agent of the work of art by modern, mechanically reproduced art forms.Benjamin believed that by their very nature, films are fragmented(divided into shots/scenes/takes) and disrupt the sense of wholeness that gives traditional art much of its religious flavour. Benjamin believed that films shatter the aura of the traditional sanctity of art and are instrumental in democratization of human societies. Benjamin also urged Marxists to politicize art.

Natural Born Killers was radical at the time of its release by the use of pastiche, and collage of popular genres. It was also noted for innovative intercutting of images , a blend of items from films, tv, and cartoons. The films employment of MTV-like editing, distorted images and saturated colours distanced the audience from the film and required them to reflect over the nature of media-saturated lifestyle of Americans. The central idea

evokes Baudrillards observation, in contemporary America, reality exists only in the context of media images.

Critically and commercially well-received, Natural Born Killers was denounced by the Republicans & conservative Christians, and the Republican candidate Bob Dole in 1996 cited it as an example of the negative influences of Hollywood films on the American society.

Conclusion

In his analytical study of postmodern Hollywood cinema, Keith Booker concludes, One should expect a great deal of artistic creativity in postmodern art, even in forms (such as film) that are dominated by economics in particular obvious ways. Indeed with directors such as Wong kar Wai, Robert LePage, Tim Burton, The Coens, Paul Thomas Anderson, and David Fincher , the postmodern cinema project will be alive and kicking for a long time to come.

QUIZ

1. Answer the following in brief:

i. Write a brief note on Ihab Hassans distinction between modernism and postmodernism.ii. Explain the term hyperlink cinema, with examples.iii. Explain the difference between diegetic and extradiegetic music.

2. Fill in the blanks:

i. Resistance to . is a key feature of postmodernist texts.ii. .. Marxists to politicize art.iii. Coffee and cigarettes is an example of film.

Answer key

2. i-closure ; ii.-Walter Benjamin ; iii. Anthology/portmanteau

Selected readings:

1. Booker, Keith M. Postmodern Hollywood. London: Praeger, 2007.2. Connor, Steven (ed). The Cambridge Companion to Postmodernism.

Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004.3. Jameson, Fredric. Postmodernism; or, The Cultural Logic of Late

Capitalism. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1991.4. Hasan, Ihab. The Dismemberment of Orpheus. Madison, Wisconsin:

University of Wisconsin Press, 1982.

Selected websites:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postmodernist_filmhttp://www.film-philosophy.com/index.php/f-p/article/view/547/460