Cloverfield

Postmodernism

Info/bio

Director – Matt Reeves Produced by – J.J Abrams, Bryan Burk (2008) Writer – Drew Goddard Stars – Mike Vogel, Jessica Lucas, Lizzy Caplan Synopsis – A group of New Yorkers enjoy and

going away party, little do they know they will endure the most terrifying night of their lives. A creature the size of a sky scraper descends upon the city, leaving behind death and destruction in its trail. Using a hand held camera the friends record their struggle to survive as New York crumbles around them.

IMDB rating-

How can Cloverfield be considered postmodern? Intertexuality – Cloverfield is a film that belongs to the age of ‘terror’ ; it

was produced at a time where the world had became obsessed with the idea of terror and terrorism . The film references events such as the 9/11 that took place in 2001 through its use of visual effects and imagery.

A lot of diegetic sound was used in Cloverfield such as people running around shouting and screaming, glass smashing, buildings collapsing, heavy breathing because they are scared and out of breath from running, explosions. TV news report of an attack in New York reminds the audience of 9/11 with buildings falling. The Director shows the audience of what it would be like if you were in a situation like this trying to survive

Intertexuality continued

Throughout the film there are numerous references made to other films of the same genre such as ‘The Day After Tomorrow’ , ‘World of Wars’ , ‘Independence Day’ and ‘Godzilla’. The producers are making the assumption that the audience is active and not passive therefore they will understand the intertextual references.

All of the above movies mentioned are big disaster movies that fall into hybrid genres like Cloverfield consisting of horror, action and sci-fi. Modernist film usually only stick to one genre whereas postmodern films like to blend genres together which adds to the idea that they are expecting to have an active audience. The blurring of genres does not provide the audience with an comfort or ready made assumptions – something that modernist film steer away from because they are catering for a passive audience. Therefore, in this instance Cloverfield can be considered postmodern.

Many of these disaster films carry a similar narrative – the monster/aliens came to attack and humanity have to survive. However, though Cloverfield has a similar narrative the audience is forced to look at of from the a different perspective (POV) point of view shots makes the audience feel like they are in the actual film, interacting with the characters an. This makes the film seem more fresh and original and different from the films referenced. Due to this we could consider Cloverfield post modern.

Target Audience

A teaser trailer of the film was shown before the 2007 summer blockbuster Transformers. The trailer did not name the film and only gave a release date after showing glimpses of apparently home-made video of NY being attacked by something, culminating a shocking image of the head of the statue of liberty crashing through a NY street. This created audience curiosity and generated interest into the media text. Those who had saw the trailer were left wondering what they had seen and what genre was the film, why had they just been shown a home movie rather than a slick Hollywood movie? – could this marketing technique be considered POMO?

The trailer’s placement gives an indication to the target audience, one which is a difficult market for advertisers at the moment; teens and young adults. These groups are becoming hard to reach for advertisers who rely on conventional methods.

Representation

Merlena – Is a particularly strong female character who save Hud from the spiders. We are stereotypically used to the male characters protecting female characters. Here Cloverfield is going against this idea, subverting the ‘norm’ representations made of characters.

Beth on the other hand is the stereotypical damsel in distress who constantly needs help. She is even rescued from the top of a tower. The audience is familiar/used to this ‘type’ of character as we commonly see them in media texts therefore, in this sense Cloverfield isn’t being very POMO.

Rob and Hud are men of action, however Rob is clearly the leader between the two, Hud being more of a sidekick.

Rob is seeking for his love Beth (the damsel in distress). Here Cloverfield is again following a very simple narrative ‘guy gets girl’ making it in this sense not overly POMO.

Many people have argued that the monster is female as is spawns young spiders. If so this suggests a monstrous female and therefore female are represented as destroyers and alien. It could be argued that the female monster is bringing destruction to an easily peaceful, young society and it is the men in the film who lead the action against its rampage.

The monster is effective because we never really see it, it remains in our peripheral vision and seems to be mutating and changing. It embeds the notion of terrorism as it is a weapon of mass destruction – it is irrational, without meaning, murderous and incomprehensible. Like the terrorist is neither can or should be understood – again intertextualy referencing terror attacks.

Narrative Structure – Todorov Equilibrium – Characters introduced at normal

flat party Disruption – Ground and buildings start to

shake disrupting the party, an unknown monster invades New York

Resolution – Rob rescues Beth and then they attempt to make their way out of the city. The army bomb New York.

