Postmodern Cinema Research Articles

EXPLORING WOMEN’S PORTRAYAL AND NARRATIVE ENTANGLEMENT IN DAVID LYNCH’S ‘BLUE VELVET’ (1986): POSTMODERN CINEMATIC ANALYSIS

This study conducted a concise postmodern cinematic analysis of ‘Blue Velvet’ (1986), directed by David Lynch, focusing on the portrayal of women and their narrative roles. ‘Blue Velvet’ exemplifies postmodern cinema through its subversion of conventional storytelling and exploration of dark undercurrents in suburban America. The analysis delved into the multifaceted depiction of women, examining how Lynch employs the “male gaze” through camera work and narrative structure, reinforcing patriarchal power dynamics. By scrutinizing key scenes, we revealed women often depicted for male viewer gratification. This study provided a new viewpoint on ‘Blue Velvet,’ shedding light on its challenge to cinematic norms and highlighting the interplay of gender, power, and narrative in a postmodern context.

The trend towards anti-capitalist dystopia in contemporary serials: Narrative analysis of the Korean tragedy Squid Game

Nowadays, the spectator lives surrounded by television series in which increasingly complex, depressing and denouncing themes proliferate. About this, the Netflix hit Squid Game (2021) is a clear representation of a mass culture increasingly virtuous in staging, as well as more horrifying, preachy and sensationalist. Based on the observation of the phenomenon that the series has meant, narrative content analysis has been carried out in which we have sought to find evidence of how mainstream culture continues to popularize and stylize audio-visual abjection in the context of the third golden age of television and the fascination with the plots of torture porn or postmodern cinema of cruelty. The results show that Squid Game is a faithful product of its time: as a current prestige series, it is dark, depressing, pessimistic and has an artistic aura without neglecting entertainment and explores human complexity in themes such as suicide, genocide and violence.

Anatomy of a Song

Anatomy of a Song

Retracing the Gothic Romance: Instances of Transtextuality in Gaston Leroux’s Le fantôme de l’opéra and Alejandro Amenábar’s Abre los ojos

This article aims to offer a comparative analysis between Gaston Leroux’s novel Le fantôme de l’opéra (1910) and Alejandro Amenábar’s film Abre los ojos (1997) in which Amenábar’s film will be interpreted as a postmodern adaptation of Leroux’s original novel. This analysis will also identify those traits pertaining to the Gothic tradition and the nineteenth-century Gothic romance as reflected in Leroux’s modernist approach and reinterpreted in Amenábar’s postmodern film on the basis of the notion of transtextuality.

Między techniką a strategią. Postmodernistyczna dezorientacja widza w „lynchowskim” „Riverdale”

This article focuses on the streaming series Riverdale (Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa, 2017–2023) distributed by Netflix. The creators of the series overtly refer to postmodern cinema, especially the works of David Lynch. In doing so, they use various kinds of disorientation techniques, that is, narrative devices that complicate the interpretation of what is presented. The author of the article performed a textual analysis on the 6 available seasons, focusing on demonstrating the correlation between the series and postmodern cinema. Then the various aspects of the series were assigned to the possible techniques of disorientation proposed by Andrzej Zalewski. The purpose of this text is to identify the “Lynchianism” in Riverdale and to demonstrate what techniques of disorientation are used by the creators of this series. A further intention is to resolve whether this is in fact a technique (seen by many as a deriving from ineptitude) or a strategy (resulting from deliberate action). The article attempts to view the contemporary work from a postmodern perspective.

Religion, Female Sexuality and Magic in (Post)Modern Film

The paper strives to investigate the relationship of female sexuality, magic and religion in film based on the comparison of two selected films. The three themes have been often seen as intertwined especially by religion, which has built an image of a female witch in alliance with the devil, or evil forces. The research aims to answer the question whether postmodern cinema embraces the combination of the aforementioned themes often associated, historically, with the notion of witchcraft practised especially by female witches. The scope of the research is limited to two films; however, the possibility to expand the research in the future and include newer films exists. Comparative methods and analysis are used throughout the paper. The paper is structured according to the analysed themes found in both films – Carrie (dir. Kimberly Peirce, 2013) and Thelma (dir. Joachim Trier, 2017). The author claims that these themes are similar and rooted in the same perception of the female monstrosity in both films, with different outcomes of this combination. The authors suggest that this is due to feminist tendencies becoming more prominent in every artform. However, this claim needs investigating from the feminist studies’ point of view.

