What is post modern era in film? Pls explain?!!!!!!
Doc
I was recently talking to a drama student who informed me that we are
in the post-modern era of film making. Not wanting to show my
ignorance I didn't ask her what that meant. Can somebody please
explain to me what the post modern era exactly represents. I have a
fair idea that films by Tarantino (sp?) and Kids and Clerks would all
be considered post modern. But what is so special about them?
Gallagher
On Thu, 05 Sep 1996 20:56:34 GMT, dd...@pixie.co.au (Doc) wrote:
] I was recently talking to a drama student who informed me that we are
] in the post-modern era of film making
...Snip, snip...
] Can somebody please
] explain to me what the post modern era exactly represents. I have a
] fair idea that films by Tarantino (sp?) and Kids and Clerks would all
] be considered post modern. But what is so special about them?
]
"Man Bites Dog" is a post-modern film, in the way that it manipulates the
traditional director/viewer relationship. Anytime that an actor talks
directly to the camera, which isn't a particularly new device, he is
"breaking frame" in the post-modern sense.
Tarantino's works and "Kids" are stylistically original, but I'll leave it
to someone else to support the idea that they are postmodernist.
__Gallagher_____
(Los Angeles)
Ziggy Uszkurat
Hi there,
Post-Modernism is the rejection of pure form and technique in favour of
content. Though some experimental film-makers (Wieland, Snow, Jost,
Brakhage, et al) attempted to explore film as film, it is difficult to
see how modernism, let alone post modernism, could be applied to
Hollywood film per se. Except in a few rare cases like Rope (though
even here the story is constrained rather than made subservient),
Hollywood has always been far more interested in story (content) rather
than the formal characteristics of the medium. It might be possible to
consider that someone like Tarantino is post-modern inasmuch as he
freely mixes filmic styles and techniques. However, a cynic could say
that would mean post-modernism was synonymous with pastiche rather than
anything else.
There has certainly been a change in the type of subjects, stories, and
ideas that now reach the cinema screen. We could broadly describe the
archetypal Hollywood films of the 30's and 40's as movies that dealt
with society coming to terms with itself (eg Scarface, Sullivan's
Travels). In the 50's these themes mutated to show a society under
attack (War of the Worlds, She Wore A Yellow Ribbon, Notorious). By the
60's and 70's Hollywood had become fascinated with the individual and
his alienation from society (Easy Rider, Chinatown, The Conversation).
Movies of the 80's examined the destructive impact of contemporary
values on society (Wall Street, Unforgiven, Witness).
The richness of that cinematic history and the maturing of the medium
itself offers, today, more opportunities for exploring a wider range of
issues through more adventurous story telling. Films like Seven, The
Usual Suspects, Twelve Monkeys demonstrate that you don't need to lock
yourself into the Fields/McKee structural mindset to make movies that
engage the attention of the audience.
Despite the fact that these films may bend some of the rules, in
reality, they are still not post-modernist and, quite frankly, I think
your drama student friend is talking horse shit:)
Best Wishes
--
Ziggy Uszkurat
Martin Cannon
Doc wrote:
>
> I was recently talking to a drama student who informed me that we are
> explain to me what the post modern era exactly represents. I have a
> fair idea that films by Tarantino (sp?) and Kids and Clerks would all
> be considered post modern. But what is so special about them?
The term "post-modern" is as vague as it is vogue. This
pseudo-intellectual catch-phrase is pretentious, useless,
self-contradictory, illiterate, irritating, foolish and meaningless.
No-one may ever use it again.
Rome has spoken; go in peace.
Al Bell
dd...@pixie.co.au (Doc) writes:
>I was recently talking to a drama student who informed me that we are
>in the post-modern era of film making. Not wanting to show my
>ignorance I didn't ask her what that meant. Can somebody please
>explain to me what the post modern era exactly represents.
Usually, when people talk about 'modernism,' they're talking about the
literary or film equivalent of one of those giant glass tower office
buildings. I.e., a fairly straightforward work that has an honest,
stripped-down feeling. The creator has no illusions about love or faith
but treats 'reality' with some respect. Hitchcock movies and typical
European movies from the 1960s movies are examples of modernism.