New equilibrium – it is not known whether Rob and Beth make it out of the city alive or if the monster is defeated. It seems New York no longer exists.

Propp

Hero = Rob – he is portrayed as rational and is driven by emotional need

Villain = The Monster Donor = there is no definite donor. The police provide helicopters

to get everyone out of NY however other than that there isn’t a specific person who provides Rob an object to help him.

Helper = stays with Rob to help save Beth, and is thought to be the only survivor. Rob and Marlena help until their deaths.

Princess = Beth – is portrayed as the damsel in distress trapped at the top of the tower. She is rescued by the hero.

Father = there isn’t a father figure towards the hero, Rob’s reward is Beth.

Dispatcher – Rob is essentially the dispatcher as he sends himself to save Beth

False Hero = Hud – he presents his documentation of the event as heroic however he is really more of a hindrance to others.

Media Language

Camera – The camera work used in 'Cloverfield' is again shot from the point of view perspective, so therefore it would be handheld and very shaky. The camera is very fast moving at certain points of the film like when the earthquake, explosion happens they are in fear and they show it because you can hear the actors heavy breathing. Camera is dropped, rolled, thrown around to give it a sense of realism. Low angles are used like when the army come and the camera is pointing up towards them showing that their in control and have the power, but clearly the low angle is on the monster all the time because it is huge and in control, demolishing New York. High angles are used when standing on top of the building looking down at all the destruction. Tilted shots are used like when the camera is dropped and you can see the actors running around. The reason why the handheld camera is used, because to show realism and as if, if someone has just picked up a camera unexpectedly and documenting his life of him and his friends whilst the monster destroys everything.

Sound - A lot of diegetic sound was used in Cloverfield such as people running around shouting and screaming, glass smashing, buildings collapsing, heavy breathing because they are scared and out of breath from running, explosions.

Editing -The type of editing used, is a nice pacing and well flowing series of clips together, because it is suppose to be very realistic (this is not considered POMO as it is following a modernist approach of creating an idea of truth) with camera, the scenes can jump like when they are first in the apartment and running down the stairs the camera blinks on and off, and showing different goings on at the time. The editing has been done to make it look realistic, there is use of flashbacks which is meant to be on the camera from what Rob had recorded earlier of him and his girlfriend. This shows some emotion because how the tape goes back and shows how it use to be, nice and peaceful back then, cuts straight to the monster destroying Manhattan, the flashbacks create confusion of time and space and also draws attention to the constructed nature therefore in this case Cloverfield could be considered POMO.

Media Language Continued Mise – en – scene - The Mise-en-scene used in 'Cloverfield' is the guns, tanks,

mobile phones, clothes, TV's, setting on the streets of Manhattan, in a modern apartment, dark, natural lighting. The reason why these are used within 'Cloverfield' is because it is mainly the code and conventions, if an alien/monster came to attack earth then straight away the army would be called in, equip and tanks everywhere. The reality of the 'Cloverfield' with people on the mobile phones trying to contact loved ones and in the film you notice that when they are in the apartment partying smart clothing, through the film you see them get dirty, teared, blood stained, this shows the realism within the film and because its POV, it makes you believe that it is real or this is what would happen if something like this in the real world happened. Dark natural lighting is used to give the effect as if it was at night and is scary because their view is limited because of the dark itself.

Special Effects - Cloverfield'is full of special effects, when watching the behind the scenes it shows a green screen in pretty much every scene to come. The Special effects used within this film are stuff like CGI, the monster itself, and when the head of the statue of liberty comes flying towards the group. Buildings collapsing, explosions everywhere. Muzzle flashes off the guns, tank rocket shots, bridge getting demolished by the monster. The special effects draws the audiences attention again to how it is a constructed text.

Conclusion

In many aspects Cloverfield can be considered POMO; they use intertexuality to reference other media texts and historical events throughout therefore the producers assume that they have an active audience that have further knowledge of media texts and not a passive ‘simple’ audience that modernists typically cater towards. The way in which Cloverfield was marketed was very POMO, by creating an ‘anonymous’ trailer the audience has to actively find out what it was about. As well as this the use of special effects draw the audiences attention to how it is a constructed text.

However, in many other ways Cloverfield could be seen as very ordinary and modernist with its conventional characters (the damsel in distress), its camera angels (low angel shots to make the monster seem more powerful) and editing used to make the events seem ‘realistic’.