TRANSFORMATION OF ROMANTIC MOTIFS IN J. SCHUMACHER’S MUSICAL FILM THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA

The article analyses how J. Schumacher’s musical film The Phantom of the Opera (2004), based on A. L. Webber’s musical, revises some elements of the artistic and aesthetic system of Romanticism. Since the musical was based on the novel of the same name (1910) by a French Romantic writer Gaston Leroux, this multi-step reinterpretation allows one to observe a special perspective of the "end of a century" – to track how the postmodern film adaptation reflects the artistic and aesthetic shifts of the late 18th – early 19th century (when Romanticism emerged) and late 19th – early 20th century (Neo-Romanticism). At the same time, in J. Schumacher’s musical film, the forms of art associated with special artistic and aesthetic aspirations (theatre at the beginning of the 19th century, cinema at the beginning of the 20th century) define certain stylistic dominants and become markers of time, its revolutionary and catastrophic changes, as well as moral and aesthetic constants.
 While the Romantic concept of the man and art is subject to reduction and profanation in G. Leroux’s epigonic novel, the context of postmodern film narration makes it possible both to enrich it with the artistic achievements of a two-century artistic evolution and simplify it to a universal formula. The artistic whole of the musical film The Phantom of the Opera reproduces the motifs peculiar to the brilliant authors of European and American Romanticism (G. G. Byron, E. T. A. Hoffman, V. Hugo, E. A. Poe) and epitomizes the ideals of humanism that reach their maximum in Christianity-inspired Classical Realism of the 19th century. The film neutralizes such traditionally associated with Romanticism oppositions as those of the ideal and reality or the artist and the general public. Art and life interact, creating a prerequisite for mutual understanding, harmonization, and escaping the tragic contradictions of being. This interaction enables reality to open up new opportunities, and art turns out to be the place of salvation and restoration of love-based relationships among people.

The Glaciation Trilogy Directed by Michael Haneke from the Perspective of the Theories of Jean Baudrillard

As one of the most celebrated film auteurs of contemporary European cinemas, Austrian film director Michael Haneke has achieved remarkable success at the Cannes International Film Festival. His films always represent the living status of the individuals in the postmodern capitalist society, showing criticism through the reflection on the media. The theory of the postmodern theorist Jean Baudrillard is highly relevant to the works of Haneke. The key notions of Baudrillard, such as simulacra and hyperreality, describe the media-dominated postmodern social landscape, as well as reveal the tension between the individual and society in the post-industrial and late capitalist periods. This research is a cross-study of film authorship and sociology. It takes Hanekes earlier film works, the glaciation trilogy, which are The Seventh Continent (1989), Bennys Video (1992), and 71 Fragments of a Chronology of Chance (1994) as examples, and analyzes the narrative, symbolism and audio-visual strategies through the theoretical perspective of Baudrillards theories. On the one hand, this research examines the Baudrillard themes of postmodernism, hyperreality and media alienation in the cases. On the other hand, it evaluates the cinematic style of Hanake and its relevance to a postmodern film ontology. Through the intertextuality between the works of Haneke and Baudrillard, this study is able to reveal the connection between postmodern sociological theories and contemporary auteur cinemas.

Becoming and integrative film in postmodern cinema

The subject of the tagged research (becoming and integration of the film in postmodern cinema) is summarized by studying the transformations and complementarity of the film in light of the emergence of the concern of postmodernism. Then the need for it, as well as the objectives of the research and clarify its limits, as well as its importance. Then the transition to the theoretical framework, which included two sections, the first topic was entitled: Postmodern Cinema Formation and Completion, while the second topic was entitled: Paradox in Postmodern Film. After completing the theoretical aspect, the research concluded with a number of theoretical framework indicators that were adopted as a tool for analyzing the sample, then the research procedures came, represented in the analysis of the research sample, which is the movie (New York Stories) directed by: Martin Scorsese to come up with the results of the analysis and then the conclusions and recommendations, then came the list of sources and margins.

