Post-modernism and Film

Three senses of postmodernism:

As a “cultural dominant” defining a distinct historical era.

A philosophical concept marking the end of the ideals of the Enlightenment.

An art historical concept defining a style of expression.

In the post modern world, media texts challenge idea of truth and reality, removing the illusion that stories, texts or images can ever actually or neutrally reproduce reality or truth. so we get the idea that there are always competing versions of the truth and reality, and postmodern texts will be involved in this idea. A film may find itself postmodern by conforming to some of these conventions, intertextuality, self-referentiality, parody, pastiche, and a recourse to various past forms, genres, and styles are the most commonly identified characteristics of postmodern cinema. These features may be found in a film's form, story, technical vocabulary, casting, mise-en-scène , or some combination of these.

Postmodernism as a style is described as a renewed appreciation for popular culture that often remixes other art works and pop culture in order to create something new. Camp and irony often arrive hand-in-hand with the postmodern style.

Postmodern films may play like a collage of tropes and stereotypes, and may mix different forms of media (such as animated sequences) and could integrate an element of melodrama played as camp.

In approaching the concept, it is best to look at how the term has been used and how it differs from the "modern," and which features of recent and current filmmaking, film theory, and film reception might be identified as postmodern. Postmodernism may be thought of as an attitude which rejects teleology and historical destiny, and discredits faith in. In art, specifically film, this postmodern attitude has been described as having precipitated (negatively or positively, respectively) either the exhaustion or the playfulness that produces intertextuality, self-referentiality, pastiche, a nostalgia for a mélange of past forms, and the blurring of boundaries between "high" and "low" culture.