Perspectives - 5 Ways that Moulin Rouge is Postmodern

1. The film is non-linear. The story that Christian is writing is framed within him writing it at the beginning of the film. The story he's writing is real, and eventually catches up as he finished the story.


2. The film is incredibly hyper real, but becomes less so as it catches up to Christian in the present. It starts out fast paced but becomes slower toward the end. An example of its hyper reality is when Christian and Satine dance on the clouds.


3. The film pastiche in its use of Mashups. It has taken many different songs and remixed them in a way, adapting them to the film.


4. During the opening of the film, the director makes the camera cut quickly between different shots, showing the pacing of the opening, and also disorientating the audience.


5. The film mixes genres. The film is a musical drama with comedy elements. They subtract from reality, making the film seem much more like a fabrication or a dream.

Perspectives - 5 Ways that Scream is Postmodern

1. Scream advertises itself as a horror slasher film. However it is a pastiche of these genre or film. The film imitates the stereotypes of horror, such as the mask of Michael Myers in Halloween.

2. The mask itself is an appropriation of Edward Munch's famous painting, 'The Scream'. It has striking similarities, including the general shape of the head and openness of the mouth.

3. Scream uses irony in its story. The teenage victims claim to know a lot about horror movies, stating that they would know what to do in that type of situation because of that. "What's the point? They're all the same. Some stupid killer stalking some big-breasted girl who can't act who is always running up the stairs when she should be running out the front door. It's insulting." However, the fact that they know all this doesn't prevent them from being murdered.

4. Scream acknowledges the fact that it audience will have seen horror films before, and invited us to comment on his predictability. At the time it was a new, self conscious and at times humorous example of the genre.

5. The film sets it own "rules" as it goes on. "Don't have sex. Only the virgin survives. Don't drink or do drugs. Don't say 'I'll be right back'."

Perspectives - Postmodern Definitions #8

Hyperrealism - more real than real.

Simulation - an imitation of the operation of a real-world process or system.

Simulacra - an image or representation of someone or something.

‘Fake news’ - a type of yellow journalism or propaganda that consists of deliberate disinformation or hoaxes spread via traditional print and broadcast news media or online social media.

Perspectives - Postmodern Definitions #7

Metafiction - fiction in which the author self-consciously alludes to the artificiality or literariness of a work by parodying or departing from novelistic conventions and traditional narrative techniques.

Intertextuality - the relationship between texts, especially literary ones.

Mise-en-abyme - a formal technique of placing a copy of an image within itself, often in a way that suggests an infinitely recurring sequence. In film theory and literary theory, it refers to the technique of inserting a story within a story.

The 4th Wall - a performance convention in which an invisible, imagined wall separates actors from the audience. While the audience can see through this "wall", the convention assumes, the actors act as if they cannot.

Perspectives - Postmodern Definitions #6

Normativity - the phenomenon in human societies of designating some actions or outcomes as good or desirable or permissible and others as bad or undesirable or impermissible.

Binary opposition - a pair of related terms or concepts that are opposite in meaning.

Deconstruction - a critique of the relationship between text and meaning originated by the philosopher Jacques Derrida.

Différance - a French term coined by Jacques Derrida. The term différance means "difference and deferral of meaning."

Reinscribe - to reestablish or rename in a new and especially stronger form or context

Cognitive dissonance -  the mental discomfort experienced by a person who simultaneously holds two or more contradictory beliefs, ideas, or values.

Judith Butler - An American philosopher and gender theorist whose work has influenced political philosophy, ethics and the fields of third-wave feminist, queer and literary theory. She challenges conventional notions of gender.

Perspectives - Postmodern Definitions #5

The Canon - a term applied to something that is generally accepted as superior to other things in the same field.

DWEMs - Dead white European Males. A person viewed as unjustly dominant in culture, and archetypcally despised by feminists, multiculturalists and postmodernists.

Phallocentrism - the ideology that the phallus, or male sexual organ, is the central element in the organization of the social world

Eurocentrism - a worldview centered on and biased towards Western civilization.

Postcolonialism - the political or cultural condition of a former colony.

Multiculturalism - the presence of, or support for the presence of, several distinct cultural or ethnic groups within a society.

Feminism - the advocacy of women's rights on the ground of the equality of the sexes.

Perspectives - Postmodern Definitions #4

Avant-garde - new and experimental ideas and methods in art, music, literature or film.

Nostalgia - a sentimental longing for the past. something presented in order to evoke feelings of nostalgia.

Appropriation - the action of taking something for your own use, typically without permission.

Pastiche - imitation of a certain style or genre.

Parody - imitation of a writer, artist or genre with exaggeration for comic effect.

Irony - an event that is contrary to what someone would expect, and is often amusing as a result

Ideology - collection of beliefs and values that a group holds

Genre - a style of art, music, literature and film.

Sherrie Levine - american photographer known for her exact photographic reproductions of the work of other photographer such as Walker Evans. Her work is considered a form of appropriation by some.

Perspectives - 5 Ways that Mulholland Drive is Postmodern

1. Mulholland Drive features references to other genres, including the Cowboy character who is from westerns and is extremely stereotypical of the genre.

2. The plot of this film is non-linear and it jumps between different realities, time periods and characters. 

3. Continuing from the last point, it is also fragmentary. When we find out that Bettys world was a dream, the events of the film in Dianes reality start to feel disconnected.

