Explain how certain kinds of media can be defined as postmodern. [50 marks]

Postmodernism is a late 20^th Century movement that labels a cultural form displaying different qualities, represents the departure of modernism and is a way of mixing different styles and media.

Controversy is an ongoing discussion about ideas conflicting with the norm. This can be applied to postmodernism in different ways and different media’s. We can use self-reflexivity as an example of a controversial postmodern style. The audience can be unhappy that the film is revealed. They came to watch a film and are jolted back to reality throughout. This can occur when an actor breaks the 4^th wall, an example of this would be the film The Wolf Of Wall Street (Martin Scorsese 2013) when Leonardo DiCaprio looks directly into the camera and talks to the audience, like he is telling them a story. Other ways a film can be self-reflexive is when the set is reviled to the viewers and they are suddenly snapped back to realising that they are watching a film and aren’t at all involved. A great example of this is when the character Shoshana in the film Inglorious Basterds (Quentin Tarantino 2009) is walking through the corridors or the cinema, on the way to the film premiere, a crane shot is used to follow her. As it is shot from above we see the tops of walls on all the corridors and the set is revealed. Some viewers like the idea of self-reflexivity but others don’t want to be placed back into reality which is why it’s considered postmodern.

Picasso’s use of postmodernism in his cubism is just one example among many in the art world of examples of postmodernism. Another example is Grace Jones’ album artwork for her album Island Life by Jean Paul Goude in 1985. The reason for the artwork of Grace Jones to be considered postmodern is that it was a picture taken that was chopped up and taken apart and pieced back together in a slightly different way that was stretched out. The colours were all slightly changed and bits were removed. The final product looked similar to the original yet there was a big difference. The album cover was done in 1985 using the cut and paint technique by Goude in a time when Photoshop (which was released 5 years later in 1990 and would be used now as a preference) wasn’t around.

The idea of postmodernism can be applied to films too. In the film Drive, the lead character doesn’t have a name and is referred to as ‘The Kid’ throughout. Not only this, but, the character rarely talks in the film, which can sometimes lead to uncomfortable periods of silence within the film. When there is something exciting happening like an argument or a fight the lead character talks only in a calm voice throughout the whole film. These elements in the film combined make the film a postmodern text and therefore it can be described as a postmodern media.

As well as this in the film, the text used for the credits and also on the cover of the DVD is the same at that used for Grand Theft Auto – San Andreas, showing an intertextual reference, which is postmodern theory by Gerard Genette. There is also an intertextual reference between the film The Driver (Walter Hill 1978) and the film Drive. The Film is referenced twice, once is the start of both films is almost identical, both set in a multi-story car park. The second is that throughout the police chase in The Driver, the driver of the car stays calm throughout the chase and doesn’t talk throughout the entire chase, whereas the passengers try to. Also, he manages to get away, hide the car and the occupants and is then found again by the police and he has to escape again, which is intertextually referenced in the film Drive. This works closely with the theory by Claude Levi-Strauss of ‘bricolage.’ Bricolage is a text that is constructed from part of another text, meaning intertextual references can be considered a part. The reason for this is that using a reference from another film such as the film Drive referencing the film The Driver is using a text to construct a new text making intertextuality a part of bricolage.

The director Tarantino used text as an intertextual reference between his films. We can tell a Tarantino film from the yellow subtitles throughout. Other examples of postmodernism within films can include films intertextually referencing one another, such as the Odessa steps scene in the film Battleship Potemkin (Sergie Einstein 1925), where a baby in a pram falls down the Potemkin Stairs and a man is shot in the eye during a massacre of the people in Odessa. Many films or adverts in recent times have used this as an intertextual reference; for example the Kellogg’s Crunchy Nut advert has a reference in that the baby falls down a set of steps in a pram. The clip is played in slow motion much the same as in Battleship Potemkin meaning again this is an example of postmodern media.

In the future, I think one postmodern idea that will develop is the use of holograms in music. We already see holograms being used but, I think what will start to happen is dead pop or rock stars will be put into a super band. E.G. Elvis Presley, Jimmy Hendrix etc. all put into a band to perform as holograms. This could be considered a really controversial idea in that they were all famous and now they are all dead, so the idea could be construed as disrespectful to them and their families.