On the role of time, re-presentation, and self-conscious narrators in postmodern narrative

Abstract In the past, I have published papers on the use of language within the realm of fictional narratives, how the structure of postmodern films and novels operates to affect the reader or viewer, and on the purely objective worlds constructed within the confines of literature. Most recently, I submitted a newly written paper to my friend Paul Cobley for his casual feedback. He got back promptly, saying only that the paper did not have enough references. I pressed Paul: Was it not possible to write a philosophy paper where one just philosophized, without alluding to things written on the subject matter in the past, and wasn’t it ok not to cite references if you came up with the idea independent of any outside reading? His reply was: “No.” Time passed, and I was asked to write this article celebrating Paul’s 60th birthday. Looking for something I hadn’t read already, I discovered his book, Narrative (2014). This paper addresses one of the reference entries most definitely missing from my prior investigations on literature and cinema, one which should have informed – and now does my own thoughts on fiction and film.

“A Dama de Shanghai”: Investigações sobre o Cinema Noir

This article aims to analyze “The lady from Shanghai” (Orson Welles, 1947) from different aspects: first, as a film that incorporates most of the elements considered essential for the diegesis and visual iconography of film noir; then, as a narrative that is related to the American historical and sociocultural context of the first half of the 20th century; and, finally, as a production that crossed boundaries of time and space when being honored by Brazilian postmodern cinema of the late 1980s. For this, we used authors such as Borde & Chaumeton (1958), Sklar (1978), Mascarello (2006) and Ortegosa (2010), with emphasis on Vanoye & Goliot-Lété (2009) and Aumont & Marie (2009) with regard to methodological strategies for film analysis.

The confusion between person and character in Cravan vs Cravan (Lacuesta, 2002)

A character split into two bodies: the real Arthur Cravan, an eccentric character who moved in the intellectual and artistic circles of the first decades of the 20th century, and Frank Nicotra, the one in charge of interpreting him at the beginning of the second millennium. Both fighters and poets, although separated by decades of difference. Isaki LaCuesta offers a hybrid of documentary and fiction where Cravan’s character engulfs Nicotra’s until the line that separates one from the other is lost. This communication studies the strategies used by its director to achieve this symbiosis between the two main protagonists. The use of recreations of a past time to visualize the life of Oscar Wilde’s nephew in contemporary times to the making of the film and the maneuvers that Lacuesta follows to blur past and present not only in the main characters, but in the rest of the cast are the objective of this article. The forms of acting in this non-fiction film will also be studied according to the Thomas Waugh’s theories and it will be analyzed whether the characters are part of the borderline individuals typical of postmodern cinema that Gérard Imbert has studied.

GOGOL’s CREATION IN POSTMODERN FILM INTERPRETATIONS

The article focuses on the problem of relationship between Gogol's works and film postmodernism. As you know, the postmodern versions are not at all the last among Gogol`s adaptations. The reason for this is the precedent of the writer's texts. Both contemporary postmodern film adaptations and film adaptations of the past years are studied. The report is from «The Evening on the Eve of Ivan Kupala» (Yu. G. Ilyenko) and «Mirgorod» (M. G. Ilyenko) to the director's works in the 2000s. - «The Case of Dead Souls» (P. S. Lungin), «The Viy 3D» (O. A. Stepchenko), trilogy «Gogol» (E. P. Baranov). Unlike the first two films, the subsequent ones can rightfully be attributed to postmodernism. Each of the adaptations is described depending on the peculiarities of the development of cinematography. The concepts of author`s cinema, improperly-direct subjectivity, cinematic absurdity are indicated. Consideration of Gogol`s poetics is particularly significant. This poetics is reflected through separate motifs - motifs of travel, madness, detective motifs (rumors), and also images (narrator, evil spirits) and details (clothes, food). It should be noted, however, that all of these are portrayed specifically. Through the game. The specificity of postmodern interpretations (including those that contain selected techniques of postmodernism) is to transfer the emphasis from the content to the form of the work. This is undoubtedly an important takeaway from the article.