Postmodernism refers to movies by people who believes 'reality' and
'morality' are just works of fiction. If a movie shows characters who
bounce between 1996 and 1812 without using a time machine, or
flesh-and-blood characters who sleep with cartoon characters, or a
warm-hearted look at homicide, it could be considered a postmodernist movie.
--
Al Bell's Bell Jar - http://www.vnet.net/users/allbell/belljar.html
"I'm just crazy about it." - Sylvia Plath
Featuring: "Terror at 30 Rock (or: The Peacock Had Fangs)"
all...@vnet.net all...@delphi.com
Tom Goulter
> ] in the post-modern era of film making
> ] Can somebody please
> ] explain to me what the post modern era exactly represents. I have a
> ] fair idea that films by Tarantino (sp?) and Kids and Clerks would all
> ] be considered post modern. But what is so special about them?
>
> "Man Bites Dog" is a post-modern film, in the way that it manipulates the
> traditional director/viewer relationship. Anytime that an actor talks
> directly to the camera, which isn't a particularly new device, he is
> "breaking frame" in the post-modern sense.
>
> Tarantino's works and "Kids" are stylistically original, but I'll leave it
> to someone else to support the idea that they are postmodernist.
>
> __Gallagher_____
> (Los Angeles)
<Takes breath, holds nose, steps wildly out of his depth...>
Hmm... Reservoir Dogs has The Commode Story, which is told in what would
have to be called a post-modernistic sort of style, for a start. I can't think
of any other example which stands out very clearly in my mind.
Besides which, of course, what Tarantino films basically did was to bring
film analysis to the mainstream - watching films over and over again to spot
where such-and-such a scene came from, what the camera does in such-and-such a
scene that makes it special - basically, viewing the film as a piece of filmed
entertainment rather than a narrative to be followed without question. Which
is, again, a shift in director-viewer (or narrator-audience, to broaden the
definition) relationships.
Of course by this token, Hot Shots is post-modernist filmmaking... There's a
difference there, but I'm too tired to look for it. Making this a somewhat
pointless post...
--
- Tom
tgo...@actrix.gen.nz IRC: Mariachi
"Maybe one day I'll die. But it won't be glamorous or mythological.
I'll just have a Twinkie in my hand, take a bite, and fall over."
- Billy Corgan
"Mediocrity, get thee behind me. If I fall, it must be as far as
Icarus, from the greatest attempted height."
- Anne Rice
Didi S. DubelyeW
Post-Modernism in both Visual (painting/sculpture) Fine Arts and
Music (rap/alternative pop) refers to the concept of Appropriation,
(ie. "borrowing"from earlier artists) or "sampling", respectively.
Thus, Tarantino's oevre would be considered PoMo, as would many
of the parody flicks such as "Hot Shots". As a easy critical
term, it has no relation to the quality of the work, nor breaking
the Fourth Wall. It refers only to the tool or device used in the
mainstay to reconstitute other works into a derivative but wholly
new product, if you will.
That is, if you needed a niche to classify the work & enjoy
utilizing ISMs instead of the obvious & ever popular classifications:
"The Good, The Bad and The Ugly".
Whistling Spagetti Western Soundtracks,
Didi
(Who spent far too much time dealing with artworld concept hype &
understanding the critical terms in her youth....)
Says Didi:
Was trying to get the full giste of the correlation between
these two & I realized: "The World is a Vampire"...
See what reading too much criticism at an early age
does to one's brain?
Didi S. DubelyeW
Before I get pulled over by the Typo Police that seem to be
frequenting these bustling streets, I will correct my previous
posts' errors (& hopefully not add to my criminal charges)
oeuvre & gist
Pardon s'il vous plaît,
Didi
All forms of Criticism are chock full of isms...
Nicolas A. Falacci
>The term "post-modern" is as vague as it is vogue. This
>pseudo-intellectual catch-phrase is pretentious, useless,
>self-contradictory, illiterate, irritating, foolish and meaningless.
>No-one may ever use it again.
