Postmodernism

Postmodernism

• Postmodernism is a trend within culture, which is characterized by rejecting both objective truth (a central category of decisions made by an individual, know as ‘mind-independent’ - unconsciously) and global cultural narrative (a comprehensive explanation upon historical experiences or knowledge, such as telling a story within a story).


• Postmodernism highlights both language and power relations, such as emphasizing topical subjects such as: male versus female; straight versus gay; white versus black and imperial (unequal economic, cultural and territorial relationships between countries, usually between lower class and dominant empires) versus colonial (a colony or group of people/group of people colonizing an area/taking control as a metropolis/upper class taking control over lower class in same area). Postmodernism has influence many, such as literal criticism, sociology and the visual arts. It comes from the rejection of ‘Modern’, with progression towards Enlightment (wisdom/religious/spiritual).
  
• There is far more freedom within postmodern films, as they allow the interpreter to judge the outcome of the film consciously. Usually typical conventions can be found within these films, such as oxymoron’s; retelling stories; levels of reality and unreality, with quantities of info, fictional elements and a combination of actual footage; requires high levels of cognitive concentration; the allowance of open interpretations; own iconic fragmentation; hyper textualization – interruption of one storyline to another; baroque (artistic expression); infinite and multiple endings, and they focus on details and fragments within frames.


• They have several layers of communication; it involves modernist technology versus postmodern ‘cyber technology’; the use of heterotopology – the space we live in is highlighted which draws us out of our self, with unexplained events being highlighted as characters metamorphose; carnavalized cinema, where the worlds are divided and narratives fragmented; the shifting of narratives through ‘metalepses’, highlighting multi-voiced storylines; images become the significant space between frames to highlight the narrative; images double and juxtapose; the outcome ‘Flanerio’, created by Friedberg which is a form of tourism through time; an historical style with futuristic elements; anamnesis – the use of dissociated and partial memories combined; perplexed editing to distort storytelling; metaleptic – multi-layered imaging; historiographical (the retelling of the past) and an obsession with memory, known as the ‘pleasure of repetition’.