An Introduction to Postmodern Cinema

Preface: An Introduction to Postmodern Cinema

“Postmodern cinema has emerged in the 1980s and 1990s as a powerfully creative force in Hollywood filmmaking, reflecting and helping to shape the historic converge= nce of media culture, technology, and consumerism. It corresponds to the post-Fordist, globalized phase of capitalist development typified by increa= sing class polarization, social atomization, urban chaos and violence, ecological crisis, and mass depoliticization. Departing from the modernist cultural tradition grounded in the Enlightenment, norms of industrial society, and f= aith in historical progress, postmodern cinema is characterized by disjointed narratives, a dark view of the human condition, images of chaos and random violence, death of the hero, emphasis on technique over content, and dystop= ic views of the future. While postmodern directors such as Woody Allen, Oliver Stone, Robert Altman, Quentin Tarantino, the Coen Brothers, Mike Figgis, and John Waters produce films that are often highly original and even subversiv= e, their departure from conventional Hollywood formulas and motifs that define= the studio system - their pronounced cultural radicalism - is rarely associated with any sort of political radicalism even where a harsh social critique mi= ght be visible. Postmodern cinema helps reproduce the very popular mood of anxi= ety, uncertainty, fear, and cynicism that it mirrors in the general society.R= 21;

According to modernist Clement Greenberg, “A modernist work of art must try, in principle, to avoid dependence upon any order of experience not given in the most essentially construed nature of its medium…the arts are to achie= ve concreteness, “purity,” by acting solely in terms of their sepa= rate and irreducible selves.” (39 S&M) Postmodernism is a reaction aga= inst these principles, combining different mediums, settings, cultures, and self-consciously reflecting upon their continuity. By combining, comparing = and contrasting cinema with other modes of representation, including painting, theater, photography, literature, and music, we find film to be a unique expressive form that seems especially suited for the postmodern artist. The important things to consider with postmodern film are where the film escapes from and where it identifies with the art it incorporates. This relationshi= p is at the heart of the postmodern creative process, in which a film may self-consciously or accidentally discover new layers of depth and meaning t= o an already familiar art.

A number of questions, problems, and possibilities come out of this study. One question is, how wholly can and should different art form be incorporated i= nto a film? Consider that photography and art capture single moments in time in= the sense that there is no continuous movement. But in a film like La JetÈ, which features a narrative that connects a series of still images, we rediscover the narrati= ve power of photography in a moving picture. In contrast to our willingness to view La JetÈ’s <= span style=3D'font-family:TimesNewRomanPSMT;mso-hansi-font-family:TimesNewRomanP= SMT; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"'>black and white photography as real= ity, the incorporation of paintings with moving images in the film Frida actually reminds = the audience that the film itself is an artistic rendering and not reality. The= se films present new possibilities for the incorporation on wholly independent images as narrative devices.

The adaptation of literature in films is especially fascinating and often controversial. Films are told through novels (scripts) that the director translates into images. But which of these media represents the more accura= te experience? Film is limited by time constraints and its linear approach to story telling. Literature, on the other hand, allows one to sit with a book= as long as they like, read, reread, move forward and backward at will, and pau= se for reflection. Clearly, these options are not available to film as it is experienced in the theatre. Does this mean that the filmmaker has a more limited capacity to communicate complex thought than the author? Perhaps no= t, because film is able to compensate for it’s reduced time frame and ot= her shortcomings by incorporating many other communicative devices that work simultaneously to engage the audience's mind on a more direct level. Films = are communicating directly the sounds and images of the filmmakers imagination instead of using language alone to influence the imagination of the reader.= The adaptation of Shakespearian plays is particularly controversial because cri= tics tend to give the "genius of the bard" much more credit that the creative talent of the filmmaker. But while adaptations may lose certain important elements in translation, postmodern Shakespearian cinema can also expose new elements and layers to the plays that words alone could not expr= ess.

Consider the theatrical elements of Julie Taymor’s film adaptation of Titus. It is a delicate art maintaining = the illusion of reality while reminding the audience of the actor’s theat= re. One significant difference between theatre and film adaptations of a play is that the actor’s theatre is live while cinema is recorded. Because of this difference, film can achieve seamless scene changes with grander sets, more intimate perspectives and a generally more accurate depiction of the reality it displays. Ironically, the play is less real for all these reason= s, yet by virtue of being a live performance, it is much more real in the tang= ible sense. Film, on the other hand, can evoke a reality that plays more strongl= y to the senses.

According to Noel Carroll, “The task of the theorist of an art is not to determ= ine the unique features of the medium but to explain how and why the medium has been adapted to prevailing and emerging styles and, at times, to either def= end or condemn the prevailing emerging purposes artists pursue.”(51 S&M) In terms of postmode= rn Shakespearian cinema, I think one of its greatest qualities is the explorat= ion of continuity. Film is a distinct art just as individual films are artistic= ally distinct from one another. Yet I believe that film can be viewed through the lens of other mediums because it uses these as a base. Some postmodernists believe that no art is completely original; that any given work is merely a link in a chain connecting the achievements of those who came before and th= ose who are yet to come. This is one among many of the fascinating theories tha= t an analysis of postmodern Shakespearian cinema can help us explore.