It may be irritating and people may wrongly use it ... or foolishly use it or
use it pretentiously. But it is neither self-contradictory, illiterate, nor
meaningless.
Post-modern is a legitimate phrase that is descriptive of art that seeks to
take apart the essences of its construction and conventions and rearrange in
them a manner that creates a reflexive quality. It's when art lets you know
it is aware of its conventions and is starting to disassemble them or add
disparate elements from other conventions to look for a meaning in the
artifice itself.
Often ... a deconstructive phase follows post-modernism. And that's when the
conventions and elements are broken up and turned in on themselves to create
a constant questioning of why we even seek to establish these conventions.
Your friend you declared that movies are in a post-modern period didn't have
a full grasp of the definition ... nor an understanding of Hollywood
filmmaking. There is an argument to be made that some movies seem
post-modern. But if they do .. it is because it was unintentional.
A good example of intentional mainstream post-modernism is Twin Peaks.
-Nick
================================================
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MmmCherry
Post modernism was first coined in the 60s in reference to art.
It was introduced to discussions on film in the late 70s,
early 80s, basically to distinguish between the *right* way and
a *new* way to story telling in film.
As already illustrated in this thread it is not an easy term
to define (you'd have to go back to a definition of modernism).
There is a great essay on modernism and post modernism in a
book by Susan Hayward (not the actress). I think the books
title is Film Terminology (something like that). I don't own this
book, though I may just run right out.
MA
Chris Owen
Here's my take on the Post-Modern debate. It's a phrase which has been
used in art, literature, academic scholarship often with slightly
different twists of meaning. So my point doesn't necessarily contradict
anyone else's take on Post-Modernism.
One interpretation of post-modernism is that all knowledge is subjective -
there is no objective truth. Knowledge thus becomes a contested terrain
for meaning, where WHO is saying what becomes important as what is being
said.
So what the hell does that have to do with movies? Well my example of a
post-modern script is the X-File episode "Jose Chung's From Outer Space"
(one of the truly inspired television scripts of our time).
Most of the episode is a flashback recounted by Sculley to author Jose
Chung. That's one level of subjectivity. But Sculley describes events
based on interviews with witnesses so there's another level of
subjectivity. Jose Chung also talked to the same and different witnesses.
The same event is remembered differently by different people - or
differently by the same people at different times. Jose Chung's novel
could be seen as his interpretation of Sculley's interpretation of
witnesses' interpretation of events. And the novel can also be
interpreted by the reader...
This is an example of post-modernism at its most extreme. It appropriates
(steals) blatantly from the show's own mythology as well as the myths
surrounding UFO abductions, government conspiracies, and the type of
people who care about such things. The viewer can't but help be aware of
how they are being manipulated, and the artificial nature of the
manipulations.
"The strangest thing was, he wrote his whole story in screenplay format."
"I thought that was weird too."
Still a great episode though.
Make Post-Modernism work for you!
(There I go appropriating advertising jargon - you can't escape it...)
--
Chris Owen
ch...@iceberg.southern.co.nz
--
Martin
Nicolas A. Falacci wrote:
>
> >The term "post-modern" is as vague as it is vogue. This
> >pseudo-intellectual catch-phrase is pretentious, useless,
> >self-contradictory, illiterate, irritating, foolish and meaningless.
> >No-one may ever use it again.
I wrote this, in a somewhat humorous vein. I'll be a little more serious
this time.
>
> It may be irritating and people may wrongly use it ... or foolishly use it or
> use it pretentiously. But it is neither self-contradictory, illiterate, nor
> meaningless.
Yes, this term IS self-contradictory. Look up "modern" in any
dictionary, and you will see the word defined as a time period
encompassing the recent past and the present. "Post-modern" therefore
means "the future," if it means anything.
Obviously, whoever chose this label chose poorly. (Come to think of it:
Who DID coin the term "post-modern"?) I'm sure that the intention was to
define an artistic movement succeeding the "modernist" era. But the term
"Modernist," as applied to art, was itself very poorly chosen. 200 years
from now, that word will seem rather confusing when applied to, say,
paintings created in the 1920s -- those paintings are already OLD, not
modern, and they are only going to get older. All artworks were "modern"
when the paint was fresh. (Betcha anything that, one of these decades,
art historians will come up with a new and better term to describe the
"modern" era in art.)