Rewriting Shakespeare: Discussing Postmodern Drama Elements in Two Feature Film Adaptations of William Shakespeare’s play “The Tempest”

This article is going to discuss and compare two film adaptations of William Shakespeare’s classical drama The Tempest (1611). Julie Taymor’s The Tempest (2010) and Derek Jarman’s The Tempest (1979) are two peculiar representations specifically rewriting gender, race and power issues original text has dealt with. Reason behind the selection of The Tempest (1611) in this reseaarch is its specificity in the Western Drama in terms of having fragments from mythology, ancient Greek Drama, Latin Drama, Romance, Neoclassicism and Symbolism as well as discussing modern and universal issues like gender, race and power. The time Shakespeare wrote this play coincided with the beginning of English colonialism. In general, it rallies with the classical approaches of tragedy and comedy through combining their elements. The Tempest may be regarded as the initiation of the post-colonial drama. Adaptation of The Tempest into cinema and theatre is a long journey. In this study, Derek Jarman’s and Julie Taymor’s film adaptations are going to be discussed and compared regarding their postmodern drama elements. Both films are selected for analysis because of their focus on sexual identities. In order to contribute to previous studies regarding Shakespeare’s play The Tempest as a postmodern play because it contains themes that he puts at the center of postmodernism, as a result of the findings obtained at the end of the study, it is revealed that Tempest is a text that can be rewritten in accordance with the socio-cultural position and stance in the historical context. It can address audience of today with its themes and narrative and can be adapted to a postmodern film with its timelessness. The other conclusion of this research is that while Shakespeare’s play The Tempest was rewritten with a queer gaze in Derek Jarman’s adaptation in 1979, it was seen that the text was rewritten with a feminist discourse and narrative in Julie Taymor’s adaptation.

«EVERYDAY LIFE» IN THE WORKS BY W. C. WILLIAMS AND J. JARMUSCH: FROM POETRY TO POETICS. INTERMEDIALITY

The article examines William Carlos Williams’ works that focus on the everyday, mundanity, and poetize daily life which was common in modernist literature. In our time, Williams’ poetry inspired director Jim Jarmusch to make a poetic film «Paterson» about everyday life and the poetic potential of ordinary routine life. The director reinterprets Williams’ ideas and makes a complex, postmodern film about everyday life in the small town Paterson, where he depicts the routine life of his main character, a bus driver. This life, despite its external simplicity and triviality, encourages the hero named Paterson to read modernist literature and write his own poems whose themes and images are intertwined with the work of the well-known Paterson resident, William Carlos Williams himself. In particular, we examine the intermedial interaction of Williams’ works («Paterson» and «This Is Just To Say») with the film and the indirect transition of one sign system into another. In addition to the more or less direct and explicit influence of literature on film through allusions or quotations from the work of the American modernist poet, Williams’ poetry becomes a precedent for the stylized poems of the film’s main character, written by a contemporary American poet Ron Padgett («Another One», «The Run», «Love Poem») and Jarmusch himself («Water Falls»). In this article, we also compare Padgett’s and Jarmusch’s poetry with some of Williams’ poems («Blizzard», «To A Poor Old Woman»), to demonstrate the similarity of motifs and imagery. Thedirector’s work can be interpreted as a manifestation of the idea of looking for poetry in the everyday, or that everyday life is already poetry. Jarmusch’s film about everyday life provides a possible answer to the question of literary anthropology «why is literature as a medium important in people’s lives» – creativity is the very meaning of life. This penetration of one art form (poetry) into another (cinema) gives grounds for speaking about the relevance of the themes of modernist poetry in the context of modernity and about the meaning and value of simplicity for creativity in general.

INTERTEXTUALITY, PASTICHE AND PARODY IN POSTMODERN CINEMA

Postmodern theory is a theory that emerged in the second half of the 1960s. This theory was born as a reaction to modernity and its ideals. By the 1970s, postmodern aesthetics, on which postmodern theory was based, began to be felt in almost every field of art, from architecture to painting, from literature to cinema. This aesthetic promised a fundamental break with modern aesthetics, and this break was most evident in the visual arts, especially in cinema. When we look closely at the reflections of postmodern aesthetics in cinema, we see that this aesthetic has developed especially with the following three elements: Intertextuality, pastiche, and parody. This study deals with these elements through specific films and directors. The study examines intertextuality, pastiche and parody in postmodern cinema using descriptive research methodology in a critical perspective. While examining the difference between pastiche and parody, it will be studied how intertextuality along with pastiche and parody are used in both modern and postmodern cinema.