4. The theater scene contains Fabulation, its outright stated when the owner of the club says "Its all in your imagination". He is literally telling us that this sequence is not real, and everything in the movie that follows proves that. The dream Betty is in isn't real either, but rather a world dreamt up by Dianne.

5. Bettys view of Hollywood is pastiche. She views it as a magical world where stars are born, however when we're out of the dream and back in Dianes reality we are shown the opposite. Both of these views are shown in Hollywood movies, however one more so than others.

Perspectives - Postmodern Definitions #3

Meta Narrative - an overarching account or interpretation of events that provide pattern or structure for peoples beliefs

Essentialism - the view that every entity has a set of attributes that are necessary to its identity and function

Utopian - an ideally perfect place for all people

Axiomatic - self-evident or questionable

Dystopian - a place that is undesirable for all people

Skepticism - doubt of the truth of something

Relativism - belief that knowledge, truth and morality exist in relation to culture, society or historical context and are not absolute.

Pluralism - a condition in which two or more groups coexist

Perspectives - 5 Ways that Inception is Postmodern

1. The viewer doesn't know the truth since there are so many layers of the dream. Are they still dreaming or are they in reality again? This is evident at the end of the film when Cobb spins his totem. We never see if it stops spinning or not. It it keeps spinning it means he's still in a dream, but if it stops then its reality. The film ends before anyone finds out.

2. There is also Intertexuality in the film. Most obvious is the Penrose stairs, used by architects as a way to create a continuous loop for their target. Penrose stairs are an optical illusion, impossible to create for real architects, but possible in the dream world.

3. The film uses techniques from multiples genres, most notably sci-fi. The Dream Machine our protagonists use is something we could only hope to create in real life, but in this film it is made a reality. The use of multiple genres is Pastiche.

4. The dream world and Limbo in Inception are both Simulacrums. They are imitations of reality, and Limbo is furthest from reality. The lower you get in the dream worlds, the more you believe it it reality. Cobb and Mal believe that when they are in Limbo, they are still in reality.

5. The plot is Linear, and uses the concept of the dream world going slower than reality (1 hour in the dream world is 5 minutes in reality). This keeps the film linear without having to resort to back and forths to tell the story. The more dream levels they go into, the slower time goes in the subsequent levels and in reality. Even though in the film it is shown as happening at the same time.

Perspectives - Postmodern Definitions #2

The Enlightenment Project - attempt to define and explain the human predicament through science.

Modernity - quality or condition of being modern.

Structuralism - method of interpretation and analysis of aspects of human cognition, behavior, culture and experience.

Ahistorical - lacking historical context or perspective.

Irreducible - not able to be reduced or simplified.

Objective - not influenced by personal feelings or opinions in considering facts.

Universal - applicable to all cases. done by all people in a group.

Definitive - reached decisively and with authority.

Post Structuralism - extension and critique of structuralism.

Reflexivity - reflecting thoughts and feelings onto someone or something else.

'The Unreliable Narrator' - a narrator whose credibility has been seriously compromised.

Perspectives - Postmodern Definitions #1

Postmodern - following that which is modern.

High Modernism - a steady confidence in science and technology as a means to improve the world.

Capitalist - a person who uses their wealth to invest in trade and industry for profit

Superabundance - more than sufficient. excessive.

Disconnected - lacking a connection with reality. lacking a linear sequence.

Pop - 'popular'. liked or admired by many people or a specific group.

Fragmentary - disconnected or incomplete.

Eclectic - deriving inspiration from a broad range of sources.

Nostalgia - a sentimental longing for the past. something presented in order to evoke feelings of nostalgia.

Simulacra - representation of something or someone. unsatisfactory imitation.

Superficiality - lack of serious thought.

Flippant - not showing a serious attitude. disrespectful.

Depthless - shallow or superficial.

Fabulation - invented stories.

Pastiche - imitation of a certain style or genre.

Bricolage - something created from a diverse range of themes.

Aleatory - something left to change. elements of random choice.

Perspectives - 5 Ways that Kill Bill is Postmodern

Kill Bill is a American martial arts film from 2003, written and directed by Quentin Tarantino. The film is iconic and recognizable all over the world. It features many elements in which it is Postmodern.

1. It's non linear narrative. It starts with her being "killed" by Bill, then cuts to opening credits. It then shows a fight with Vernita Green, and then jumps back in time to when she was attacked as a bride. The film continues to do this jumping back and forth at many times in the film.

2. The film mish-mashes multiple genres, including horror, action, samurai cinema and spaghetti westerns. It even features an anime sequence to show the backstory of one character, which in turn breaks the illusion of what we are watching, reminding us that this is in fact a film.

3. The anime sequence animated by Production I.G. features an obscene amount of blood. Perhaps because it is from O-Ren Ishii's memory, and a persons memory can often be exaggerated. Maybe this is how she told people it happened in the universe, because this is how she remembers it. The way in which the man who killed her father lights the fire is also exaggerated in this way.

4. The film has many hyper-real elements, including one of the ending scenes where she is able to kill and overpower many trained Japanese samurai/yakuza without getting killed herself. This scene was somewhat censored by making it black and white due to the amount of blood that comes from her victims.

5. The very final fight with O-Ren Ishii has music you would not expect in an action scene. Instead it is very peaceful. The environment also reflects this peacefulness, since it is white with snow. Its strange to depict a non peaceful moment as peaceful, especially considering the way O-Ren dies.