At any rate, whoever coined the phrase "post-modern" only compounded the
original mistake. Neither "modern" or "post-modern" should ever have
been applied to any work of literature or art.
>
> Post-modern is a legitimate phrase that is descriptive of art that seeks to
> take apart the essences of its construction and conventions and rearrange in
> them a manner that creates a reflexive quality.
Careful. You've lapsed into lit-crit jargon here. Take a good, long look
at the sentence you have composed. Does it make ANY sense? Could, say,
Charles Dickens or Ernest Hemingway have read this sentence and
understood your point? (I bet they'd have no trouble understanding what
I'M writing!)
You are saying that there is something about the "conventions" of an
artwork that has an "essence." The "contruction" also has an essence.
Just what is this essence, exactly? Is it a mystical concept? How do we
classify that which is essential about a "construction," as opposed to
that which is inessential? And if we restrict ourselves to the
traditional meaning of the word "essence" (especially as the word is
used in philosophy), is it really permissable to say that an essence of
ANYTHING can be taken apart? I always thought that the essence was what
you were left with AFTER you've taken something apart.
Methinks that you've become enamoured of these polysyllables for their
sounds, not their meaning. Is post-modernism an excuse for fucking with
the language? Perhaps to some; not to me.
It's when art lets you know
> it is aware of its conventions and is starting to disassemble them or add
> disparate elements from other conventions to look for a meaning in the
> artifice itself.
Many artists in the pre-post-modern era were aware of the conventions --
particularly the genre conventions -- upon which their work relied.
Hell, I'm sure John Wayne knew all about the even-then hoary conventions
of the Western film back when he was making the "Three Mesquiteers"
movies in the '30s. And a lot of folks back then subverted those genre
expectations, sometimes for purposes of satire, sometimes out of boredom
with the familiar.
But the question is: Is being aware of genre conventions IMPORTANT?
Playing games with artifice, style, genre expectations -- does this
stuff REALLY matter very much?
Critics of the post-modernist school apply a truly ludicrous standard to
art. According to this standard, the old Olsen and Johnson '40s-era
comedy "Hellzapoppin" is a superior, prophetically post-modernist work.
After all, that film is thoroughly aware of its artificial nature; it
combines genres in wacky ways, and the film-makers are always
announcing: "We know that this is just a movie."
Yeah, but: SO WHAT? Most people nowadays find that particular movie
tiresome, while films from that same era with intriguing content and
inventive (but appropriate) style maintain their hold on intelligent
audiences.
I think this example is a telling one. Back in a saner era, this
business of "emphasizing the artifice" was considered the stuff of
fluff. Focusing exclusively this aspect of the creative process is
distracting and irritating.
Every "Post-modernist" critical essay I have read, or tried to read, has
struck me as staggeringly beside the point. The writers of these essays
always seem to concentrate on the inessential and the absurd: They
fixate on form over content, on genre precedent rather than theme or
character. This approach is silly and wrong.
>
> A good example of intentional mainstream post-modernism is Twin Peaks.
>
>
"Intentional"? Can you back that up with a quote from David Lynch or
Mark Frost?
A couple of years ago, an academic compiled a wretched little book
called "Full of Secrets," filled with essays attempting to dissect "Twin
Peaks" from the so-called "post-modernist" perspective. I recommend the
book to anyone who wants to learn the depths to which art criticism has
sunk. I do NOT recommend the book to anyone who cares about David
Lynch's work. Most of the essayists in this compendium of pretention
meditate fixedly on innumerable beside-the-point issues. The net effect
is quite bizarre: Imagine you met a man who said that the first thing he
noticed about Anna Nicole Smith was her knees...
This book epitomizes the post-modernist con game. First, the critic
fixates on irrelevant details, particularly any detail that can be
interpreted as a reference to a previous film, book, tv show, or
what-have-you. A proper post-modernist pundit does not consider any such
reference to be a mere unimportant "in-joke," nor does he ever consider
the possibility that he has misread the evidence. Rather, any links with
past works are to be scrupulously listed, categorized, and studied, for
only in such cultural/pop cultural pseudo-scholarship can true meaning
be detected.