Scene, Aesthetics and Industry Chain: Postmodern Cultural Thinking of Films in 5G Era

With the in-depth influence of 5G technology on film art, the postmodern culture contained in it is also becoming more and more obvious. Understanding the context of the 5G era and clarifying the origin of film postmodernism culture will help us deeply analyze the cause of the rise of postmodernism film culture, especially the important influence of the expansion of film application scenes, the innovation of the whole industry chain and the evolution of film aesthetics on the rise of postmodernism film culture. In addition, we should also think deeply about the film culture under the post-modernism of 5G era, and explore the way to stick to the benign development of film creation and film industry. To enhance our cognition and appreciation of post-modern film culture, to give play to the positive factors of post-modern film culture, and to promote the healthy and prosperous development of Chinese film production, creation and industry.

Mapping Imperialist Movement in Postmodern Horror Film Midsommar

ABSTRACT: Ari Aster’s 2019 postmodern horror film Midsommar reflects current cultural preoccupations with globalization and American empire building in the twenty-first century United States. Mapping the film’s ideological attributes (including femininity/masculinity, academic knowledge/folk knowledge, and capitalism/communism—the strict binaries of which set false expectations for all other binaries to hold) onto its physical locations makes clear two prominent ideological spaces: the perverse urban and the idealized pastoral, which appear not only in Midsommar but in many horror films to which this chart can be applied. The horror of the film is driven by the objectified Other’s resistance to the imperial power’s desire to dominate physical place and own ideological space, but is complicated by a suggestion that, in this unique case, the Other is also a nationalist, right-wing power, and the tension between home and foreign reflects that of a new Cold War. The boundaries between spaces and places are disrupted, and our very inquiry into the structure of space is called into question.

The Causes and Enlightenment of Post-Modern Film Culture in the 5G Era

With the increasing influence of 5G technology on film art, the postmodern culture contained therein is also gradually becoming obvious. Understanding the context of the 5G era and clarifying the origin of postmodern film culture can help us analyze the cause of the rise of postmodern film culture, especially the important influence of the expansion of film application scenes, the innovation of the whole industry chain and the evolution of film aesthetics on the rise of postmodern film culture. In addition, we should also consider the film culture under the postmodernism of 5G era, and explore the way to stick to the benign development of film creation and film industry in order to enhance our cognition and appreciation of postmodern film culture, to maximize the positive factors of postmodern film culture, and to promote the healthy and prosperous development of Chinese film production, creation and industry.

Future 2049: The Political Potential of the Late Postmodernism

The article presents a reading of the film Blade Runner 2049. The author maintains that postmodernism is an “epistemological category” rather than an “ontology,” i.e. it exists only as a universe of various theories that in different ways describe contemporary culture as a postmodern one. Hence, many theories have arisen that attempt to supersede postmodernism with a language for describing current culture, e.g. cosmodernism, metamodernism, performatism, digimodernism, automodernism, capitalist realism, etc. The proponents of these theories all share one strategy they illustrate their own ideas by alluding to various films: Jurassic Park, American Beauty, Avatar, etc. The author finds this approach insufficiently productive and turns instead to the culturological method elaborated by Philip Wegner, who characterizes the era through periodization grounded in comparisons between different films (e.g. original Cape Fear and its remake, the first three parts of the Terminator franchise). The article shows how Blade Runner since the 1980s has been interpreted as a “postmodern film.” The author considers different approaches to the film’s analysis, including political interpretations that followed from postmodernist interpretations and concludes that Blade Runner 2049 marks out a gap in the periodization of the era between the original film and its sequel, i.e. from 1982 to 2017 (the release dates of both films) and from 2019 to 2049 (the temporal setting in both films). Because of the thematic continuity between the two films, Blade Runner 2049 could be considered an example of the “late postmodern” era, and the sequel resolves many problems that were only sketched in by the original film. Blade Runner 2049 offers an indication of how political problems of the future might be solved in the present by means of artistic representation.