Showing posts with label Postmodernism unit. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Postmodernism unit. Show all posts

22 Nov 2010

Mulholland Drive's Postmodernism Essay Plan



Having chosen David Lynch’s film Mulholland Drive, first thing found was it can be interpreted using more than one key idea of postmodernism. It could be the ideas of  hyperreality or a work of pastiche and so on. So to single out an aspect I wrote a short plan. Main points should logically follow each other towards the conclusion.

Postmodernism Essay Plan:

  1. The view towards conceptual systems ( languages and conventions)

  1. Deconstructing Oppositions.
 One of languages quality is said to be it tends to categorize and structure itself into oppositions, then  prioritizing one of the two.  The film as truthful to postmodernism avoids privileging or relying upon transcendental signifiers and suggests their equal interplay (such as reality – dream, truth-fiction, understanding-misunderstanding ect.) 

3.The explained (reality) is the constructed (illusion)
In continuation to the previous point t the film much like postmodernism then declares: no singular truths. As it  is only our own interprets, projections, constructs and illusions.

  1. The suggestion then might follow, reality is like a dream and a dream (nightmare) is also real.

  1. No Closure
Therefore no unified closure is suggested, what the film asks for is ones own interpretations as only such are possible in the world as postmodernists argue.

26 Oct 2010

Funny Games (Heneke, 2008) and Games with Film Language



Discussed by J.J. *Jolanta Jasiulionyte*

The prodigiously unpleasant "Funny Games" is clearly the work of a technical master, a filmmaker capable of manipulating our fears with expert, Teutonic (Germanic) precision” (Ansen, David; 2008)




This quote by David Ansen at Newsweek might be linked to one of the postmodern ideas in the film Funny games, that any language system (film language in this case) is something to be played with.



To rephrase  Christopher Butler from The new ways of seeing the world, it developed from the idea that there’s no point in trying to depict facts objectively, since, as in postmodern view, its not even possible to do so; the truth we want to explain is always only our own subjective construction via language (any form of it: verbal, film, pictorial ect.) which is also, a matter of uncertainty aswell ( so both, the motif and the mean of explaining it,  is subjective, relative and not universal). 

Postmodern thought is, not only the "truths" can  be only a  representation, depictions of the interpreted meanings, but also they are rerepresented and interpreted  using OUR OWN (and not universal) intellectual framework which is shaped from the unique experiences and axioms (what we believe in unconditionally) each of us have.


And these are central arguments of deconstruction: the truth is relative to differing stand points; as there’s no point in believing in the literal meaning of the language, since its all a cultural (and subjective) constructs. 

Therefore, this view follows: Both Language conventions and the meaning it constructs is something to play with. 

So does Funny Games. The director constructs a seemingly typical violent  film  but by further exploring a film language conventions and by breaking them the film becomes a critique and a reflection of  the typical Hollywood movies which exploit violence on screen.

For instance, Pitt, the angelic-looking demon periodically breaks the fourth wall and addresses the audience, asking us to bet on whether the family will end up dead or alive. But it takes away the believability of the films constructed reality, filmmaker puts all these efforts to make the audience believe in the world they’re seeing, and then as if contradicting his own (or more likely audiences expected)  logic he toys with film language. Or is it actually that he reminds us: this is all an illusion, it’s a film you’re watching; and so for several times.

To give another example, the most intense moment in the film, when one of the family member was about to be killed, one might find himself more interested who will win the car races: It could be a smart use of film language: the audience was shown one of the attackers having a gun ready to kill , but then the camera points to TV screen and as we see cars racing, we hear people scream in the background and finally blood splatters the screen. But car race is still on. 

Again, we’re introduced with some confusion: they are about to be killed, that’s the most important bit; show me the killing, the entertaining bit! On the other hand the director still  doesn’t take anything away from the bloodthirsty audience (so to say): we're entertained by the car races, we still get to see the blood splatters;ironical jokes of Heneke.


But there were numerous examples of smart use of film language all of which sucseeded  to make the audience feel uncomfortable,frsutrated  and puzzled if that‘s the right emotion you‘re suposed to feel ect.

The director uses (plays with) the language in such a smart way the film is an experience which  "becomes impossible to forget—and, for many viewers, both will be impossible to forgive" (Ansen, David; 2008)

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20 Oct 2010

Mulholland Drive (2001)


Like word by word we expect an idea to be finally explained and revealed, a scene by scene we also expect to reach the closure in “Mulholland Drive (Lynch, David; 2001). But as film reviewer Roger Ebert marks, “The movie is hypnotic; we're drawn along as if one thing leads to another--but nothing leads anywhere” . This quote, as the film itself illustrates one of the main postmodernist points.

According to author of New Ways of Seeing the World, Christopher Butler, one of the key ideas of postmodernism is, that truth as we know it is fiction at the same time and understanding as well is a form of misunderstanding.

Simply because nothing can reflect the truth or explain the reality. The author argues that even language itself fails to explain reality, because of its encapsulated system. One word is described by other words, the language uses itself to explain itself and doesn’t quite relate to the external reality in a way expected. Therefore, it is another  system, which also fails to explain the reality or reflect the truth.  

So if there are no universal truths (because there’s no system that could explain it), the postmodernist thought is that everything is only relative and depended on the standpoint we choose , that all is only interpretations.

It could be said then, reality at the same time as well has  a lot of qualities of a dream, where nothing is absolutely clear, all is loose and dependant.

Likewise in Mulholland Drive,  the depicted “reality” soon starts feeling bizarre, surreal  and a viewer questions if this is not only a dream he’s watching.  “Like real dreams, it does not explain, does not complete its sequences, lingers over what it finds fascinating, and dismisses unpromising plotlines” (Ebert; 2001)


Postmodern man therefore no longer seeks for a unified truth, so doesn’t this film: “This movie doesn't feel incomplete because it could never be complete--closure is not a goal” (Ebert, 2001).