Example: Twin Peaks includes a character named Laura Palmer. The
post-modernist pundit takes note of this, and his mind races to the
(actually rather over-rated) Otto Preminger film "Laura." Aha! A
connection is made! A reference is established! Surely this means
something terribly important..!
Guess again. In the immortal words of Mr. Natural, "It don't mean shit."
Maybe Lynch took the character name from the earlier work. Maybe he
didn't. Either way, so what? What does this irrelevant nonsense have to
do with theme, with character, with atmosphere, with structure, with all
the traditional values by which we have judged art for the past couple
of millenia?
The post-modernist analyst who dances this sort of jig is really
engaging in mere buffery, equivalent to that of the pototo-shaped Star
Trek junkie who enjoys listing every episode in which McCoy says "He's
dead, Jim." Such criticism provides academics with a chance to show off
what they have seen and read. Worse, this sort of criticism allows one
to sidestep basic questions -- such as: "What was the artist trying to
say?" and "How well did he say it?" Those questions are too much like
work. Buffery is FUN.
Thus, "Full of Secrets" devotes endless pages to truly asinine games of
spot-the-reference. One writer insists that the name "Cooper," as in
Dale, supposedly harkens back to James Fenimore: The critic seizes upon
this idea as an excuse for showing off his knowledge of early American
literature, even though there's no real substance or meaning to this
supposedly revelatory connection.
I suggest that anyone who really wants to understand "Twin Peaks" would
be better off analyzing it terms of the surrealist movement (to which
Lynch obviously harkens), the history of occultism (which informs the
plot), character, theme, structure, quality of dialogue, and so forth. I
guarantee anyone analyzing the thing from those perspectives will come
up with meatier observations than any you'll find in the Post-modernist
canon, with all its zealous attention to artifice, antecedent, and
genre-jiggery-pokery.
Now, I spent so much time talking about Twin Peaks only by way of
illustration. (Yes, I know this isn't being posted to the
alt.tv.twin-peaks newsgroup) The observations here apply to virtually
any other film or artwork that has ever been placed in the "P-M"
pigeonhole. The "post-modern" analyses invariably prove far more vapid
and otiose than more traditional critiques, because the "post-modernist"
view is a recipe for emphasizing the trivial over that which matters.
Let us pretend that academia never blundered into this blind alley. Let
us forget the very existence of the term "post-modernism."
Rome has spoken.
Ziggy Uszkurat
In article: <84225459...@iceberg.southern.co.nz>
ch...@iceberg.southern.co.nz (Chris Owen) writes:
----------8< snip snip --------------
> One interpretation of post-modernism is that all knowledge is
subjective -
> there is no objective truth. Knowledge thus becomes a contested
terrain
> for meaning, where WHO is saying what becomes important as what is
being
> said.
Chris,
The problem with this interpretation of post-modernism is that it can be
applied to any number of movies. For instance, Citizen Kane, Lola
Montez, Don't Look Now,The Conversation, all investigate what is "truth"
and none of them would appear to be post modern. I kinda feel that
knowledge and the extent to which we know anything is a universal theme
that has interested writers for generations.
But then, that's just my take on it too:)
Al Bell
Martin <mca...@instanet.com> writes:
>But the question is: Is being aware of genre conventions IMPORTANT?
Not for the typical writer or the typical reader. But people who edit,
copy or parody other people's work need to understand how the
work fits into the culture.
>Playing games with artifice, style, genre expectations -- does this
>stuff REALLY matter very much?
Absolutely.
Post-modernists hate authority of any kind, even the authority of reality.
For them, playing games with style is a way of rebelling.
>Back in a saner era, this
>business of "emphasizing the artifice" was considered the stuff of
>fluff. Focusing exclusively this aspect of the creative process is
>distracting and irritating.
