Laura Hatcher

Postmodern case studies

I have studied one music video and two films, looking at how they are postmodern. They all show various features of postmodernism and therefore I have chosen them as my case studies. Postmodernism is a general and wide-ranging term which is applied to many disciplines, including literature, art, economics, philosophy, architecture, fiction, and literary criticism. It is an act against modernism.

Firstly, I have chosen the video ‘Material Girl’ as it includes many elements which lead me to believe that it is postmodern. The first element I have noticed is pastiche as it’s clearly present in this video. Madonna clearly references Marilyn Monroe, in the form of copying a scene from the film ‘Gentlemen prefer blondes’. In this film, Monroe sings the song ‘Diamond’s are a girl’s best friend’, to which Madonna copies the setting and costume. This signifies that she has a lot of respect for Marilyn Monroe as she was one of the best actress’ of her time and Madonna is using this video as almost a tribute to her.

Secondly there’s the meta-narrative. Throughout the video we see that a separate narrative is present, as well as the narrative of the song itself. This is apparent at the beginning of the video, were we see two directors looking at a clip of Madonna’s video and discussing her involvement in one of their new films. The video constantly cuts to scenes of her with the directors and follows her journey, creating a separate story to the one in the song. This keeps us interested and also shows a lot of meaning behind the song and that a lot of thought has gone into the creation of the video.

Finally, there’s a lot of self reference throughout. The theme of the song and the title ‘Material Girl’ symbolises that Madonna is aware of her representation in the media at this particular time and is almost mocking them by embracing the image. Throughout her career Madonna has been classified as many different personalities but Material Girl highlights that she is mocking the media for their portrayal of her and that in fact she is far from this look and identity.

Overall this video displays several characteristics that are examples of the post modernist movement as its thought to be the first video were Madonna was classed as being postmodern and tested the boundaries.

My first film case study is Blade Runner (Ridley Scott 1982).It has the theme of postmodernism throughout and is clear through many different features. Firstly, it’s postmodern because it both represents and employs elements of the postmodern condition to texture its narrative. Also explored and utilised in Blade Runner are the strategies of quotation, pastiche, recycling, hyper reality and identity crisis. It’s apparent that the film is set in the future and this is because of the mise en scene such as the buildings and the new technology within the city. This is also clear because of the recycling in the film. This is a very modern idea that has now been introduced today so the film has predicted what will be around in the future.

Secondly, Blade Runner is an excellent example of pastiche with the layout of the city being the most dramatically visible and the connection of postmodernism to post industrialism is evident. There is also the concept that even though it seems to be set in the future, it could also be seen as going backwards in time even thought its meant to be set in 2019 Los Angeles. This thought explains that the city could be anywhere at any time. Hyper reality is another key feature of postmodernism

Laura Hatcher

in films and in Blade Runner as it is how the media dominate our perception of the world and how it’s more real than we can experience. This links with the distinction between human and machine and the Void-comp test to work out who is a replicant and who is human which also comes under identity crisis. Also in the opening scene we can identify virtual adverts persuading the humans to move to other planets, suggesting they will have a better life away from earth and have better experiences than earth can offer.

Baudrillard states that: "Another film often cited as 'postmodern' is Ridley Scott's Blade Runner (1982), in which science, technology and progress are all questioned and shown in some way to have 'failed'. The world in Blade Runner is polluted by industry and overcrowding; only the rich escape to the 'off-worlds'. One of the key themes of the film is the 'blurring' of the differences between the real and the artificial, between the humans and the replicants. Increasingly it is no longer possible to be clear about what it means to be 'human'". This summarises all the main ideas as to why this film is postmodern as the storyline itself includes features of hyper reality and the mise en scene links to pastiche.

Textually, Blade Runner uses quotes from many different film genres and film movements/periods. For example it lifts scenes directly out of older classics such as Metropolis (science fiction) and Mild red Pierce (film noir). This shows how the different genres are working together to create a new mixed genre that is postmodern in its own way for doing this. Also other pop culture references are used such as the New York skyline, the Pulp Fiction of Raymond Charles.