What saner era? Writers have emphasized artifice since the Ice Age, ever
since they put on bear skins and pretended to be bears. Anyhow, this
boils down to a literary/religious argument: is it better to write in
language that is like clear glass, like the stained glass in a church, or
like funky carnival glass that turns everything weird colors?
Pick the glass you like. May the best glass win.
>The writers of these essays
>always seem to concentrate on the inessential and the absurd: They
>fixate on form over content . . .
That's not a post-modernist approach. That's a 20th century approach.
>A couple of years ago, an academic compiled a wretched little book
>called "Full of Secrets," filled with essays attempting to dissect "Twin
>Peaks" from the so-called "post-modernist" perspective. I recommend the
>book to anyone who wants to learn the depths to which art criticism has
>sunk.
You're building your argument on a very small amount of data. The Twin
Peaks book may have sucked, but so do most other books.
>what-have-you. A proper post-modernist pundit does not consider any such
>reference to be a mere unimportant "in-joke," nor does he ever consider
>the possibility that he has misread the evidence. Rather, any links with
>past works are to be scrupulously listed, categorized, and studied, for
>only in such cultural/pop cultural pseudo-scholarship can true meaning
>be detected.
You wouldn't read a chemical analysis of milk for a guide to enjoying ice
cream. Similarly, there's no reason to expect that the Twin Peaks essays
should be of any interest to you. The authors didn't write them to help
people enjoy Twin Peaks. They were trying to study the components.
>Example: Twin Peaks includes a character named Laura Palmer. The
>post-modernist pundit takes note of this, and his mind races to the
>(actually rather over-rated) Otto Preminger film "Laura."
A 19th century critic would have been just quick to wonder why Laura
Palmer was named Laura.
>Guess again. In the immortal words of Mr. Natural, "It don't mean shit."
a) There's no such thing as "traditional art values." Standards change
all the time and from region to region.
b) Who assigned you the job of deciding what's irrelevant nonsense?
What's irrelevant to you, a Twin Peaks fan, may be completely relevant to
a post-modernism fan.
>The post-modernist analyst who dances this sort of jig is really
>engaging in mere buffery, equivalent to that of the pototo-shaped Star
>Trek junkie . . . .
Post-modernism gets on my nerves, too, but the good thing about the best
of it is that it promotes tolerance. Your intolerance is really annoying.
>Worse, this sort of criticism allows one
>to sidestep basic questions -- such as: "What was the artist trying to
>say?" and "How well did he say it?"
I think what you're saying is that you'll rip the head off of anyone who
disagrees with your approach to art or writes a book that confuses you.
>Rome has spoken.
You may think you're joking here, but I don't think you really are.
Tom Goulter
Chris Owen wrote:
>
> So what the hell does that have to do with movies? Well my example of a
> post-modern script is the X-File episode "Jose Chung's From Outer Space"
> (one of the truly inspired television scripts of our time).
Oh, how I loved that episode. Everyone should watch it, several times, even if
they hate the X-files...
- Tom "What a bleeping fantastic show it was" Goulter
Nicolas A. Falacci
>>Rome has spoken.<<
Certainly something much larger than Rome has spoken. : )
ALloyd50
postmodernism most importantly deals with the idea of "reference." in
postmodern-speak, any item up for discussion--a film, a book, a building,
a toaster--is more generally a "text," which upon analysis can
theoretically be infinitely reduced into networks of references.
postmodern works of art thus presumably intend to refer to themselves, as
works of art which were preceded by other works of art, etc. in addition
to doing whatever it is a work of art "normally" does. so a postmodern
film refers to itself, or perhaps film as a medium, or perhaps other
films, or perhaps our culture, or whatever all while you are sitting there
in the dark just trying to watch a movie. but really you're watching
yourself sitting there in the movie theater, watching the film, or maybe
you're watching yourself watch a movie about watching movies, or maybe
you're making a movie about watching movies while you're making yourself
watch yourself watch a movie (gee, i hope it's a good one, at least) or
maybe you're --well, you get the point (i could go on). anyway, in a
nutshell, the reason tarantino is a postmodern director is because, when
you watch his movies, you know your watching a movie made by someone who
watched a lot of movies.