On the other hand, some people believe that Blade Runner is far from being postmodern and that in fact Ridley Scott tried to shy away from a postmodern view in the film and instead Blade Runner was ‘a production of mainstream cinema only films with an independent sensibility are able to fully represent the disturbing post human . This is because the ideals of romantic love are central to patriarchal society’s needs’. This quote from Nick Lacey suggests that the film completely fails to represent postmodernism in the form of the human condition.

Another feature of postmodernism is ‘the openness of the truly postmodern text’. However this does not apply to Blade runner as we are only shown the negative and ‘bad’ side of the upper class people in the future. An example of this in the film is the character Tyrell who owns large companies as we see throughout the film that even with his high status and power, he is not necessarily a good character. Even though Blade Runner gives us an insight into the future and what Ridley Scott’s image of it is like, it does only present a few features of postmodernism in films. It is apparent in the film that the city is based on the future and the idea of the ‘future that extrapolate contemporary trends’ in order for us to picture the city better.

Overall, I think that Blade Runner is the perfect example of a postmodern film as it follows all the conventions that make it fit into this theme. In my opinion, Ridley Scott knew exactly what he wanted to do with this film and how to deliberately make it postmodern. Therefore he managed to include all the typical features within this one film to make it a phenomenon amongst postmodernists.

My final film case study is Pulp Fiction (1994 Quentin Tarantino.) As the term postmodernism is very wide it can be applied to many different films and Pulp Fiction being one of them.

Laura Hatcher

Firstly intertextuality is a key postmodern feature in this film. A mix of different genres and themes can be found throughout the film such as gangsters, war, musical, romance and art-house. Tarantino also cross links to many of his other films such as The Assassin (1993) and Reservoir Dogs (1992). Travolta characters also lives a life that was expected of his character in Saturday night fever’s future, which signifies that he definitely intended to make these links. An example of intertextuality in the film is the scenes in the trendy diner ‘Jack Rabbit slims’ as it has many references to 1950’s stars and movies.

Secondly, pastiche is used a lot throughout the film as it’s made up of many different storylines with completely different characters and genres borrowed from different films. A quote from Tarantino himself even shows that he admits to using pastiche in his films; ‘I always hope that if one million people see my movie, they see one million different movies.’ An example of this in the film is when Marcellus walks out in front of Butch’s car at the traffic lights and turns to face him, as this resembles the scene in Psycho (1960, Alfred Hitchcock) when Marion’s boss crosses the street in front of her car.

Another key postmodern feature in the film is hybridity. The tone of the film is disorienting in the way it clashes and mixes different kinds and levels of feeling. For example, when Vincent is killed absurdly whilst on the toilet reading a piece of pulp fiction. Also throughout the film there are various scenes with off-hand shootings where the killer doesn't even look at the victim which shows how relaxed they are with behaviour like this and that it is normal in that society.

Finally, the narrative structure is very disjointed. This is a key feature that makes the film postmodern as the story is constantly changing. It is argued that the films narrative is fragmented and disorienting in terms of time and space and therefore another reason it’s called postmodern. It works with micro-narratives, giving a fragmented sense of location and history. Tarantino fans favourite part about the narrative is the way that huge stretches of it are devoted to 'trivial' conversations e.g. foot massages and burgers.

Overall, Pulp Fiction shows many different features throughout that make it postmodern; hybridity, pastiche, narrative structure and intertextuality. All of these cleverly tie in together to make the film good and also to get the message that Tarantino wanted across, the thought that they are watching numerous films in one.

In conclusion, all of the above examples are classed as postmodern in various different ways. This shows how postmodernism can be incorporated into any form of media and be noticeable to the audience. I think in the future, postmodern media will become a lot more popular as its growing on people and we as an audience are starting to understand it better and know what to look out for, therefore are finding it more enjoyable. I think producers are able to think of lots of new ideas in the future because of postmodernity and it will enable us to see it more often in the media.